Continuing to Talk About Those Ends Statements

While writing the previous blog, I decided it was time to look at what other congregations are doing.  Here is a set of Ends (or Outcomes as they call it) for University Unitarian Church in Seattle:

·      People feel welcomed into a caring church community.

·      People feel at peace and hopeful, and share those feelings with their families and the world.

·      People feel inspired to see, hear, and think in ways that deepen our understanding and expand our vision.

·      People feel strong enough in heart and mind to face the challenges they may encounter in life, and look to others for strength when they need it most.

·      People feel helpful to others in our community and beyond, sharing their energies and resources freely and in love, in living witness to our shared values.

·      People feel grateful for the deep liberal religious legacy of Unitarian Universalism and the promise of its principles.

This is the set of outcomes that this congregation aspires to and it is the set of statements that the Executive works with to develop his Work Plan.  They are not directive, they are not precise, they are not measurable (the way they are written), they sort of sound like ours.

Here are the more detailed points of Asheville’s Ends Statements:

Within

The people of UUCA have a deeply meaningful, transforming, liberal religious experience, which includes:

·      Participating in inspirational worship that celebrates our heritage and values, confronts the challenges of the world and invites exploration of the spiritual, intellectual and emotional dimensions of living.

·      Engaging in rich and diverse programming.  Opportunities for spiritual, intellectual and personal growth are numerous, focused and intergenerational. 

·      Accepting religious exploration as the work of a lifetime.

·      Developing the next generation of Unitarian Universalists.

·      Evolving and growing as active participants in this faith community.

Among

UUCA is a radically hospitable, spiritually vital and supportive community: 

·      Operating in a manner in which people of all ages feel welcome and connected across identities including race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, ability, politics and education.

·      Building relationships of trust and caring.

·      Encouraging shared ministry that intentionally widens opportunity and access.

·      Insuring that our paid and unpaid Staff, fully consistent in size and scope with our aspirations as a religious community, are appreciated and treated equitably.

·      Maintaining an accessible and green campus that meets our program and staffing needs. 

·      Supporting each other and our church programs generously with our time, talent and money.

·      Practicing responsible stewardship of our resources.

·      Developing and maintaining a vision that guides actions carried out by a democratically elected Board of Trustees.

·      Operating in a transparent manner consistent with our religious tradition.

Beyond

UUCA is a visible leader and partner, making a positive impact in our community and in the world by:

·      Acting on behalf of social justice through service, education, witness, activism and community organizing.

·      Proclaiming the transforming power of our faith by all effective means.

·      Partnering with religious and other organizations in ways that support our shared values.

·      Participating actively and fully in the larger Unitarian Universalist community.

·      Acting and investing in environmentally responsible and sustainable ways.

Now, I acknowledge that there are more problems with ours than just wording, as we recognize that some overlap of ends made it difficult to decide where to put various work plan actions.  But apparently the whole idea of Policy Governance© is based on providing broad statements for the Executive to work with.  The Board describes the target and the Executive produces the results.  Or at least produces progress toward the results.

This is the goal of Policy Governance©.  But does it make sense?  Hmmmmm, I’m still thinking about that.

Here are Ends Statements from Tucson, AZ.  Too long?  Definitely not directive, precise, measurable.

A.   We actively search for truth; encourage spiritual growth, and live meaningful lives as Unitarian Universalists.

1.     We create and nurture a safe spiritual home for all who seek a liberal religious sanctuary.

2.     We provide opportunities to gather together for worship and programs that inspire the spirit, inform the mind, and challenge us to seek truth in our lives.

3.     We live according to the principles of Unitarian Universalism.

B.    We seek to learn from personal experience, the world’s diverse religious traditions, and scientific discovery.

1.     We share, respect, and celebrate the commonality and diversity of each other’s beliefs and experiences.

2.     Our worship, religious education, and other programs draw lessons from multiple traditions and disciplines, and we seek understanding of their basic truths.

3.     We promote interaction, respect, and understanding among other faith traditions and sources of knowledge.

C.    We minister to each other with caring and compassion, building strong congregational bonds in love and friendship.

1.     We treat members, friends, and visitors with respect, fairness, and compassion.

2.     We encourage a caring community that supports one another, particularly in times of celebration and times of need.

