UUA President Selects Acting Chief Operating Officer

The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), today announced the appointment of Carey McDonald as Acting Chief Operating Officer effective August 1. McDonald succeeds the Rev. Sarah Lammert who served as Interim Chief Operating Officer following the resignation of the Rev. Harlan Limpert in April.

In announcing McDonald’s appointment, Frederick-Gray said, “There are significant strategic questions alive at the UUA about how to best organize ourselves for impact. I look forward to the creative and strategic leadership that Carey will bring to the position of COO and the work we can do to nurture the vitality, health, and mission-focus of the UUA for years to come.”

Frederick-Gray said the appointment was as Acting COO “so that we may use this time to think flexibly and creatively about how to build collaborative anti-oppressive leadership and practices into the UUA.”

McDonald, 31, joined the UUA staff in 2011 as Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries. Since 2014, he has served as Outreach Director. “I’m thrilled to be serving alongside the UUA’s first elected female president in this time of great transition and imagination for our faith,” said McDonald. “The call to be fierce advocates for Unitarian Universalist values and for justice inside and outside our congregations has never been stronger, and I look forward to helping Unitarian Universalism answer that call.”

Lammert, who will remain a member of the UUA’s Leadership Council, said, “Carey McDonald brings enormous creative and strategic talent to his new leadership role. He is a seventh generation UU with deep roots in our faith, but his focus is on a vital and relevant future for Unitarian Universalism.”

McDonald, who identifies as a person of color, is a member of First Parish in Malden, MA, and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio. He was active in Columbus as a youth leader in the Ohio Meadville District Youth Adult Committee and with Diverse and Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM) and is a former lay member of the UUA Ministerial Fellowship Committee and the Skinner House Books Board. He holds a bachelors degree in Economics from Pomona College in Claremont, CA, and a masters degree in Organizational Leadership from Wheelock College in Boston, MA. He lives Medford, MA, with his wife Sarah and son Julian.

Two people stand together smiling for the camera

UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick Gray and Chief Operating Officer Carey McDonald

Unitarian Universalists Elect Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray as Ninth UUA President

From Press Releases

First Woman Elected to that Office New Orleans, LA – The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray has been elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) at the Association’s General Assembly in New Orleans. Frederick-Gray is the first woman elected to serve as the UUA’s president.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray is Elected President of the Unitarian Universalist Association