The Urantia Book Fellowship
Annual Report of the Finance Committee
July 2003
The Finance Committee has advanced the strategies this year for reducing expenses while improving the efficiency and success of our organization. And as we do so, we remind ourselves that our goal is to introduce this wonderful revelation to as many people as possible. It is by this yardstick we can measure our efforts.
It is our committee’s goal to increase fund raising to $500,000 in 2004 and we would rejoice to reach a goal of $1,000,000 for the 50th anniversary, in 2005, of the publication of The Urantia Book and the formation of The Urantia Book Fellowship. The committee continues to evaluate short term and long term strategies to accomplish these goals while improving our overall effectiveness.
The Finance Committee has this year coordinated its efforts with the database project by beginning the process of merging all member financial data with all other membership data. This permits the Finance Committee to sort and filter segments of our readership, allowing us to target different solicitations to different groups within the readership. For example, we are sending all financial supporters of past years a stamped addressed return envelope, which is not feasible to the whole mailing list, but easily done with this defined group. Next we are working at different solicitation styles to members of societies, members at large, and attendees of our International Conferences and Summer Study Sessions that have not contributed in the last few years. We are looking for ways to encourage them of the importance that their contributions make to the furtherance of our revelatory efforts.
The rest of the mailing list that have no current record of attending our events or supporting The Urantia Book Fellowship in any way will receive yet another style of solicitation and much less frequently, which reduces the costs of our solicitation efforts. Each of these solicitation letters will be evaluated for their degree of effectiveness and changed accordingly in the upcoming years.
Another important strategy our committee is working on is the promotion and importance of monthly auto-debit contributions. With the increase in all of our committees service efforts and need for funding, it is important for us to stabilize the monthly cash flow of donations. Currently we have most of the donations coming in at the end of the year. By encouraging supporters to make a regular monthly donation through auto-debit, it is easier for the donor and may allow the donor to increase their yearly donation. An example: if a donor gives $100 yearly and we are able to encourage them instead to donate $10 per month, we receive an increase of 20% over the year and it is affordable to the supporter for the increase.
For long term goals, we continue working on strategies to increase fundraising through special bequests and wills. This avenue will be among the largest sources of funds for The Urantia Book Fellowship in the years to come.
I gratefully acknowledge the dedication and hard work of the committee members, and I am always amazed and heartened by the dedication of all the volunteers and supporters of this revelation. It is a delight and a pleasure to work with such a sincere team of revelatory workers.
Sincerely,
The Finance Committee
Robert Burns, Chair
Nick Curto
Jerry Pando
Larry Geis
Ken Raveill
James Gonzalez