Resources—Where do they come from?

            In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus quotes a line from the Torah: “It is written, Man does not live by bread alone….”  While true, it is also true that it does take bread to live.  So where does our bread come from?

First, we depend heavily on volunteers to provide their service to us, from greeting on Sunday morning to providing treats and cleaning up after coffee hour on Sunday noon, to teaching our children on Sundays and other times, to maintaining our grounds and our buildings, to organizing book clubs and discussion groups, to serving on committees and the Board to….  But I go on.  Without their service to us, our expenses would be much, much higher.

But some things cannot be supplied by volunteers—paying to keep the lights on and the building heated, paying for insurance, buying supplies, and above all paying our dedicated professional staff who work so hard to keep things running smoothly.  These things take cash, which we get from several sources. These figures come from our 2019-20 budget

1. Operating Pledges:  $134,000.  This is our major source of income, and we use it to set our baseline expectation of what we will be able to do in the coming year.
2. Other Contributions:  $11,000.  This comes from anonymous contributions in the collection basket, and from other contributions which come from members throughout the year, but which were not pledged.  Ideally, this and operating pledges should be about 80-90% of our operating expenses ($205,000, this year), so we are a little short of that goal.
3. Fundraisers:  $3,500.  These are the proceeds from the rummage sale, the silent auction, and the Scrip program.  COVID is expected to affect this income stream this year.
   1. The Scrip program has the potential for significant growth in our fundraising as more households participate in it.  If you don’t know about this program, talk to Dennis Cramblit.  It is a no-expense (well, almost no expense—a few pennies carrying costs) way to use your present spending patterns to generate funds for the Fellowship.
4. Miscellaneous Income:  $6,300.  This includes interest earned on our deposits (an amount that will decline as our legacy gifts are drawn down), and the rental income that remains after paying the mortgage.
5. The Gift:  $50,000.  This is an amount that we are drawing this year from our reserves as we ramp up our other income to meet our operating needs.

So, there you have it.  Mostly, it’s up to us to build our community and make a welcoming home for liberal religion in southcentral Minnesota.