Our Budget

Our budget displays the wide-ranging impact of our ministries within our immediate and larger community.  Here are some examples to illustrate just a few of the links between costs and our ministries that are both invisible and essential.

• An expression of our third and fourth principles— “encouraging spiritual growth” and “a free and responsible search for meaning.”
  • Children’s Faith Development: We can never measure the full impact our values and teachings have in the lives of our children as they navigate life’s challenges and gifts – but their need to understand and apply our shared values in their own lives is real.
• An expression of our first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” and the seventh principle, “respect for the interdependent web of which are a part.”
  • Compassionate Pastoral Care: Although below the radar screen of public view, this care is among the most essential expressions of our ministry to each other at critical times.  We hold up these forms of on-going compassionate care as one of the essential community services we are most proud to be able to provide – whether or not we personally have experienced crisis or need.
• An expression of our second and sixth principles— “justice, equity and compassion” and “peace, liberty, and justice for all.”
  • supporting PrideFest and LGBTQ rights,
  • engaging in community dialogues about race and diversity,
  • supporting the homeless and others in need,
  • providing opportunity through the Kiva project and our Second Collections

While only small item in our operating budget, we magnify that little bit and use it to organize and leverage our individual little contributions to combine to make a real impact in our world.

We came to this place gradually, through the efforts of so many who came before us.

• When we began in 1953, UUFM had 24 members and a budget of $136. We met in people’s homes, and then in commercial space that was donated to us temporarily.
• In 1961, we purchased our first home, on Pohl Road. Our membership grew to 30 people, and our operating budget to $3500 (we also had a $60,000 mortgage that we were paying out).
• In 1985, as membership grew to 45, we expanded our home on Pohl Road with a large meeting space, and a budget of $53,000 (including construction cost of the expansion).
• In 2005, we purchased our present home on Charles Avenue, expanding our membership to76 and our budget to $81,000.
• In 2015 we added a lift and expanded office and entry space. Our membership was 121 people, and our budget was $142,000.
• And in 2018 we called our first full-time settled minister.
• In 2020, our current membership was 109 members and our annual budget was $205,000.

We enjoy the fruit of the contributions our founders made for us.  Now it is our turn to build on that foundation for ourselves, and our children, “to the seventh generation.”