Why Do We Bug You So Much About Pledging?

I remember sitting in church with my parents when I was a little kid, and Mom groaning because it was “that time of year” again. That time of year was Stewardship – the time of year when services were a bit longer because someone stood up to ask everyone for money. At least that was my juvenile understanding at the time. And here we are at SUM, with weekly Stewardship moments asking you for money. Well, what we’re actually asking you for is your 2025 pledge of money.

It sounds crass to state it so bluntly, but SUM’s Finance Team is responsible for paying the bills for our clergy, staff, utilities, repairs, maintenance, and conference expenses. It’s not very “churchy,” but it is necessary. Based on prior year expenses, we estimate what our expenses will be in 2025, as any of you might do regarding your household expenses.

At SUM, we have money that comes in from Little Lambs & Ivy, from the cash that people put in the offertory plates on Sundays (unpledged giving), and from people who are sending in checks to satisfy their pledges (pledged giving). We know how much LLI will be giving us based on a formula for their share of utilities and repairs. So, that leaves pledged giving and unpledged giving. As you can imagine, we have a guess what unpledged giving will be, but it is just a guess based on historical numbers. Pledged giving is not guaranteed, but it’s fairly certain. In the past two years, there has been a sizeable gap between those numbers and our total expenses. SUM had some money in our savings account, but that has dwindled, and we won’t have much left to cover any shortfall next year.

As you can imagine, your Finance Team gets a bit twitchy when we’re not sure where the money is going to come from. The Trustees can bail us out with money from the endowment, but that’s not what the endowment is for, and it’s not sustainable. When do we start making decisions about where to cut expenses? We already run a pretty lean operation, and only 9% of our expenses are things we can control. For now, we consider staff salaries as non-discretionary because we know that our highly functioning staff is hugely important to the success of SUM. We believe that investing in our staff is important, and we support our SPR committee’s desire to support and care for them.

That’s why it is so important to know how much we can expect to receive next year. Many of our congregants understand this and pledge faithfully, but maybe there are new members who don’t understand why we “bug” you so much to please pledge. It helps us with plans for the upcoming year and allows us to make informed decisions regarding our expenses. All of us at SUM thank you for faithfully considering what you can pledge for 2025 to keep this amazing place of worship the fantastic and dynamic place that it is. You can call the office, email me or the office, drop your pledge card in the plate, or click on the banner at the top of our website.

Thanks,
Jen Acheson and the Finance/Stewardship Team

You can click here to pledge online.