By Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence and Rev. Robert McCluskey
The first round of grant applications was accomplished by the trustees of the New York New Church Legacy Fund with the guidance of PENN Creative Strategy, a New York consulting group that specializes in strategy and planning. The trustees are led by Rev. Robert McCluskey, who is serving as chair and who is a longtime former minister at the New York New Church in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan.
We thought it would be informative to report a snapshot of the first round of grant support from the new legacy fund organization incorporated in the state of New York for the purpose of supporting other nonprofit organizations.
The trustees decided in this first year to support ten organizations that perform good uses for society in the New York City area itself, and ten Swedenborgian Church of North America organizations that might be located anywhere in the United States or Canada.
We solicited grant proposals and received a number more than ten for both categories and went through a process of evaluations and decisions on the grant proposals. With varying levels of financial support, the following funding decisions were made:
- The Church on the Hill in Boston was supported to grow their internal leadership with a ministry residency and to design and implement a local addiction and recovery ministry in Boston.
- The Center for Swedenborgian Studies in Berkeley was funded to grow its scholarship support to attract new talent for future leadership by reducing the cost of professional formation for ministry in our denomination.
- The Swedenborg Library in Chicago was supported to provide a Swedenborgian outreach set of lectures and events in Manhattan to help maintain a Swedenborgian witness in the Big Apple.
- The new Swedenborg House in Washington, DC, ministry was supported to establish an improved outreach in its new location in the capital city.
- The Church of the Holy City in Wilmington, Delaware, was supported to expand its programming for outreach in its locale by adding new staff and for specific ministry outreach programs.
- The newly renamed Garden Chapel (formerly Church of the Open Word) in St. Louis was supported in its significant Conservation Easement project that creates spiritual ecology education programs, weekend retreats, and spiritual practice sessions that align with the enhanced ecology project on their property.
- The outdoor Garden Church of San Pedro, California, was supported with resources in their ministry for those dealing with food and housing insecurity, which is central to their weekly operations.
- The Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative was supported to develop a traveling exhibit that brings Helen Keller’s life and faith into renewed awareness to the larger world.
- Hillside, an Urban Sanctuary, was supported to expand its successful Spiral outreach program by adding appropriate technology and funding for engaging guest presenters.
- The Swedenborgian Spiritual Community of Puget Sound was supported to create and develop a new outreach program called “Crosshatched.”
- The San Francisco Swedenborgian Church was supported to increase youth attendance at their annual retreat.
- The New Church of the Southwest Desert was supported in adding part-time staff to increase outreach to the local college and develop programming and events for their “downtown” coffee shop, Oasis.
Read the full issue of the March Messenger.
