Numerical Indicators

From the Outreach Revolution Series: sign up to get shareable social media graphics, learning experiences, and join other UU outreachers like you.

Is there such a thing as being too public about your values? The world today can feel like a hard time to reach out, given the uncertainty in the news, on social media, and in our hearts.

But the truth is, it’s never been more important to get out there and be our progressively faithful selves, even when that’s imperfect. Yes, that takes courage. You bet it requires risk. Just remember that inaction carries its own risk in this historic time in American public life. Attendance is up at many churches, a sure sign that our message is a needed one. How can we honor that need and answer its call?

We want to highlight two opportunities to help frame and support the work you are doing in your community – the Love Resists campaign and the UU White Supremacy Teach-In. These are two ways that the UU faith tradition is finding traction in these days of churn and change.  

Love Resists

Started as a joint initiative between the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Unitarian Universalist Association, Love Resists offers tools, tips and connections to help expand the notion of sanctuary in our communities, grow our solidarity with oppressed communities, and raise our voices for justice. The campaign models partnership and collaboration from the bottom up, drawing heavily on the framing and guidance of our community organizing partners.

This month’s social media graphics come from Love Resists, and are a great way to show your support for expanded sanctuary policies, rapid response networks, physical shelter, and more. Download all eight graphics.

We hope you’ll share them! And when you do, it’s a great opportunity to talk about what commitments you’ve made to help expand sanctuary and create safe spaces for those most under threat. Perhaps you’re advocating for your local school district to refuse to cooperate with immigration orders, or members of your congregation are accompanying undocumented folks at their regular check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or maybe you’re part of an interfaith coalition offering physical sanctuary in one of your congregations. Regardless, it is so important to be public in our work for justice right now, to show that people of faith and conscience are invested in a different vision for our communities. Visit loveresists.org for more information.

UU White Supremacy Teach-In

You may also know about the grassroots UU White Supremacy Teach-In, just wrapping up its two weekends of disrupting “church as usual” to focus on the racial injustice and cultural whiteness of our faith. With nearly two-thirds of UU congregations participating, the Teach-In is a powerful testament to Unitarian Universalists’ shared desire to build a new way forward and reach new audiences (and kudos to religious educators and event organizers Aisha Hauser, Christina Rivera and Kenny Wiley!). If you didn’t sign up for the Teach-In, remember it’s never too late to talk about decentering whiteness :). If you’ve completed the Teach-In, find a next activity for your congregation (see the “next ask” recommendation from our Entry Points post) to show how you’re carrying its lessons forward.

I’ve heard some people wonder if a focus on examining our internal white supremacy will turn off spiritual seekers. I feel pretty sure we aren’t going to turn people off with heartfelt internal discussion; instead we will help outsiders understand how seriously we take our values. In a time when trust of institutions like church is weak, especially for younger folks, it’s critical that we show we’re serious about practicing what we preach.

There is no more distinction between what happens backstage and what is thrust into the spotlight, this is the era of leadership in the round.

Both Love Resists and the White Supremacy Teach-In are an opportunity to “show, don’t tell.” Instead of just talking about our principles and commitments, we are embodying them with clear action. It can’t be overstated how important this is in the era of 24/7 social media transparency. Make sure you’re Tweeting, Facebook-ing, and talking about the work you’re doing, so that your light may inspire others to let theirs burn bright.  

I am committed to Unitarian Universalism because of its aspirations for a just, compassionate, beloved community for all. If you believe that more people hunger for this vision, show them you mean it. There’s no such thing as being too public about your values days.
How are you showing your values these days? Add your thoughts to the comments below.

This week, FAITHIFY, the Unitarian Universalist crowdfunding site, passed the $500,000 pledged mark. In plain speak that means that over 5,000 people pledged their gifts of over half a million dollars to campaigns created by everyday UUs. Each of our funders demonstrated their love for Unitarian Universalism in one of its myriad manifestations on faithify.org.

They love the soulful music or worship of their local congregation.

They love the gift that Unitarian Universalism is to the life of a young person they know.

They love the hands and hearts determined to shape our world into a place with more love and less hate.

This is #FAITHIFYLove.

Each of the over 130 campaigns that have run on FAITHIFY represents a labor of love. To start a crowdfunding campaign you need to articulate your unique response to the question: How am I called to live our faith? You need to risk sharing your vision for faithful living with the wider movement and invite others to support you on that journey.

This is #FAITHIFYLove.

#FAITHIFYLove inspires UUs to act on their dreams!

#FAITHIFYLove unites strangers in our movement together!

#FAITHIFYLove invests in our faith at the grassroots!

What is the power of #FAITHIFYLove?

