Numbers are not my friend. I like to deal in words. What’s more, I come from a background where there was little transparency about church finances. You put your money in the basket on Sunday and trusted it was well used. I wonder now at my own naïveté. I thought it was vulgar to talk about money in church. I guess I thought that churches just ran by themselves. Now I know better. (Janine Cobb, Board Secretary of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, in an address to the congregation November 1, 2009)
I know that this church counts on each one of us to do our share because there is no head office, no synod or council or headquarters to help us out. I know, too, that it costs almost $1,000 for each man, woman or child who participates in UCM activities.
Thanks to some well-to-do people who were members of this congregation years ago, we have an Endowment Fund. A good thing, because our expenses always exceed our income.
To cover the deficit, we dip into the Endowment Fund. If you think of it like cream at the top of the milk bottle, we skim off as much of the cream as we need and let the rest be stirred back into the milk until the next year. However, the Endowment Fund doesn't just sit there from year to year. It earns money – some years, more; some years, less. More cream is always rising to the top.
It used to be that we would dip into this fund a little too deeply until – a few years ago – Stephen Jarislowsky put the brakes on. He warned that we were on the way to depleting the fund. To avoid this, it was decided that no more than 4.5% of the fund could be used each year. This amount was as much as, or often less than the fund could reasonably be expected to earn over a year.
Since this new policy – backed by a By-Law – was implemented, we have rarely taken the full 4.5% permitted to us. We came very close this year but this was an unusual situation and an unusual year. Fortunately, things are looking up.What is being proposed for next year is that we take the full 4.5% allowed to us. Some of this would be used – as it always is – to cover the deficit. We would like that deficit to be as small as possible – a difficult task given the recent loss of some major donors.
However, if we pull together to reduce that deficit, then the rest of that 4.5% can be used to support a project that would feed the hungry. We would be part of USC Canada's Seeds of Survival project. Some people have said that they would rather see us act locally rather than globally. But we already do act locally.
A substantial sum is raised each month by Share-A-Plate; Empty Bowls contributes to organizations that feed the hungry; we donate food to the NDG Food Depot and have given warm winter clothes and games to the YMCA Refugee Centre.
This adds up to over $20,000 a year in dollars or goods. And it's virtually painless. We think it's time to “act in the world” as our Mission Statement urges us to.
To do this, we have to dig deep so that the money we pledge will cover most of the deficit, leaving a substantial amount of that 4.5% to help feed the hungry. Think about how well off you are compared to the more than one billion people on thisearth who are literally starving. If we work together, we could help. Please, please give all you can.