3.     We listen and learn from one another.

4.     We build community through a variety of programs and activities including worship, religious education, fellowship events, social action, and the arts.

D.   We offer people of all ages a rich variety of programs that encourage, challenge, and expand our thinking.

1.     We provide quality religious education, grounded in our Unitarian Universalist faith that supports children, youth, and adults in their spiritual journeys and personal growth.

2.     We incorporate a diversity of artistic expression in our programs.

E.    We welcome diversity in membership and make special efforts to attract, integrate, and engage newcomers, families, teens, and young adults.

1.     All potential Unitarian Universalists know we are here and feel welcomed when they come through our door.

2.     We make efforts to attract diversity in our membership.

3.     We welcome and engage newcomers.

4.     We effectively integrate our members and friends into the fabric of our community.

F.    We each commit our talents and resources to the sustenance of the congregation, and acknowledge every individual’s contributions.

1.     Every member and friend shares responsibly in the financial stewardship of UUCT.

2.     Friends and members volunteer and make meaningful commitments to UUCT.

3.     We recognize and celebrate the contributions of our volunteers and contributors to the well-being of UUCT.

G.   We are respected as a principled religious community that takes action and effects change that enhances the broader community.

1.     Members and friends and the larger community respect us as a principled liberal religious voice because of our work to protect the Sonoran Desert environment, help people in need, and promote social justice.

2.     We are actively involved in the work of Unitarian Universalism at the local, district, and national levels.

3.     We support interfaith engagement by actively participating in the larger faith community.

H.   The values of our faith shape our decisions and guide our actions as an institution.

1.     Our governance process is open, inclusive, and democratic.

2.     We are equitable and transparent in our acquisition and use of resources.

3.     Our budget and financial processes are conducted in accordance with the highest standards of stewardship, trust, and transparency.

4.     We fulfill our stewardship responsibilities to the denomination, district, and our congregation.

We treat staff with fairness and integrity

Amend the Ends

Now that we’ve completed three opportunities for anyone in the congregation to attend a presentation about policy-based governance and have made sure that every household has received a brochure describing it, we on the Governance Task Force think we can stop with the educational portion of our charge and move on to amending the Ends!

If you had been observing our meetings lately, you would either be groaning or giggling.  We have spent a great deal of time trying to get our terminology right.  It seems ridiculous, but when we talk about the Ends Statements (and we will be talking about them a LOT), we’re not sure what we mean by that.  At first, I thought of the three broad statements that we published in the brochure as “the” Ends Statements.

1. The people of UUCA have a deeply meaningful, transforming, liberal religious experience.
2. UUCA is a radically hospitable, spiritually vital and supportive community.
3. UUCA is a visible leader and partner, making a positive impact in our community and in the world.

But the more we work with this, the more it seems like all the points of detail under these main statements in the Governance Document are the Ends Statements.  So what are those broad sentences?  Just introductory paragraphs?

To be fair, the original writers (last year’s Governance Task Force) did a great job of getting us started.  And they even used other congregations’ documents as models.  The thing is, I don’t know how other congregations are actually USING their Ends Statements, but ours have become confusing as the Executive used them to guide his staff’s work plan for the year.

So, time for a rewrite.  We expected this, but I doubt we expected to still be struggling with the question of what Ends Statements are supposed to be.  

Congregational Meeting

I conducted the Governance Task Force's first official presentation to members of the congregation this past Tuesday.  We were delighted to have about 20 people attending.  The basic presentation lasts about 20 minutes and then there is lots of time for questions and answers.  (In fact, GTF members will stay until the last question is answered.)  There are two meetings scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday, October 31), one after each service.  If you're at all interested in how things get done at UUCA, this is a great opportunity to get a good overview of the process.  As one of the attendees said, "On Tuesday night I attended the first presentation on Policy-based Governance at UUCA.  Even though I knew something about the new governance system before that night, I thought I learned a lot."  So, c'mon down!

Write the Ends (or Goals)

A vast amount of volunteer time was devoted to writing the Ends Statements that we are using this year to guide our work.  (These Ends Statements are in the first section of the Governance Document that you can link to from the Governance webpage.) However, as soon as we put them to use, we realized that they need some adjusting before we move ahead next year.  And how did we put them to use? 

