Who is Original Blessing
Original Blessing began as an idea when a group of friends came together to as what it would be like if we could
create a Unitarian Universalist community that put a transformative spiritual
experience at the core of our mission. Several of us had worked locally and
nationally on a diverse range of social justice issues and we had come to believe that understanding the suffering we face,
intellectually anyway, was not enough. If we were going to experience ourselves as
sacred beings, if we were going to experience the Earth as our sacred home, as the
source upon which we all depend, we needed a place where, communally rather
than individually, we could seek to be transformed by the spirit, by God, by
something that is larger than us, whatever the name.
Over the course of a year we played and worked, prayed and danced as we developed the ideas that would serve as the foundation for this new community. Six months ago, we officially launched Original Blessing, a
spiritually ambitious movement seeking a relationship with God so we can
transform the world through creative worship, social justice and compassionate
community.
As we developed the mission and vision of Original Blessing, we also worked with several fundraising and church plant consultants to create a business plan that will bring us to financial sustainability within a few years. It is a model, we believe, that can be replicated and used by other UUs hoping to start new congregations. But don't just take our word for it. Here is what Wayne Clark, PhD., Director of Congregational Stewardship for the UUA and author of Beyond Fundraising, had to say about it:
For the past 15 years, I have been the Director of the Congregational Stewardship Network for the Unitarian Universalist Association. During that time my 10 stewardship consultants and I have had the opportunity to review hundreds of congregational strategic plans.
The Original Blessing plan is clearly the best plan that I have seen…I am so supportive off the Original Blessing plan that, with their permission, I will distribute the plan to my stewardship consultants. The plan will be placed at the top of my list of examples that I will make available to our UU congregational leaders.
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What We Need & What You Get
We have about 40 regularly attending adults
and 10 children, which is a great start, but as many of you know it takes some
time for people to give at a level that sustains a congregation. Over the next
four years we need to raise around $300,000, but in this campaign we are just
asking for $30,000. Of course, if we raise the whole $300,000 now it would make
our lives a lot easier so feel free to give big.
The First Unitarian Society of Brooklyn has
provided us with a $75,000 grant, which is a huge vote of confidence and we are
incredibly grateful to them. Doing well in this Indiegogo campaign will give
them the confidence to support us with another round of funding.
We are a mission driven community, which means
we are investing in our vision by hiring the staff we think is needed to build
a congregation that will grow fast and with purpose. We are watching every
penny and our staff works for less than they could get elsewhere because they
really believe in what we are doing. Our budget is just about $110,000, which
is a bargain for what we deliver. Still the money goes quickly.
We know that many of you are passionate about Unitarian Universalism and
would support us regardless, but we'd also like to offer you some amazing gifts
that not only reflect what is going on at Original Blessing, but will also
inspire you to visit the next time you come to New York.
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You Will Change Our Faith Community
We believe that crowd-funding is the way of the future. There are a lot of new, innovative projects being developed by young Unitarian Universalists, in particular, that will make a huge difference in how we engage as people of faith in our nation and in our world. We believe that Unitarian Universalism can be a spiritual solution to the problems we are facing in the world. Helping us and others build these transforming communities is as important as many of the other organizations we donate to. By championing crowd-funding the really innovative and passionate projects have a chance of succeeding in a space that just didn't exist before. A successful campaign here will inspire the next truly great project.
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Other Ways You Can Help
In addition to any financial contributions you can make, you can also help us by:
- Emailing this campaign to your minister and friends in your congregation and asking them to support us
- Post about it on Facebook and Twitter and your blog if you write one
- Indiegogo also has some share tools if you'd like to experiment with those.
Thank you so much for your help. We love our community and really appreciate you giving us a chance.