Welcome to the new Stewardship for Us Giving Guide! We developed this guide with the input of many congregational leaders. You called for a simpler, more flexible tool than the previous Fair Share Giving Guide. Our new guide combines narrative reflection with clear, visual guidance. It invites the reader to consider their financial circumstances honestly and thoughtfully, then explore giving options that align with their capacity and commitment to the shared mission of their congregation and Unitarian Universalism. A customizable graph helps visualize possibilities, while written reflections ground the process in our values of equity and generosity.
Recognizing that every congregation is different, we’ve included links to an editable templates for the second page, allowing you—and your congregations’ leaders—to adapt this resource as needed. Whether a member is new to the community or has been part of it for decades, this guide meets members where they are.
Most importantly, this approach calls us into an equitable way of funding our faith community—one that honors each person’s circumstances while collectively ensuring we have the resources to live out our mission. We hope it fosters deeper conversation, thoughtful discernment, and a renewed
sense of shared purpose.
Thank you for engaging in the process of Giving Guidance with openness and care. Together, we sustain not only a budget, but the vibrant lives of our congregations.
How to Use This Guide
This guide is designed to help you reflect on your financial situation and explore giving in a way that feels both meaningful and sustainable.
Start with the first page, which offers a series of possible life situations to assess your financial capacity—they paint pictures of income, expenses, savings, investments and priorities. These scenarios are not meant to prescribe a single “right” way to be or a “right” answer to the question of “How full is your cup?” but to help you clarify what generous giving looks like in your own circumstances. Each category has a series of descriptors; please know that you do not need to have all or none of the descriptors to fit in a particular category. If you seem to fall between, make your best call about the category that best describes you now.
Then, turn to the graph on the second page, which suggests a range of giving percentages based on income (net income- after taxes) and your level of activity and engagement in your congregation. Someone who is a core member might be a formal leader or someone who’s developed an informal leadership role over time. Someone who is resting may attend church once a month or less. Someone who is casual might attend on Sundays and send their kids to RE programming. This visual aid is a starting point, not a rule—adjust as needed to fit your life. Whether you’re able to give at the suggested level, more, or less, what matters most is your intentional engagement in supporting your congregation and Unitarian Universalism.
Download your complete new giving guide here:
Download an editable version here:
Generosity is one of our new shared values because it matters deeply. It matters spiritually, and it matters for the health of our congregations. This new Giving Guide is a powerful way to invite people into conversation about how they live the UU Value of generosity.