Why Is the GIFT Program Being Piloted Now?

Thinking about GIFT FAQs: 

Why Should We Support the Region and the UUA?

by Bill Clontz, UUA Stewardship Consultant

In 2012, the UUA and the Southern Region embarked on a new course to improve how we share our resources. GIFT, Generously Investing For Tomorrow, is intended to be a simpler and more equitable program for providing the resources that enable our UUA and Southern Region team to serve our congregations and to represent our values and priorities at levels we could not do as individual congregations. 

To provide information and to encourage reflection on GIFT, the Southern Region has provided a number of GIFT information tools on this web site, including most recently a set of GIFT FAQs. This blog will, from time to time, focus on one of those FAQs in an expanded discussion. Today we are examine the question of why conduct GIFT now.

As the question and response below note, this has been a long time coming, in response to a number of challenges. 

Q: Why is the GIFT program being piloted now?

A: Many of us have felt for some time that the methodology used to fund our district and national programs have been more cumbersome, multi-layered, and at least potentially unfair than should be the case. In addition, the existence of one approach for large congregations and another system for everyone else led to mistrust and discomfort in both large and small congregations.  The UUA was asked by many of us to reexamine our existing funding model with the goal of finding a better approach. Teams at the UUA and districts have been working on this problem for some time now; the GIFT program is the resulting solution. It was rolled out as a pilot program in one region to validate the concept and processes.

GIFT is designed to replace a system that was more cumbersome, had greater potential for unfairness, and lacked a clearly shared foundation. Developing a replacement system was an effort that took time and reflection. As soon as it was ready, GIFT was rolled out in this one region, a large and diverse region, to validate the concept and methodology.

As always, your questions, comments, and suggestions are welcomed by your Regional Congregational Life Staff Primary Contact, the Congregational Giving Director, or at a dedicated email address at the UUA: southerngenerosity@uua.org.