Stewardship for Us Winter Newsletter

Greetings

I am writing this e-newsletter while at various stops on a vacation/work trip out west.  First stop was wild, wonderful, snowy Yellowstone Park, a beautiful place to visit in the dead of winter.  Then on to Phoenix for a stewardship consulting weekend and a rained-out spring training baseball game – a pretty rare occurrence for sure.   Next was Chloride, AZ, a ghost town on the way to the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.  Finally to Ft Lauderdale and then home.  The variety and wonder of my travels mirrors the variety and wonder of what we experience in working with our UU congregations on stewardship.

Lots to Look Forward to in 2019

We find UUs energized about our faith and the important role we have to play at this moment in our local communities, the nation and the world.  Our congregations are in the forefront on social justice issues, such as immigration, gun violence, the environment, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and economic justice.

And along with that, demand for our consulting services is growing, with many congregations pursuing capital campaigns, strategic planning and leadership development, financial planning, and general support for all aspects of stewardship.  We are committed to helping leaders educate and motivate members and friends about generous stewardship, so we can support our congregations’ missions, visions, and ministries.

We know that many of you are in the midst of your annual stewardship campaigns.  And we would love to hear about your progress this year and about any specific challenges and successes.  Are you seeing continued growth as we had seen over the past two years, since the 2016 election?  Are your members psyched after the 2018 mid-terms?  Please let us know by sharing comments on this post or emailing me directly at Barry@stewardshipforus.com.

Upcoming Events

We are excited that Kay Crider and Rachel Maxwell will be offering a workshop at this year’s General Assembly in Spokane in June.  They will be collaborating with UUA staff members on the topic of Money, Power & Meaning: Amplifying Our Collective Power.  Watch our blog posts and Upcoming events page for more info over the coming months.

Stewardship for Us will be having its first retreat in June in Boston.  We look forward to having all five of us together in person, which we have not had a chance to do, and plan to spend some time reviewing our work processes and products, meeting with UUA staff, and enhancing our skills and tool-kits to be better able to serve you.

We look forward especially to working with a consultant to explore the extent to which our work is influenced by entrenched elements of white supremacy, systemic racism, and other unintended biases.  We are committed to beginning a process to free our work from biases and to enable us to more effectively help congregations design stewardship programs that are inclusive and welcoming to all.

Several workshops, regional assemblies, cluster events, and webinars are on the horizon or in the planning stage.  Check out our Upcoming Events page on our web site:  https://stewardshipforus.com/events/

A Tip for Stewardship Leaders: Recruiting

Recruiting stewardship leaders and volunteers is a challenge for many congregations.  And on the flip side, we know that stewardship effectiveness grows exponentially the more people we can get involved. So here’s our tip of the day:  treat recruiting as a strategic exercise.  Develop a plan, involve the board and minister, be flexible in how you structure jobs, invite people personally to participate rather than relying on broadcast announcements, involve new people, recruit for specific jobs and skills like event planning and social media communications, and create one-time jobs to make it easy for people to say yes.

May 2019 be a banner year for Unitarian Universalism and may your stewardship programs thrive so your ministries will thrive in support of your mission and vision. Thank you for your commitment to UU stewardship!