Other Authors

Bill Clontz is a UUA Stewardship Consultant who draws on his experience as a businessman, retired US Army officer, member of the International Mentoring Association, and Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Brookings Institution, focusing on leadership development, strategic planning, and organizational dynamics. Bill is a member of the Mount Vernon Unitarian Church, where he has served on the Board of Trustees, Program Council, Endowment Committee, Strategic Planning and Capital Task Forces, and Ministerial Search Committee. Bill formed the MVUC Leadership Development Team and Communication Council; he has been active in every budget and capital campaign at MVUC for the past 15 years. Bill helps congregations build an environment in which individuals, leaders, and the community can encourage and challenge each other to find the joy in contributing to something larger than themselves, raising their levels of competence and community, and giving life to UU ideals. Bill and his wife Meg live with their fabulous lab Lizzie in Alexandria, VA.

Kay Crider is a UUA consultant who is passionate about helping congregations achieve their hopes and dreams through fun, outstanding stewardship programs! She has more than a decade of professional fundraising experience and has been helping her own UU congregations with stewardship since 1994. She is currently a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene, Oregon where she has served on the annual budget drive, capital campaign, nominating, strategic planning, and DRE advisory committees. She also helps with religious education and has taught the UU curriculum to several age groups and the Our Whole Lives curriculum to middle and high school youth. Another passion for Kay is sustainability and the environment; she teaches environmental law for the University of Oregon Environmental Studies Program and the Lundquist College of Business Center for Sustainable Business Practices.

Mark Ewert is a stewardship consultant for the Unitarian Universalist Association; his focus is on helping congregations to grow their cultures of generosity. In addition to 10 years as a fundraising professional, Mark has been a fundraising consultant, facilitator, and teacher for nonprofit organizations. He has a practice as a leadership coach in the tradition of the Georgetown University Leadership Coaching program. Mark has been a lay leader at All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, DC since 2002. He formed and led their Development Ministry Team (now called the Stewardship Committee) and has served the Generosity Campaign (Annual Budget Drive) as a committee member, as the co-chair, and coordinating all messages and communications pieces. He writes regularly on generosity for his blog, www.generositypath.com/blog, and is writing a book about generosity.

Barry Finkelstein has been a Unitarian Universalist congregational stewardship consultant since the Fall of 2007.  He is a professional management consultant with 30 years of experience helping organizations with strategic planning, project management, information technology, decision support, and fundraising.  Much of his consulting work has been for non-profits, NGOs, and Federal agencies in the Washington, DC area.  Barry is married to Rev. Roberta Finkelstein, and they currently live in Ramsey, NJ.

Mary Gleason is a UUA Stewardship Consultant helping congregations to realize their full potential as a faith community by becoming generous in every thing they do.  In addition to her work with UU congregations, Mary consults with non-profit organizations in the Puget Sound region of Washington State specifically focusing on vision and mission setting, strategic planning, volunteer leadership, governance, and fundraising. Mary is an active member of East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue, WA and has served her congregation through leadership on the board, the annual budget drive, capital campaign, endowment campaign and the annual service auction.  Mary is passionate about healthy non-profits and her UU faith and enjoys helping people realize they can be, and often are, more generous than they ever believed possible.

The Reverend Patricia Hart is a Unitarian Universalist minister and consultant, whose work is focused on change and growth in congregations.  In addition to almost two decades as a congregational consultant and facilitator, Tricia has served five congregations in New England and Pennsylvania as a parish minister.  She currently serves the Unitarian Universalist Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania as Co-Minister with her husband, the Rev. Peter Newport.  Before being settled in Lancaster in 2006, her pastorates were all intentionally short-term ministries, where she gathered experience in the special challenges facing congregations in transition.  And for many years before that, Tricia was an active lay leader in her congregation in Yarmouth, Maine, where she first learned about fundraising, capital campaigns, and what happens when you don’t fix the roof.

Frankie Price Stern is a long term member of the Community Church of Chapel Hill, UU. She recently resigned after ten years as both a stewardship consultant for the Unitarian Universalist Association and a compensation consultant for the Thomas Jefferson District.  In 1996 she retired at age 52 from IBM after 30 years. While at IBM she was an original member of the team that developed and announced the IBM Personal Computer in 1981, and then worked with worldwide PC market research and strategic planning both in the US and Europe.  Her UUA consulting has focused on the careful growth planning and more abundant resources needed by our many energized mission based congregations.  Today she continues her passion for spreading Generosity Spirituality.

Dave Rickard is one of the original Congregational Stewardship Consultants, having started this work in 1985.  In that period he has worked with over 140 of our congregations, helping with strategic planning, annual budget drives, capital campaigns, and endowment funds.  He estimates that he has raised over $35 million in capital campaigns.

Larry Wheeler has been a UU since 1967, and a member of the Westport, CT, Needham, MA, Atlanta, GA and Asheville, NC congregations.  He has served the UU movement on the local, regional and continental levels, including being a UUA Trustee from 1981-89, serving on the Finance Committee for all eight years and chairing it the last four. He helped start The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center in 1979 and returned to the staff in 1997 as their Development Director. He left The Mountain in early 2004 to devote 100% of his time to the UU Fund Raising Consulting Program, which he had joined, part-time in 1993. He has been involved with over 100 UU congregations in that time period with Assessment Workshops, Strategic Planning, Financial Feasibility Studies, Annual Budget Drives, and Capital Campaigns. He is married to Nancy Heath who also was a part of The Mountain staff and is now retired. They live in Asheville, NC and enjoy the out of doors, particularly hiking and white water canoeing. They now volunteer at The Mountain.  Together they have 5 grand children.