• #FAITHIFYLove is 83 funders making it possible for 15,000 people to register to vote in North Carolina.
• #FAITHIFYLove turned $710 into over a 100 #BlackLivesMatter lawn signs to be prophetically displayed outsides homes in Hartford, Connecticut.
• #FAITHIFYLove is the 31 campaigns that did not meet their goals, but kept on going.
• #FAITHIFYLove is 159 people responding to a call for solidarity from our indigenous partners from Lummi Nation and funding an anti-extraction Totem Pole Journey.
• #FAITHIFYLove is an individual Unitarian Universalist hearing of a congregation suffering and coming to their aid, the only connection between them our shared faith.
• #FAITHIFYLove is the power of what happens when we come together, risk together, pool our money and talents together. It is the power of saying “Yes!” to our dreams. It is the power of a movement that has our back.

To celebrate this milestone FAITHIFY is launching the #FAITHIFYLove contest. We want you to share on social media stories and pictures that showcase what #FAITHIFYLove truly is. Enter and you could win a $50 FAITHIFY gift card.

Spread the #FAITHIFYLove

Sean Neil-Barron is the project manager of FAITHIFY, who loves the crowd so much he is contemplating spending an entire day crowdsourcing his every movement.

New Titles from Skinner House

Turning Point: Essays on a New Unitarian Universalism

Edited by Fredric Muir (Skinner House Books)

In fresh, inspiring essays, 20 Unitarian Universalist leaders issue a clarion call for change. Unitarian Universalism is at a crossroads. Will we cling to individualism, exceptionalism, and anti-authoritarianism or will we embrace the promise of what we can be? Turning Point presents stories of innovative new types of Unitarian Universalist communities across the country and inspires faith that Unitarian Universalism can deepen and grow, meeting the aching needs of a new generation.

Fredric Muir serves as the Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, Maryland. He is a board member of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Maryland and the UUA ambassador to the UU congregations of the Philippines. He has written and edited several books, including The Whole World Kin: Charles Darwin and the Spirit of Liberal Religion (2009) from Skinner House Books.

Recent Announcements & Resources

New Bookstore Name!

In order to reach a broader audience and to share the good news of Unitarian Universalism, the UUA Bookstore has been renamed to inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop.

As inSpirit, the bookstore will continue to offer a wide range of books and gifts that reflect the values of our UU movement, including titles from Skinner House Books and Beacon Press, selected titles from other publishers, and fair trade items.

The name inSpirit is one that we ourselves have adopted for our series of “Meditation Manuals.” The series name changed in 2015 to the inSpirit Series, but the tradition lives on. The many rich meanings of the word inSpirit—including to hearten, to enliven, to bestow with strength or purpose, to fill with spirit—reflect the many ways these books and our bookstore tend to us and our faith lives.

We invite you to visit the inSpirit website and the inSpirit Series page for more information.

Selma Awakening Curriculum

The Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society has awarded the UU History and Heritage Prize for Best Original RE Curriculum to the curriculum created for The Selma Awakening: How the Civil Rights Movement Tested and Changed Unitarian Universalism by Mark D. Morrison-Reed.

“This is a deep and challenging adult education curriculum that invites participants to research their own congregations’ Selma stories and thus broaden our understanding of one of the most important events in twentieth-century Unitarian Universalist history.”

The curriculum is available on our companion resources page.

New Resources for Older Adults from the UUA

The UUA has just announced the creation of a collection of resources to enrich and support the journey of older adulthood. On the pages, you will find resources to support the older adult journey, whether you are an older adult yourself, a caregiver or family member, or part of a congregation engaged in ministry to and with older adults

Explore these resources to find books (including many Skinner House books), programs, videos, and further information on a variety of subjects particularly resonant to older adults. We are so grateful to those involved in creating this resource!

Resources for Teaching English with Islamic Stories

We’re pleased to present a series of free lesson plans and videos to teach English to students from oral traditions. The lesson plans are linked to the stories in Ayat
Jamilah: A Treasury of Islamic Wisdom for Children and Parents. The lesson plans demonstrate the use of folk tales to show how narration provides a basis of recognition and response. Using oral language and storytelling, the lesson plans and videos will show how to later prompt students into reading and writing. The resource is available here.

Trending in the UUA Bookstore  

The following have been particularly popular in the month of January:

• Listening Hearts: Fourteen Gatherings for Reflection and Sharing, by Christine Robinson and Alicia Hawkins (Skinner House Books)

• Landscapes of Aging and Spirituality, edited by Kay Montgomery (Skinner House Books)

• Turning Point: Essays on a New Unitarian Universalism, edited by Fredric Muir (Skinner House Books)

• Lifting Our Voices (Unitarian Universalist Association)

• Becoming: A Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood , edited by Kayla Parker (Skinner House Books)

In our previous blog post, we introduced the concept that it’s hard to know where you are going if you don’t know where you are, and that a number of key statistics about your congregation can go a long way in helping leaders understand where they are, where they are going, and what they need to prioritize in communicating with the congregation.

