Making our offering Photo: ArtToday
The joy of money
A look at the different sides of being a Quaker treasurer
Handling money for Quakers is a joy as well as a responsibility, as I have found during three years as an Area Meeting (AM) treasurer. This is not only the joy when the figures come right: the job involves interpreting to the members what our money is, so we can all understand what it represents as ministry, and how we can best use it. How do we expect Quaker witness and support to be financed? How does our local or area Quaker money connect more widely with the work of Quakers in Britain? Ultimately, it comes down to how as Quakers we make our own financial contributions, and how we encourage each other to do that. The Annual Conference of Treasurers, which took place 25-27 June at Swanwick, is a good opportunity for treasurers to meet and compare ways of doing things. It helps treasurers to step back from their own figures, so what they collect and look after for Meetings is related to the fund-raising and spending of Britain Yearly Meeting’s centrally managed work. The conference is a part of the structure of accountability of BYM, though a lack of clarity about this was acknowledged, and may be one reason why about a third of Area Meetings were not represented.
At this conference it was perhaps more openly mentioned than usual that there used to be a quota for Meetings to contribute to the Yearly Meeting funds, abolished in 1989 but not replaced by any very clear guidance on how contributions were to be channelled instead, or how much. Another somewhat controversial fact is that when a database was set up for keeping track of donations, Meeting for Sufferings specifically excluded use of it for direct mail appeals from Britain Yearly Meeting. This all means that Local and Area Meetings are responsible for finding donations from their funds for central work, or appealing for their members to make contributions to it, without there being much consistency, if any contribution is achieved at all.
‘We earnestly counsel Friends not to give way to a feeling of annoyance when appeals are made to them for pecuniary help… Those who are appointed to collect subscriptions should avoid an apologetic tone, endeavouring rather to suggest to Friends that they are being reminded of a privilege.’
Katie Frost, the community fund-raising officer in Quaker Communications, surprised us with this statement from the 1911 equivalent of Quaker Faith & Practice, but Quakers probably need this message even more earnestly now, as we seem to have become more reticent about money than 100 years ago. But perhaps this is changing. As the epistle from the recent Yearly Meeting said: ‘It is good to be challenged to contribute our gifts; it is a sign that we belong.’ In my own North London AM, I have found people appreciate being asked, and have had a good response to the need to fulfil a steep rise in our quota to the pooled property fund of Six Weeks Meeting.
‘There is such a variety of things to be done that everyone can feel they have something to give, in money, time or energy’ said the epistle. We all need to ask what God requires of us, and Katie brought home to us that treasurers are ‘involved in releasing the spirit of the Meeting’. The Annual Conference of Treasurers is a support for treasurers in their local role which can be joyfully inspirational as well as prudent and meticulous; it also encourages us to ensure that local Quaker money is not isolated from the Yearly Meeting that we belong to.
