Observations from our Sr. Trustee, Lucy Lucker
Observations from the new Senior Trustee – September 2019
As your new Senior Trustee, I thought I should share some information with you.
Our wonderful, vital and spiritually thriving church has bills to pay and needs pledges if we are to do all of the things we want to do.
Pledge income works like this:
1. Start with last year’s pledges
2. Subtract for those who have moved on or who have hardships that prevent them from pledging at the same level next year.
So we start with less than the current year pledges. We need to:
3. Add increases in pledges for those who already pledge and new pledges from those who have not pledged before (no amount is too small) just to stay even.
What do we do with the money?
• Roughly 70% of our budget is spent on salaries and benefits.
• 14% is spent on building costs including utilities and regular maintenance. We are blessed with a building endowment fund that helps to pay for major repairs and improvements.
• This year we allocated 12.5% of our pledges to others through the Benevolence Committee.
• We are blessed with a Vitality Endowment – some of which was used to support expenses within our operating budget this year and which supports new initiatives and special events each year.
• We are also cost effective including having many volunteers support the church in ways that save money and add vitality to the church.
Why do we want our pledge income to be higher than last year?
• We have to make up a shortfall – we used reserves to close our gap last year but they are used up.
• We want to give our wonderful staff (mostly part time and not benefited) at least cost of living raises and we have to cover increases we can’t control such as utilities.
• We want to restore Benevolence giving to the historical 15% instead of 12.5%.
• We want to stop using a portion of the Vitality Endowment to support ongoing operating costs.
• If we can do all that – then we want to add new programs and services!
Why am I telling you this now?
At the end of the budgeting process, it is up to the Trustees to make the math balance. I don’t want you to be surprised in January if we are not able to do all of the things you would like us to do because the pledge number is too low and we didn’t tell you what we needed.
We are each in unique giving circumstances. We are a church that keeps pledging very confidential. We never want anyone to feel they aren’t welcome if they can’t pledge. It is up to each of us to do what we think is right. If you have never pledged, can you give $10 a week? Can you do a bit more than that? If you have pledged – first of all thank you! Can you give a bit more (or a lot more) because not everyone can but you can? Over the coming months please give thought and prayer to what you can pledge this year so we can achieve our financial goals that support our spiritual journeys. - Lucy Lucker, Sr. Trustee
