Growing Administrative Capacity
Cohort Details
Proficient administration of basic personnel-related functions is a minimum requirement for any business entity with employees. We cannot expect each of our hundreds of separate congregations to independently acquire and maintain administrative expertise and confidence but, collectively, we have the capacity. Interdependence! We will continue the work of our Spring Wave Cohort, in which we explored general approaches to addressing this challenge. In Growing Administrative Capacity, we will move from ideating to designing for experimentation and implementation of some of these approaches.
We are organizing as two sub-groups (teams) – one focusing on administrative staff-sharing and the other considering time-limited support possibilities such as coaching and/or interim administrators.
Facilitators
Jan Gartner (Associate Director of Church Staff Finances)
Terri Pepper (Director of Operations, First Unitarian Society of Madison, WI)
Katie Watkins (Executive Director, Foothills Unitarian Church, Fort Collins, CO)
How to Join
Are you a lay leader or staff member who lights up when thinking about how to ensure robust administration in your congregation and across the board in an economically sustainable way? Consider joining us! Drop Jan a note at JGartner@uua.org.
Meetings
We imagine full-cohort meetings in October, January, and May. Each team will set their own meeting times in between. All meetings will take place virtually. Our kickoff as a full cohort occurred on Friday, October 17.
Tentative Future Meetings
- Staffing-Sharing Team: 2nd Tuesday of each month at 12p ET/9a PT, for 75 minutes
- Time-Limited Support Team: 1st Friday of each month at 12p ET/9a PT, for 75 minutes
Past Cohort
Led by Jan Gartner and Emily Cherry, the Growing Administrative Confidence, Competence, & Capacity Across Congregations Wave Cohort met through the Spring of 2025 and for three days at General Assembly 2025.