By the Rev. Rowan Larson, Chair, UTO Grant Committee
At the end of September, I spoke to my diocesan convention about the 2027 UTO grant focus: “We are the gifts of God for the people of God.” This gave me the chance to break down what exactly we mean when we say, “innovative and imaginative projects which are rooted in their communities with a distinctively local response.”
At convention, I told the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Montana that this year, the UTO Board will be looking for three key things in grant applications:
First, is your project local? Your project should be something only you can do because of who you are and where you’re located. My example in Montana is a project we’re working on around bear safety our camp, Camp Marshall. This makes a lot of sense for us in Montana, but it wouldn’t make sense at a camp in Hawaii—not a lot of bears there!
Second, is your project rooted in your community? One of the things that makes Camp Marshall special is its location on tribal land within the Flathead Indian Reservation. While many people and organizations in the Mountain West can teach about bear safety, what if Camp Marshall reached out to members of the Salish and Kootenai tribes to collaborate on this project? Given that Camp Marshall is on their ancestral lands, involving tribe members would honor their deep connections to the land and wildlife, including bears, while further rooting the project in the local community.
Third, is there something you believe will result from your project that you can pass on to others? What will you learn through your ministry? What will your work create? How can gratitude fuel an economy of reciprocity, in which the gifts we receive are passed on to others? This is what we mean by “the gifts of God for the people of God.” Not only are we giving a gift by ministering to others, but the ministry itself is a gift that can be passed on!
I hope this is helpful to you, dear readers, as you dream and plan for (and hopefully write) your 2027 UTO grant application!
P.S. It turns out that Camp Marshall already had started an application for a project about bears in collaboration with their Indigenous neighbors!
UTO welcomes first-time grant writers, and we hope that having extended time for grant writing makes it a collaborative rather than competitive experience. You can access all the materials here: https://unitedthankoffering.com/apply/. We are here to help. Please reach out to Heather with any questions: hmelton@episcopalchurch.org.
