Building Our Future Together

Click to hear some of the reasons that we pledge!

• Jim Blue (not recorded)

• Sanja Modric (not recorded)

• Kathy and José Clemente

• Silvia Bolland

• Rohan Haugen

• The Carrillo Family

Everyone who regularly participates at UUCR is invited to contribute their support. You do not need to be a member to make a pledge. As a part of our covenant of Membership, all official Members are required to have a financial pledge of record, which is according to your ability to give. There is no minimum amount for a pledge of record.

To keep UUCR running! The need for financial support is obvious, but the need for pledging might not be. By pledging our support in advance, we make it possible for our Board of Trustees to plan a budget for UUCR for the coming year. Here is some of what we want to keep in the budget:

• all our caring, competent, and hard-working staff

• Religious Education for children and youth

• Sunday morning worship and fellowship

• our joyful, inspiring music and arts ministries

• adult faith formation programs

• social justice in our community and beyond

• small group ministry

• beautiful spaces indoors, outdoors, and in the wwworld

Pledges usually make up about 75% of the finances for UUCR. Covid has curtailed rentals and fundraisers, so pledges are extra important for the duration.

We ask everyone in the congregation to record a pledge, which is a promise to contribute:

• a specific amount of money to UUCR during the next fiscal year (July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022)

• a specific number of hours of fellowship and service

A pledge is not a legal contract. You can raise or lower it if your situation changes (please tell us).

We would like to have it complete by the end of March. The hard limit is in April, so that the Board of Trustees can make budgeting and planning decisions in time for next year.

For a few years, we have been running modest deficit budgets. We have remained stable by careful spending, by generous one-time gifts from congregants, and in 2020, a government PPP (Covid-relief) loan.

You might be interested in the overall patterns in our budget charts. For more detail, consult Treasurer's reports as appended to the Board's meeting minutes.

Yes. We would like everyone in the congregation to participate! For dollar amounts there is a range:

• Sustain ($577,000)

  • • keep our current staff

    • committee budgets maintained at current levels

    • need to increase income from rentals and fundraisers

• Aspire ($627,000)

  • • provide limited merit raises to our staff

    • support new projects that committees have requested

    • invest in capital improvements (including technology and media infrastructure for online worship and fellowship)

So far, we have made 176 financial pledges for $572,881. Thank you! [May 16, 10:30 a.m.]

About 2/3 of our budget is for paying our terrific staff. Costs grow over time as new programs are needed, and as shrinking volunteer hours must be replaced by paid staff hours. Charts showing income and expenses are on our budgets page.

Here is some information that could help you decide how much you should pledge.

• Last year there were 203 financial pledges. Last year’s average pledge was a little over $2,800. The median was $1800.

• If the average pledge increases by $250 this year, we will meet our Aspire Goal. This will also support congregants who have lost income because of the pandemic and are not able to contribute as they have in the past.

• The UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) offers detailed guidelines (available as a PDF table)

Last year there were 63 pledges of time.

• The average pledge was 144 hours. The median was 120 hours.

The charts below show what people pledged last year.