Vermont Churches, continued:
conducted site visits with participating churches and conducted intensive discussions with church leaders on community engagement, public programming, congregational trends, and space sharing, revealing the potential for a reevaluation and broadening of both revenue streams and institutional vision.
Over a two-year span, SISP participants worked with Partners staff to assess the challenges— be it changes in leadership, mergers, or deferred building maintenance— and short and long-term needs unique to each congregation. During the implementation phase of the program, four training sessions, led and designed by Partners staff, with additional support from the Preservation Trust of Vermont, Hunger Free Vermont, and the State Arts Council of Vermont, provided tools for understanding public value, determining institutional assets, collaborating with other local congregations, and supporting community development.
In addition to training and funding through the SISP program, eight of the nine participating congregations received planning grants through the Preservation Trust of Vermont from the Robert Sincerbeaux Fund. The grants were used to develop customized action plans that ranged from the expansion of food programs and other communityserving initiatives, to building preservation and facility maintenance, to reusing dormant space for leasing and public programming.
The individual outcomes that have taken shape in each Vermont congregation participating in SISP have been nothing short of surprising. The nine churches entered the program beset with unique sets of challenges, but with focus, resolve, and an eagerness for problem solving, each congregation has taken the tools provided by Partners to gain control of their futures and counter uncertainty with resourceful thinking. were stable, membership was steady, and the church’ s buildings were in good shape. Without any major pressing issues, the congregation was unsure how to best proceed with the skills it had acquired from the SISP training. With the guidance of Joshua Castaño, leaders at Underhill decided to use a portion of its SISP seed grant to develop and conduct a“ listening campaign.”
The congregation at Underhill conducted 60 faceto-face interviews with a diverse mix of 30 congregants and 30 community members. They spoke with food pantry clients, members of the arts community, school officials, senior services staff, and local police. At the end of the campaign, leaders at Underhill compiled the interview data and generated a report with their findings to serve as their roadmap.“ With this report, we sat down again with the interviewers and made some decisions about how to apply the tools we learned from Partners for attracting New Dollars, New Partners,” said Kevin Goldenbogen, former pastor of
The Sincerest Form of Respect:
United Church of Underhill
For one congregation in Vermont, learning to simply stop and listen to its community would prove to be its greatest strength. Life at United Church of Underhill was relatively calm when the congregation began working with Partners. Its finances
12 • SACRED PLACES • AUTUMN / WINTER 2017-18