 January/February 2000 (XXXVIII 1) |
riends sometimes ask why PYM has its Annual Fund. They wonder why PYM asks them directly for money, when some of the money they give to their Monthly Meetings is already passed on to the Yearly Meeting. There are two reasons why your Yearly Meeting solicits gifts from individuals through the Annual Fund:
The Yearly Meeting needs more "unrestricted" or "general fund" revenue than contributions from Monthly Meetings provide to support the projects and services Friends say they want; and
The Annual Fund provides opportunity for individual Friends who want to make a gift to the Yearly Meeting in addition to their Monthly Meeting's corporate contribution.
This unrestricted general fund revenue is critical because this is the money that supports many projects and services that Friends say they want to see continued, or even expanded — like religious education, workcamps, witnessing for peace and justice, outreach, support for spiritual nurture activities and Young Friends. Some big programs (like Education and Aging) get much of their money from trusts (i.e., gifts from the past), but the general fund actually pays some of the administrative costs required to manage and use that money as well.
The money the Annual Fund raises provides almost a quarter of the unrestricted revenue we have to support the programs our members say they care most about. Without these monies we would have to cut or scale back projects and services like those mentioned above.
The Annual Fund sends mailings to the homes of all members to educate them about PYM's work, and to ask for support (except for a few Meetings that have asked us to exclude their members.) We do this four times a year to help our members understand what their Yearly Meeting is and does.
This is why PYM has an Annual Fund. It provides a channel for better communication to our members about what our Yearly Meeting does, as well as raise important revenue to support that work.
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM