President's Message November 2009

Where to ... with Ways & Means?

By Joan Nierenberg

The suggestion has been made that we do away with Ways and Means, that far too few people do far too much work raising money to support our programs; money that could/should be coming from pledges. Personally, I would love to have any and all money we raise through fundraising go directly to charitable giving, but the current reality is that we have needed the money raised by Ways and Means as revenue to balance our operating budget (which we were finally able to do this past year!). One could argue that any revenue we receive supports our mission (including a certain amount to charitable giving) and is therefore significant. But I suspect that those who knock themselves out for our fundraising events would feel differently if they knew their efforts were specifically targeted for social outreach rather than balancing our budget in a more general sense. Many are quite concerned that under the current circumstances, the small core group involved in fundraising is soon going to experience major burnout.

I don’t have the answers, but I do have lots of questions: How do we better foster the culture of ongoing stewardship so that each and every one of us feels the commitment to financially supporting this congregation to the degree where we could comfortably donate fundraising efforts to outside charity? How can we all better help and support those who give so much of their time and energy to fundraising efforts? How do we best discover the talents and interests of those in our congregation to match the activities needed to keep us vital?

How can we better minister to each other?

“Ministry happens wherever individuals embrace the belief that their good works, their volunteerism, their acts, can help serve the mission and vision of their congregation.” (UUA web site) How do we better cultivate that sense of ministry in our congregation?

I’m pretty good at asking questions. I’m just not sure how to best bring us together to get good answers. As usual, I would love your ideas!