Stewardship Update
April 3, 2024
Thank you to EVERYONE who has submitted a pledge form!
Your generosity has been truly incredible. As of April 2, we have received pledges from 173 households for a total of $467,700. Those households have made pledges that are, overall, 9.2% greater than last year’s pledges, and that’s wonderful. However, there are still 23 households that have not yet submitted pledges. During last year’s stewardship campaign those households pledged about $14,300. If they pledge the same amount for this year’s stewardship campaign, we’ll receive a total of about $482,000. If you are one of the 23 households that have not yet submitted a pledge, please do so as soon as you can – we are depending on you!
While a pledge total of $482,000 is a very good result, it won’t meet our pledge goal this year of $509,000. We’ll still be short by at least $27,000.
So, what can we do? One option is to increase revenue. In recent years, the Board and the Finance Committee have balanced the budget by planning a fundraiser – think Giving Tuesday in December of the past two years. Or we could do a second ask now, where we ask the entire congregation to increase their pledge again. This might work, but it’s difficult to predict how successful either option will be.
A more painful option is to decrease expenses. To that end, we would hate to cut things near and dear to the life of the congregation. Ideally, we want to maintain our current staff and continue to pay them at recommended UUA and congregational size guidelines. In addition, we are in the process of hiring a new minister, which we hope to do with an attractive compensation package. However, if we reduce expenses, we can more readily balance planned expenses with expected pledge revenue.
In any event, it’s clear that we’ll need to make some tough budget decisions. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.
With gratitude for your generosity ~
Gary LaBedz, on behalf of the Stewardship Team: Emilie Cheng, Rick Rayborn, Debbie Lee, Lisa Gilley, Rev. Denise.