UUA Receives Grant from Fetzer Institute to Promote Spiritual Innovation and Development

November 6, 2025

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) recently received a multi-year grant from the Fetzer Institute to promote both spiritual innovation and development in Unitarian Universalist (UU) communities. The two-year, $445,000 grant was awarded to the UUA as part of the Fetzer Institute’s “commitment to cultivating sacred-centered organizational cultures.”

“This moment in our shared human story demands not only policy solutions or strategic interventions,” said Jonathan Lever, Fetzer’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in a press release about the grants. “It calls for a transformation in how we see ourselves, each other, and the world. By investing in both the operational and spiritual wellbeing of our partners, we hope to support leaders and organizations who are offering transformative alternatives to systems grounded in fear, division, or disconnection.” More than 20 organizations received grant funding.

The grant will help support the Fund for New Unitarian Universalist Communities, whose purpose is to support new spiritual communities which are covenanted with UU values and identity and dedicated to serving those who have been marginalized historically within our faith; the New Communities Partnership Program; and the UU Cultivators Collaborative.

The New Communities Partnership Program, a pilot initiative designed to support spiritual innovators who are building bold, spiritually grounded communities rooted in UU values and committed to collective liberation, launched in July. The program supports spiritual innovators who have a vision for long-term sustainability and impact within their community; a commitment to shared leadership, mutual accountability, and spiritual transformation; and successfully prototyped a new spiritual community that’s attracting and retaining people, among other qualities.

The UU Cultivators Collaborative program provides customized support and encouragement for innovators from historically underserved communities – including Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, youth, young adults, families with young children with special needs, multilingual and immigrant communities, and more — through a cohort model. The collaborative was launched in 2023, and a new cohort of spiritual innovators have begun their work this fall.

“We’re at an exciting threshold for cultivating spiritual innovation in our faith movement, and have already been able to support amazing leaders as they move their innovative communities forward,” said Carey McDonald, UUA Executive Vice President. “We’re so pleased that the Fetzer Institute is supporting this important work. This grant will help us to deepen and expand our imagination to create more inclusive and liberatory UU communities for those of us who are BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and otherwise at the margins.”