The Rev. Christina Sillari joins us from Portland, Maine. She served First Parish Church in Portland for eleven years as their settled minister. Contact her at: .
Charter: Finance Team
- Purpose: The purpose of the Finance Team is to identify and study options, and provide recommendations for the long-term organization of the Fellowship’s financial assets, including its bank accounts, money market fund, and investments in stocks and bonds. Options and recommendations should reflect the possibility of significant changes in our budgetary needs due to changes in ministerial leadership or facility.
- Background: Through individual donations made in memory of deceased Fellowship members, and with proceeds from various fundraising activities, enough funds were made available to the MUUF treasurer to create stock and bond investment accounts with Vanguard. For over a decade, these investments have remained largely untouched and, through dividend and interest income, have grown in value. A certain percentage of the growth is allocated on a monthly basis to a Sanctuary Fund whose assets are restricted to the purchase of a sanctuary or sanctuary-related items. A money market account was also established with Vanguard to collect the dividend “sweeps” from the stock fund.
Operational funds are deposited with First National Bank, Damariscotta, split between a non-interest-bearing checking account and an interest-bearing savings account. Funds are transferred between the accounts as needed. Additionally, a PayPal account was established in order to provide members with a convenient electronic method for making their pledge contributions. Currently, funds from the PayPal account are transferred to The First checking account, generally on a monthly basis, though a small percentage of PayPal monies cover the ongoing costs of the Fellowship’s Zoom account and maintenance of the computer server and domain name.
Recently, the Fellowship has benefitted from generous estate bequests. These funds have been placed in The First savings account.
- Scope: Keeping in mind that the Fellowship may need to operate under a deficit budget reflecting the added costs involved in a half-time minister, and the possibility of a change of facility which could involve changes in our rent burden or taking on a mortgage,
- Identify options for our Vanguard investments. We’re currently invested in total-market index funds (stocks and bonds). Consider whether socially-responsible investing would provide a better match for our Fellowship’s values and still give us a reasonable return on investment. Also, the UUA has an investment fund that is consistent with socially-responsible values – consider whether it would make sense to place funds with them.
- Identify options for our savings account funds, which include a 2022 $36K estate bequest. Confer with the Board and Treasurer for updated information on the projected operating budget. Consider whether it would make sense, for example, to move some portion of it into the Vanguard money market account, giving a better interest rate while still providing adequate liquidity.
- Identify and assess our options for handling estate bequests.
- Study whether establishing an endowment would make sense for a group our size with the funds we have.
- Research on these topics could draw upon the UUA’s UU-money listserv, as well as their consultants and any other sources that the Team would find useful.
- The Treasurer would be responsible for carrying out the Board’s eventual decisions.
- Authority: Convened by the Board February 15, 2024.
- Deliverables to the Board:
- Within three months of convening, provide a review of progress at a Board meeting.
- Within six months of convening, provide a written report that would lay out our options and make recommendations for actions upon which the Board would vote.
- Team Members:
- Ron Hiser, Chair
- Michael Mason
- Richard Ober