There are statistics that I believe leaders should know if they are to understand their congregations;17 data points and 1 more to ignore. As we noted in the previous blog posting, almost every congregation has the first 10 of these data points readily accessible. Not enough leaders and members consult them sometimes, but they are easy to generate. The next 7 take a little effort to generate, but the returns can be impressive for congregations of just about every size. And one more data point often mentioned should, in fact, fall by the wayside.

Here again is that list of 18 data points. We elaborated earlier on the first nine; now let’s develop the second half of the list. It’s a bit of a long post to complete the list, but its worth the time and consideration:

1. Membership
2. Sunday Attendance, RE Attendance (Adult and children’s RE)
3. Percentage of Budget Provided by Pledges
4. “Average Cost per Household” to run your church
5. Percentage of Members Pledging, if your bylaws do not ask a pledge of all members
6. Mean and Median Pledge
7. Number of Pledge/Contribution Waivers
8. Percentage of Households/Members that are not Pledging
9. Percentage of Pledging Friends
10. Pledges that have not Increased or have Decreased over the past 2 years: Not everyone will or can increase a commitment every year, but looking for patterns of stagnation or reduction is prudent, and facilitates shaping more relevant and focused communications with those members. Sometimes this profile emerges because of other problems or issues – sometimes its just because no one asked them to consider an increase this year.
11. Number of Pledging Units Self-Declared as Fair Share Donors: If the stewardship and leadership teams are not making wide use of the UUA’s Suggested Fair Share Giving Guide, a valuable tool to help members and friends think about their commitments is going unused. The pledge form should specifically ask if this commitment is Fair Share, the numbers tracked, and the Fair Share Givers recognized and celebrated. See our guide for more.
12. The Quartile Distribution: This analysis and data set depicts how giving is distributed among the congregation, and how vulnerable the congregation may be to disruptions if a few larger donors change. There are always fewer large donors and more small donors, but how much of a spread exists between those groups is important. For a further discussion, see our blog.
13. New Pledgers (first 2 years): Know the number of and by name households of new pledgers and ensure they receive specific appreciation and encouragement, especially in their first two years. Be aware also of the mean and median of these new pledges. Congregations that are clear about pledging up front tend to find new pledge rates very closely match more established pledger rates. Those that are less clear usually do not enjoy this result.
14. Families Active in RE and Their Distribution Among Pledges and COR Populations: Why RE families in particular? They are often young families, with less to contribute. True, but they also represent the future of our movement and of your congregation; ensuring they understand the importance of a financial commitment, consistent with their means, is an important part of being a part of the congregation builds lifetime habits early and helps everyone understand we are not owners, but stewards – we are called upon to support what we have been given and to pass it on in good shape to those that follow us.
15. Where is your Board in Fair Share Giving and Quartile Distribution? Elected congregational leaders should be expected, as a part of the position description to be Fair Share Donors and to make a substantial commitment as defined by their capacities. This is simply leadership by example; if the leaders are not willing to step up, why would anyone else?
16. Percentage increase/decrease in total pledges/mean/median on last 3-5 years: Look for trends and patterns over time. Many factors may affect a given year, but trends over multiple years are indicative of where the congregation is and where it is likely to go in the near term.
17. When was the last time you employed Visiting Stewards, with good training? The evidence is clear that in general no stewardship engagement approach matches the effectiveness one on one conversations with Visiting Stewards. It’s also true that without good preparation, such visits can be much less effective, and uncomfortable for both parties. Take the time and resources to prepare Visiting Stewards well; not only will immediate results be better, but the sense of stewardship conversation will deepen and new leaders will emerge from such engagements.
18. Wrong! — How Much of a Pledge goes to “UUA dues?” This data point up often, and it’s often more harmful than useful. We do not pay “dues;” clubs and fraternities do that. We make contributions to resource the work the Regions and the UUA do in our name. Congregations sometimes ask that a pledge be at least at the level of their per member contribution to the UUA. This makes our contributions to the UUA into an outside burden. Being a member of this association is an integral part of being a UU – don’t treat it as something outside our community. And encouraging pledges at this low level also assures that whatever funds are contributed do not support the congregation locally in any way. Don’t make this data point a benchmark – it’s a part of our commitments to each other globally, not an accounting tool.

Like this blog post? You may find more at our website. You are welcome to sign up for stewardship updates at the blog. Comments and discussion are always welcome; share your experiences with us.

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Bill Clontz has been a stewardship consultant with the Stewardship for Us Team, supporting the UUA. for over five years. He brings over forty years in leadership development and coaching, organizational effectiveness, and strategic planning to this work. He has over 25 years of active participation in UU church leadership and stewardship and 15 years of business development and portfolio management as a corporate officer, including working with nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations. Bill has served in his own congregation in a wide range of positions and he is a regular presenter at UU Regional conferences and the UUA Annual General Assembly. His focus as a stewardship consultant over the last five years has been empowering congregations to have successful stewardship environments, leadership development, and the growth of our movement.