By the Rev. Rowan Larson, (they/them), Chair, UTO Grant Committee
This year, the whole board has been captivated by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s newest book, “The Serviceberry.” In it, she writes about a different kind of economy than the one the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times report about. Instead of money, she describes an economy based on gifts and gratitude. Wall Kimmerer’s gift economy sounds an awful lot like the economy of the kin(g)dom of heaven that Jesus describes in the Gospels.
We were inspired to ask churches, dioceses, and provinces to dream about what “connecting the unique gifts of the church/diocese/province with the unique needs of the community” around them might look like. We hope to see applications for projects that are specific to the place the applicant is located, as well as projects that will generate something that can be shared back to the community beyond.
The example I keep giving, from my specific Diocese of Montana of The Episcopal Church location is this. I imagine that our diocesan camp, Camp Marshall, could apply for a grant to partner with tribal elders, educators, and other leaders from the tribes of the Flathead Reservation, on whose land Camp Marshall sits. Perhaps the grant is about reducing human/bear conflict at camp, which sits right on the lakeshore. Through the project, perhaps camp and diocesan leadership generates insights, tools, and stories about what worked and what didn’t that can be shared in the rest of the tourist and settler communities around Flathead Lake to “pass on the gift” from the grant.
This project is specific to a certain place—there isn’t a lot of human/bear conflict in, say, the Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii. It meets a unique need and uses the resources of the church (in this case, Camp Marshall) to then bring things back to the community beyond.
Your grant application won’t look exactly like this, and that’s OK; we don’t want it to! We want to see what YOUR faith community sees as a great need and what this grant could help you do, learn, or create in your community that will then be a gift to others.
Because this is a creative focus, I encourage you to take advantage of UTO resources early on in the process. The Rev. Canon Heather Melton will have office hours through the application season and she, I, and other board and local UTO contacts are always available by email. We promise there’s no penalty for asking questions or for trying to get help. In fact, we love to see it.
We invite you to dream big and imagine how you and your community might be the gifts of God for the people of God.
