Our "Annual Report"

We of Mirth and Dignity believe that humour can be a spiritual practice and a powerful force for good in the world.  We also believe that Unitarian Universalism should not be limited to people in churches.  Or people who are Unitarian Universalists.  We believe in webs, not boxes.

Successes:

Part of the mission of Mirth and Dignity is to explore expressions of UUism that are sustainable in a changing world.

As of the end of 2022, the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society is a group of 130,000 people that exists on a budget of less than fifty cents per person per year.  Of this, we give nearly a quarter away to the Flaming Chalice International, a Unitarian Universalist charity that does refugee and aid work in Africa.

Our typical pledge is three dollars per month.  We are intentional about seeking smaller donations, because it means we can be more economically inclusive.

In keeping with our commitment to also serve congregations, our worship materials have been widely used, and requests for us to speak in congregations come in at a rate higher than we can meet them.

All of our metrics—website, mailing list, podcast, YouTube—show steady growth.  Our biggest success is our Hysterical Society materials, now shared so widely by members that we reliably reach one and a half million people per month.

Growing Edges That We Will Tackle Next:

Our moderators have an incredibly challenging job, at which they have succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dream, and for which they make 1200 per month USD as a group.  It is a labour of love for them, but love and economic justice can go together.  This year, our first priority is to double their compensation.

Of the hundreds and hundreds of people who donated last year, not a single one got a thank you note.  The only administrative tasks that actually get done are those required for legal compliance.  This is because the volunteer who heads content development is also the one who does admin. 

It is not a labour of love for her.  Not one tiny bit.

This year, our other priority is to get admin support in place.  This will allow us to run better fundraising, hopefully leading to a sustainable long term organization.  This would be good, because when people send us emails asking about Unitarian Universalism, we need to have the capacity to answer them.

The “Report Card” Liz gave the Board, at our meeting:

• Ensure that we are “breaking even”. We are. With a bit of room to spare.

• Ensure that we reach our grant goals by June 2022:

  • Group doubles, positive softer feedback. The group has gone from 75,000 to 130,000 and is on track to more than double.

  • Add six to twelve people to Mirth and Dignity “in some kind of volunteer role”. Done.

  • Testimonials and feedback from congregations, at least 20. Donations reflect momentum. Google shows wide use of our materials.

  • 2000 in compensation from congregations. We have just over 1000. We may end up slightly under on this metric.

  • 5 pieces of content directly useful to congregations, totalling 10,000 views. We have already done this several times over.

  • Digital Ministry Materials: Reach podcast, will come out in February or March. Script halfway done.

  • Ensure grant money is spent in the right places: We are on track for this.

• Other Metrics:

  • FCI: We sent 6283.44 USD to FCI, plus just under 8000 USD in direct fundraising.

  • UUHS: Last month, we reached 1.7 million people, and the group is now at 130,000.

  • Facebook page: Reached 100,000 people in the last year, 713 new page likes for a total of 2900. Video counts ranging from 5-10,000 usually.

  • Website: We had 86,393 Page views from 24,623 unique visitors, which is more than double the previous year.

  • Podcast and Patreon: 30 day listen rate 382 last episode, Now earning 378 USD after fees. This represents slow, steady growth.

  • Mail chimp: Subscribers went from 1757 to 2276. Steady growth.

  • Youtube: 267 subscribers, nearly all in the last year. Video counts all below 1000, some less than 100. Note: for us, YouTube is more like a video archive for congregations to access. The actual “spread” occurs on Facebook.

  • Worship: We had 250 windows at the first service, and around 100 each at the two after that.

  • Fundraising: The Mod fundraiser raised more than 11,000 USD despite being a bit ad hoc in it’s design.

Other metrics:

-In any group of UUs, several people pretty much always know who the UU Hysterical Society is (and almost never know who Mirth and Dignity is).

-People say all the time what a difference we make to their lives.

-We served 130,000 members on less than fifty cents per member.  And we gave nearly a quarter of that away.