Do My Gifts Really Make Any Difference?

Some of us feel our financial gifts or volunteer efforts are too small to make a real difference. Not so. Imagine a chair missing a leg….

 by Bill Clontz, Stewardship Consultant  

In my conversations with fellow Unitarian Universalists, I often hear something like the following:

“I really love being a UU, but I am at a place financially wherein my pledge is pretty modest. I wish It were more, but that is all I can do now. I try to make up for it by volunteering more with the time I have available.”

That is an understandable sentiment, and it comes from good intentions – but in my view, it’s wrong. Let me suggest a different approach, but first, why would this thought be wrong? For two reasons:

First, it implicitly implies that one’s gifts of time or treasure are inadequate. The rationale would be that we are not doing as much as we should and that some sort of compensation is in order.

In fact, what we may reasonably expect of each other is that we each will give serious and careful consideration to our gifts and that we will be as generous as we can in support of our values, our congregation, and Unitarian Universalism. If that is our approach, we can ask for no more.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Fair Share donors whose gifts are deep into the five figure range, and other Fair Share donors who contribute less than $100 per year. Both groups were thoughtful and generous commensurate with their capacities. Both lived their values and both can feel good about their commitments.

Second, the commitment of time, talent, and treasure are all important, but they are not interchangeable. We need all three commitments from all of us, as our capacities and commitments allow. And besides, if someone was to “volunteer more because I cannot pledge more,” that is not so much a commitment out of devotion as it is guilt labor, and there is more than enough guilt in the world without adding to it artificially.

And so, the better approach is to do the best you can in each category of time, talent and treasure, not just in one, and be at peace that you are doing what you can and what you feel you should be doing. If the focus is only on volunteering or financial contributions, the chair on which you would rest your membership is missing a leg or two. Not a very stable foundation to depend upon, is it?

An important part of being in community within a congregation is to foster a feeling that we all do what we can in all areas of congregational life. I think it fair to say that congregational leaders readily acknowledge the importance of adequate funding by our commitments, but find it equally important to have a participation level of 100% – we all feel called to give as best we can, whatever that amount of time, talent, or treasure will be in your case.

We are all in this together. We are invited to make our commitments accordingly.

Bill Clontz is a stewardship consultant with the Stewardship for Us Team, supporting the UUA. Bill can be reached at bill@stewardshipforus.com, via UUA Congregational Life, (http://www.uua.org/finance/fundraising), or via regional staff.

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