Thank you to all of the meetings who generously support the yearly meeting through their covenants! Quakers’ legacy of impact is only possible because of your support.
What Are Covenants?
Covenant gifts are how monthly and quarterly meetings come together to sustain the shared spiritual life and work of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Each meeting discerns their covenant contribution annually as an expression of faith, commitment, and care for our wider Quaker community.
Unlike the “quota” or assessment systems of the past, current covenant gifts are a freely chosen promise grounded in spiritual discernment and guided by a meeting’s capacity and leanings. Covenant contributions provide essential support for programs, events, staff, and our collective faith community, connecting and strengthening Friends across our region.
Why They’re Important
Covenant contributions further our yearly meeting’s collective ministry and impact. Work they make possible includes nurturing youth and families, supporting meetings of all sizes, addressing peace and justice concerns, and maintaining the structures that connect us as a yearly meeting.
However, these gifts represent much more than financial support. They represent Friends’ commitment to being in relationship with and their mutual responsibility for each other. Through these generous gifts, Friends affirm that we are part of something larger than our monthly, or even quarterly, meeting. Instead, we are a faith community of care, accountability, and shared purpose.
The Covenant Giving Sprint
In September of 2025, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Finance Committee launched a Sprint on Covenant Giving to renew clarity and spiritual grounding around this practice. The sprint’s purpose is to help meetings understand and discern their annual covenant in a way that reflects both capacity and connection to the wider body.
Over the coming months, the sprint is:
- Listening to meetings about their experiences with covenant giving
- Studying models from meetings across PYM and other yearly meetings
- Developing new tools and guidance for meetings’ discernment and budgeting
- Creating communication materials that showcase the impact of covenant giving
When the sprint concludes, its recommendations will guide a clearer, more transparent, and spiritually grounded approach to covenant giving to ensure the ongoing health and sustainability of our yearly meeting.
To learn more about covenant giving or the sprint, please contact Joe Kirkenir at jkirkenir@pym.org or 215-241-7115.
