Heather's Story | Pledge Drive Update

Last night, Heather shared some moving background of her journey, and coming to find her welcome and belonging at Collective. 

"Collective is a refuge in the wilderness, a safe space where I find a welcome and acceptance of who I am."

After heather's moving story, we got the most recent update on where we are in the pledge drive,  some more detail on the new budget and where we're growing:

PLEDGE DRIVE UPDATE 

Existing Pledges
For all those who had recurring scheduled gifts set up when the pledge drive began, we're counting those as your pledge for 2017. We rolled that forward to get an idea for our starting place with the budget. So if you’re scheduled and recurring, and want to remain at the level, you’re set. You don’t need to pledge separately from that. 

Budget Breakdown

As we move from our goal last year, of $9000 per month, to this year at $13,000 per month, you may be wondering, what's all the increase? 

It’s important to note first that it's actually not all increase. It actually reflects a planned reduction in some grant funding we have had. In addition to this, Jess has been given a promotion, long overdue, for increased responsibility and capacity she's already grown into. This does show up as an increase in our personnel and operations cost. This year, like we did with Collective Kids the year before, we made the decision mid-year to fund the needed director position for Collective Cares. This position wasn't in the 2016 budget, but it needs to be in 2017. 

We’re also planning to give back more this year, to invest in social initiatives to the tune of 10-11% of our budget. This includes things like Freddie’s organization, FAITH (Fighting Against Injustice Toward Harmony), and expanding our racial diversity and inclusion work through Lunch & Learn and beyond. We’ve had some increased App and technology costs, and we’re hoping the online community will jump in to help shoulder some of that

Finally, you may have seen on social media this week, we’re very excited about a new position we've opened up and are trying to fill, but that's not actually in this increase amount. this is grant funded above and apart from this budget, and we'll be able to take on the financial responsibility of this  new position over the next three years.

We could go into more detail and are happy to, but the point is, we want to be totally transparent and absolutely open to any questions when it comes to our shared generosity, and how it’s spent. 

So here we are:

We’re at $9338 in Pledges, and we’re trying to get to the budget of $13,000. We also went this week from 50 Pledges to 57! And last year we got up to 62, so we’ve got 4 more weeks to make this happen.

If you’re not so much for the technology, we totally understand. Jess & Ben are available Tuesdays and Thursdays, during office hours, to walk you through setting up your recurring scheduled support, either on the phone or here in person at the office. We will also continue to have folks at the Connect and Support table after each service to help walk anyone through the process. 

Make My Recurring Scheduled Gift

More Information
Ben's Pledge Drive Letter
Pledge Drive 2017 | Intro
Pledge Drive Video
CollectiveGives.Com

More Inspiration
Dan's Story
Hayro's Story
The Stories We Support
A Prayer of Gratitude