Watch "Ministry & Money" Presentation
Dear beloved All Saints community:
This morning the vestry met with the parish to discuss the state of All Saints’ finances, our 2024 results, and the 2025 budget. We also announced the launch of a short campaign that we’re calling “Close the Gap” to raise $250,000 to address a budget deficit and prepare for the future.
The details are below and in an enclosed document. But first, we want to express our profound gratitude for this community. All Saints is an incredible collection of beautiful souls that believe, work, and worship together. We are a vibrant and generous parish: more families pledged in the 2024 stewardship campaign than in recent years, and the amount pledged was also higher.
Today, we must share some difficult truths:
- Our church has been running a deficit budget for some time. This means that the cost of running the church is more than the income we bring in.
- To fund a deficit, we have been forced to spend from our financial reserves, which have significantly decreased over the last few years.
- While our brick-by-brick campaign last year successfully paid down our debt a great deal, it could not rectify this situation.
Last weekend, the vestry spent a challenging day reviewing this problem and asking ourselves two important questions: How do we ensure we are responsible stewards of All Saints’ resources? And how we do we continue to support the thriving programs and outreach efforts that are the lifeblood of this community while also ensuring that we are a flourishing church a generation from now?
The details:
- The draft budget presented to the vestry anticipated a $244,000 deficit, understanding that was not a viable option.
- After a long and difficult discussion, the vestry approved a deficit budget for 2025 that shows a loss of $94,000.
- The approved budget means the following:
- We will not be able to give any staff or clergy member a cost-of-living raise
- We are moving a current open full-time position to part-time
- We are underfunding or not funding several programs
- We are eliminating outreach grants from our operating budget and will instead focus on fundraising for this financial support.
The vestry has determined that continuing to operate with a deficit is unsustainable. We also firmly believe that we must properly care for our staff, our priests, our facilities, and our community. To make sure that happens, we are asking the parish to raise $250,000 to “close the gap”. It will allow us to wipe out our deficit, roll back some of the cuts, and prepare for the future. Most importantly, we hope it will take the church to a more broad and sustainable funding model that does not depend on angel donors to resolve deficits.
Many of you have already prayerfully considered what you are able to give this year and committed to that pledge, and we are eternally grateful. In fact, we have received 206 pledges for 2025. If each of those pledging families gives an additional $1,200, or $25 per week, we would meet our goal. If families who haven’t yet pledged will also contribute, we can close the gap even faster. Please know that no pledge is too small. All contributions are valued and will help us meet our goal. At the end of this campaign, we would love to see the percentage of parishioners at All Saints who do pledge their financial support grow. Broadening the base of financial support is one key to long-term financial sustainability.
If you have committed all you can, we understand. We ask each of you to carefully and prayerfully consider what, if anything, more you can do. This is meant to be a short campaign. We anticipate accepting pledges until February 14th so that we can revise the 2025 budget at our February vestry meeting.
The vestry has committed to be completely transparent about this situation and our progress in fixing it. We will provide monthly reports to the parish.
As we move ahead together, please know how grateful we are. Each of you is a vital part of what makes All Saints a warm, welcoming, and loving place. We have a history of getting through hard times by coming together and we know that we will solve this challenge. Hard times require hard conversations, and this one has certainly been trying. We truly believe in the power of God in our community, and we will restore the financial security necessary for a thriving parish.
Thank you for your dedication to this wonderful place. If you have any questions or want to discuss the above in more detail, please send an email to vestry@allsaintsbhm.org and someone on the vestry will respond.
