WWFOR Sustainability Working Group
by Brenda Collier
The spring 2012 issue of Pacific Call featured articles about the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation (WWFOR) and our need to become more sustainable. In August the Area Committee (our governing body) approved the budget for new fiscal year (July 2012 to June 2013) and made plans to further address our sustainability issues. We are very fortunate that national FOR has generously offered us a grant for the next two years that will allow us to balance our budget while we work on sustainability. This financial support enables us to keep current staff (our full time organizer Ellen Finkelstein and part-time office manager Sara Rinehart) while we work to strengthen our sustainability.
It is wonderful that, despite their ongoing budget problems, the FOR National Council thinks so highly of us and what we stand for in our region. To live up their expectations we need to get more people actively involved in WWFOR. Also, we must remember that, even with National’s grant, we still must actively raise more income to balance our budget.
We have formed a Sustainability Working Group to plan for the way ahead. The group will figure out how to become more sustainable in financial terms and also in how we can better function as a grassroots-based organization. The Sustainability Working Group will work with the Finance Committee on financial sustainability issues and will generate new strategies and activities to strengthen our active people involvement.
The Working Group will consist of a small core group and be assisted by a larger e-mail discussion group. The larger group will have opportunities to suggest ideas and make comments for the core group to consider, and could take responsibility for working on some of the suggested changes. The group will not wait for any “comprehensive long term plan,” but will be devising and implementing improvements as they proceed. They will start by reviewing all the good ideas that have been suggested in the past few months and promptly implementing the “low hanging fruit.”
Now is your opportunity to help move WWFOR into a more sustainable future. We particularly need people who would like to be part of the larger support/advisory group. If you are interested in being part of this effort, in any capacity, please let the office know (206-789-5565 or wwfor@wwfor.org).
Thank you for helping to make WWFOR even more effective than ever!