The Executive produced a work plan (this is also linked on the Governance webpage as the “2010-2011 Executive Work Plan”) for the year that was based on the Ends Statements.  As soon as he attempted to do that, we all saw that some of the finer points in the Ends Statements (we haven’t yet figured out any sensible thing to call the bulleted points under the major Ends Statements in the Governance Document though we’re working on it) were redundant, misplaced or hard to enact.

Still, we were mightily impressed at how beautifully the basic system has worked so far.  We have Ends that we’re aiming for, and we have the entire staff along with the volunteer groups that they lead, heading for those Ends.  And every month, the Board gets an update from the Executive on the progress he and his staff are making on the Work Plan.  So far, so good.

Start with the Mission

Now you have a handy-dandy summary of how the Board is enacting policy-based governance in our congregation.  (You DID receive our very awesome brochure in the mail, right?)  You’ve also received an invitation to one of three opportunities to hear a brief presentation about governance:  Tuesday night, October 26 at 7 pm, or after either of the Sunday services on October 31.  Childcare will be provided for the presentations on Sunday.

Here’s a quote from Dan Hotchkiss (p 80 of Governance and Ministry):

There is no one right way to organize a congregation; each community of faith must choose a structure right for its own values and beliefs, and in harmony with the practice of its historic tradition and its larger family of congregations…..  Among those practices are board-centered and committee-centered modes of governance that emerged early in the 1900s.  In their place, congregations are experimenting with alternatives.  The most successful of these efforts focus strongly on the congregation’s mission—rather than on organizational life for its own sake.  They also have in common clarity about which buck stops where and how leaders will be held accountable.  Equipped with a clear structure, such congregations can identify their mission clearly, choose a strategy, get out from under their own feet, and move ahead.

So in designing our new governance system, we have started with the UUCA mission.  With much input from the congregation, we adopted this mission statement:  “We nurture individual search for meaning as we work in community for freedom, justice and love.”  And it is from this mission statement as well as strategic planning results from a year and a half ago, that our Ends, statements of who we want to be in the world, were created.

Back in the Beginning....

The best blogs have short entries.  (People actually read them when they’re short.  How about that?)  So, since we have a year together, we have time to wade slowly into the waters of policy-based governance.

Let’s begin at the beginning, as I shamelessly steal from the website of First Unitarian of Omaha, NE (there are over 60 UU congregations plus the UUA that are somewhere along the path of policy-based governance, from “just considering it” to “been doing it for several years”):

Our work is to examine the way that we go about making decisions in the church and also to consider the way that we organize ourselves to get those decisions implemented.  The goal is to determine if our current policies and structure still offer the best vehicles to achieve our vision or to learn if there are improvements that might be more suited to our current opportunities.

Last year, the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville did a ton of work to prepare us for trying out policy-based governance this year.  They believed that we could better live out our mission by re-organizing the work of the church.  They learned about the process of policy-based governance, they invited Dan Hotchkiss to conduct a workshop about it, and they produced a beginning document that we are using as our guide for this year of trying out policy-based governance.

Dan Hotchkiss is a Unitarian Universalist minister and a consultant for a highly respected church “think tank” and consulting group called The Alban Institute.  He has written a book, noted on the right side of this blog, that we are using as a basis for our trial year.  Prior to Dan’s book, John and Miriam Carver introduced a new way to organize boards of not-for-profit organizations to function effectively. They called their model Policy Governance® which they have trademarked.  Dan followed up on the Carver ideas and applied them to the very special form of not-for-profit organization that we are focused on here:  a congregation.  He and we call it policy-based governance to avoid trademark problems though I admit it is a mouthful.

Welcome to My Blog!

Greetings, all!

The plan (hope?) is to write throughout the year about what I'm learning and working on as the Vice President of the congregation. My main assignment is to chair the board's Policy-Based Governance Task Force, which I will usually shorten to Governance Task Force. And the main job of the Task Force is to educate the congregation on what the heck we're doing! So, this blog is one way to try to do that. I'll post once or twice a week (I think). This blog is strictly my own. It is not in any way approved by the board nor am I speaking for the board. It is speaking for me.

Oh, and I guess I ought to let you know, though there are no exact plans to do so, betcha I end up writing about other things, too--board work is all a new and wondrous world to me this year.

So, welcome aboard.

Please feel free to post comments or questions. It's nice to know that SOMEONE is reading this!