The Office Report - 2007

Well Friends, the good news is we’re busy!  Every day is packed with things to do around here. The time flies by at an astonishing pace. There are so many good projects and reader initiatives going on, it’s not possible to account for them all. I hope everyone will read the Standing Committee reports carefully and be encouraged.

Here’s some good news from the administrative end of our work:

*Our donations are up 3.2% over 2006. We had 435 donors who contributed $306,555.00

*We had 173 people participate in the monthly auto-debit program in 2007, that’s up 18% from 2006. Auto-debit donors contributed $90,461.00 last year. That’s an average of $7,538.00 a month! The average for 2006 was $6,217.00. The idea that Finance Committee initiated a few years ago is working and is invaluable in helping us with cash flow and to meet our monthly obligations.

*Our Urantia Book sales are up 5.5% over 2006

*Our overall expenses are down by 8.8% over 2006

*Our overall net income in 2007 was up by 38% over 2006! WOW!

This all represents a lot of effort and it is good news that we are working hard and getting results. But there’s more…

*We added 203 new readers to our mailing lists last year, which is 23% more than we added in 2006 and 82% more than in 2005!

*Both of the Summer Seminars in 2006 and 2007 were successful and profitable.

*More than 500 emails came from new and old readers in 2007 requesting reader services of various kinds, from finding other readers to advancing wonderful projects and literally thousands of phone calls seeking similar help and services.

In addition to keeping the Fellowship’s books, which is a huge responsibility, the office worked closely with members of the EC on refining policies and procedures, bookkeeping practices, database issues, helping with committee work as well as taking care of the details and logistics for meetings and conferences.

The Urantia Book Fellowship continues to bring a great deal of value to the Urantia movement and to the world. The world won’t appreciate what we do for a good many years, but I pray that the world’s indifference will never stop us from appreciating each other. With that in mind, allow me to express what a tremendous privilege it is to work with and for you all.

Faithfully…..Paula

“When there is so much good truth to publish and proclaim, why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just because it appears to be a fact?”