written by Stewardship Team Member Rick Spitz

The 2015-2016 stewardship campaign raised $290,000 from 166 pledge units (individual and family pledges), or about 262 people.

Who Is Giving?

Our most recent Member and Friends Directory lists over 260 potential pledging units comprising 420 adults and over 75 children.  Since only 166 pledges were received we conclude that in 2015 at least 100 individuals and families (250 adults) either chose not to support church operations financially, or were not asked (see Figure 1). The number of pledging units has hovered around 165 for the past five years.

This year we are making deliberate efforts to reach out to everyone in our church community to participate in the supporting our church’s finances

Quartile Analysis

The UUA recommends a technique called Quartile Analysis as one way of analyzing a congregation’s giving patterns. For UUCN’s 2015-16 results we took the $290,000 raised and rank ordered all the pledges from highest to lowest dollar amount and then divided them into four quartiles or groups. Each consisted of one-quarter of the total amount of dollars raised or %72,500.

As we can see in Figure 2, Group 1 contains a small number of large pledges. Groups 2, 3, and 4 are composed of a larger numbers of progressively smaller pledge amounts.  This represents the giving profile or fingerprint of our congregation.

The UUA suggests that an ideal distribution of pledges would follow the red bars shown below in Figure 3 with the four groups ranging from 10% of pledge units in the first group through 45% of pledge units in the fourth group.  Figure 3 also compares our percentages in blue with the UUA’s suggested ideal distribution.

Compared to the Ideal, UUCN has fewer donors making larger financial commitments and many more making smaller ones. Sometimes this is a reflection of the membership just not being aware of the distribution of gifts and the vulnerabilities of over-dependence on a small number of donors, or leadership setting too low an expectation of what it means to be a member.

Another way to look at last year’s results is shown in figure 4 below.  It shows the range of pledges in each of our groups.  Last year, just 15% of our commitments (or 24 families) were responsible for half of the total amount or about $145,000.  This means UUCN relies more heavily on a few members making large pledge amounts.

A more sustainable model is for at least 25% of member families to fund half of a church’s budget, with 75% funding the other half.

Conclusion

So how can UUCN get there, and enable our church and our new church leadership to truly transform into the “Beacon of Liberal Religious Thought and Action” we dream about?

First, every UUCN member, family and friend should make some type of pledge.

Second, strive to grow within your own contribution group or even move to the next group.

Third, use the metric of 5% of annual income as the new, simplified “Giving Guideline.”  Of course not everyone can give at that level, but you should have that as your goal.  As financial ability, involvement, and commitment develop, you can move towards making more significant financial contributions.  And if you are already at the level, thank you.  You are helping those who cannot make that goal.

And lastly, be aware that one of our new challenges is to begin to nurture our church from a philosophy of abundance, not from a spirit of scarcity.  We will be examining this change in philosophy in the coming months.  Our Stewardship Web page will have more information.