by Margie Manning, Southern Region Communications Ministry
Leaders inspire and guide. While some are born leaders, many others learn leadership skills through purposeful development initiatives. Several studies have shown that leadership development matters and investments made in leadership development pay off in terms of strong organizations.
A fund to support leadership development throughout the UUA Southern Region has been established with the transfer of money in funds previously managed by the Florida and the MidSouth Districts.
The votes by the two District boards are an important step toward full regional consolidation. Our region already operates under one consolidated budget, approved at District Annual Assemblies in April and effective July 1, 2014. We continue to move towards dissolving District governance and building a Region of interconnected congregations and clusters, with Congregational Life staff working region-wide in a shared ministry model with Elders and lay leaders, and with appropriate fiscal oversight. Creating a single fund for leadership development region-wide furthers those goals.
The newly established Southern Region Leadership Development Fund was seeded with approximately $32,600. About $23,932 previously was in the Florida Fund Endowment. The new fund also includes most of the $6,747 that was in the MidSouth UP! Program Fund, and $1,912 that was in the MidSouth’s Rome, Ga. Dissolution Fund.
The Florida Foundation was started several years ago as a way to increase District staff, by building an investment large enough to fund an additional staff member with the interest from the fund, without touching the principal, according to Al Tweedy, treasurer of the Florida District. However, the number of major contributors was small and the amount never came close to its objective.
“The Florida District Board was faced with the necessity of moving these funds somewhere before the District could be dissolved. The current Florida board felt that the funds should be moved where the original intent of the Foundation would continue,” Tweedy said. “Since the ‘serving hands’
of the District will now be the Elders, and the Elders will need to be trained before they can serve, it was felt that providing funds to deserving Elder candidates who could not afford to attend the necessary training was a logical extension of the original purpose of the funds.”
The Florida District Board vote, on July 11, was contingent upon staff contacting those who could be identified as contributors to the Endowment and ascertaining that the move is in keeping with their wishes. That staff effort is underway.
A couple of weeks later, the MidSouth Board voted to merge the Rome, Ga. Dissolution Fund and most of the UP! Program Funds with the Florida funds already transferred to the Southern Region for leadership development. A portion of the UP! Program Funds were set aside for small congregations.
"When the MidSouth Board voted to combine our funds with the Florida funds for Leadership Development, we modified the motion to be sure that small congregations were represented,” said DeAnn Petersen, MidSouth President. “With many small, lay-led congregations in MSD, we felt that assuring that small congregations can send leaders to regional training was in the full spirit of the UP! and Rome funds. We are excited that having a regional fund will really help us build strong leaders throughout the region."
Rev. Kenn Hurto, Southern Region Lead Executive, said it will be up to a Fiduciary Oversight Committee, composed of the treasurers of the four Districts, to develop procedures for disbursement of the funds. We’re excited to raise up our faith in building capacity of our UU leadership by developing Elders.
The Southern Region Communications Ministry includes Margie Manning (Florida
District), Carrie Stewart (SWUUC), Kirk Bogue (MidSouth), and Chris Reid (Florida),
working in shared ministry with Connie Goodbread and Kathy McGowan
(Congregational Life Staff members), and Christine Purcell (IT Specialist).
