The UU Fellowship of Vero Beach, Fla., a 131-member congregation,
achieved 110 percent UUSC membership for the 2004 fiscal year. This
means that 100 percent of their own members, and even some friends,
all were UUSC members that year. The following is a basic recap of
how their UUSC Local Rep organized the successful Guest at Your
Table program which helped them meet this lofty
goal.
Proposal to congregational endowment committee
Thanks to our fellowship's new president, who is an ardent UUSC
supporter, we have come up with a new way to raise funds for UUSC.
At his urging, I applied to our fellowship's endowment committee for
a grant that would match some of the congregation's Guest at Your
Table contributions.
In case others can use the idea, I share with you my grant
application and our president's letter of support. His letter was
unsolicited by me and very much appreciated.
Request for funds from the
Endowment Committee
Date: July 5, 2004
Name of Committee submitting proposal: UU Service Committee
Title of proposal: Guest at Your Table matching grant
Dollar amount requested: Ten percent of the total 2004
congregational Guest at Your Table contribution or $400, whichever
is smaller
Details: Our congregation has a long history of supporting
the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and its important human
rights and social justice work. The efforts of UUSC are consistent
with several of the UU principles and with the social justice aspect
of our mission statement. Support of UUSC by our congregation has
been demonstrated in award-winning ways by individual giving and by
an operating budget allocation. The latter is an important
demonstration of our fellowship's corporate commitment. It is to the
extension of this corporate commitment that this grant application
is addressed.
It is proposed that the Endowment Committee (EC), a body sanctioned by
our Board of Trustees, demonstrate its corporate commitment to
social justice. The grant would support UUSC specifically by
providing incentive to individuals to contribute to UUSC during its
primary fund-raising effort, the Guest at Your Table program during
the December holidays. Ten percent of each individual gift would be
matched by monies from this EC grant, providing incentive for larger
and more numerous gifts. A limit of $400 is proposed so that the
Endowment Committee may limit its "liability." The most recent Guest
at Your Table campaign netted slightly in excess of that figure.
The EC is being requested to fund the matching grant rather than
having it come from the Operating Budget because funds from the OB
are already appropriated for UUSC. Funding from the Endowment
Committee would extend the breadth of our corporate commitment to
social justice.
This would be a one-time grant. It is hoped that approval of this
grant would be followed in the future by EC approval of other grants
which would demonstrate the committee's commitment to the social
justice aspect of our mission, but not to UUSC specifically.
Four UUFVB members who have assisted me in promoting the work of
UUSC were individually polled on this proposal. One, who is in a
position of leadership on our fellowship board, wholeheartedly
supported and encouraged the proposal. The other three voiced
reservations.
Submitted by: Jack Stiefel, UUSC Local Representative
