Connections

The Economic Downturn = Youth Ministry Downturn?

The yearlong economic downturn has certainly affected every aspect of our lives: job security and job hunting; retirement planning and unplanning; house selling and house buying; attending four-year colleges and community colleges; and vacation trips and vacations at home. It is no surprise, then, that church ministry has been equally affected.

Certainly parishes are concerned about weekly offertory collections and the decline in parish collections lessens the cathedraticum or diocesan tax. Further, many dioceses are reporting lower-than-expected diocesan appeal collections. And if dioceses rely on investment interest for a significant portion of their income, then chanceries and pastoral centers are experiencing severe budget shortfalls. If a diocese has not developed a significant reserve fund, then the immediate response is to reduce pastoral center expenses.

Many dioceses have a genuine commitment to their employees, knowing the severe impact that losing one’s job has on families, especially in an economic climate where finding a new job is not likely. Those dioceses have instituted hiring freezes—lessening salary expenses through attrition; frozen salaries; reduced the number of hours in the workweek so that everyone shares in the reductions; and instituted mandatory furlough days. Laying off staff is seen as the last resort for these dioceses.

Unfortunately, some dioceses went directly to layoffs and office closings as the immediate response. Not knowing any details about those dioceses’ financial situation, it is still unsettling that layoffs are seen as a viable first response. Nine dioceses have closed their offices of youth ministry in the past year. Five dioceses have combined their office of youth ministry with another office (or two), usually the office of religious education, often resulting in a reduction of service to both ministry communities. If the economic downturn lingers, more dioceses will probably choose to either close or combine ministry offices.

Experienced ministry leaders understand the challenge of developing diocesan ministry and the time commitment needed to establish momentum. Closing offices completely greatly stifles and even suffocates ministry efforts in a diocese.

Interestingly, in the year prior to the economic downturn, twenty-nine dioceses hired new directors of youth ministry. None of these are among the recently closed offices. And currently, nine dioceses have open director positions for which they are hiring—some certainly more aggressively than others.

All of this points towards an unstable diocesan scene. How has NFCYM responded to the economic realities?

NFCYM Financial Plans

In January 2009 the Finance and Marketing Management Committee (FMMC) defined financial stability as “the ability to limit, contain, and deal with the emergence of imbalances before they constitute a threat to the NFCYM and the services provided to its members.” In other words, to plan for and to handle economic downturns before they impact our services and programs.

The first step was to authorize the creation of an operating reserve of “designated funds maintained in a separate account that have been set aside for use in emergencies to sustain financial operations by the NFCYM for a period of six months.” A six-month reserve is more than the industry standard. The FMMC set a goal of $600,000 for the reserve fund and NFCYM is on track to meet that goal within the next six to twelve months.

However, we have also made hard decisions as we await the registrations for NCYC, a primary source of income for NFCYM programs and services. Acting on the FMMC recommendations, the board of directors has:

• Contained the facilities cost at the 2009 NCYC by reducing the number of venues needed
• Reduced the funds available for new management committee projects
• Deferred several membership projects until 2010
• Frozen staff salaries and benefits
• Eliminated management committee meetings outside of the membership meeting
• Contained management, administration, and office expenses
• Reduced the budgeted registrations for NCYC

The board has also made several proactive decisions:

• Expanded our marketing efforts for the 2009 NCYC, 2010 NCCYM, and our publications
• Expanded our corporate sponsorships at NCYC—now about $240,000 with a budget impact of $145,000
• Maintained the $179,000 in complimentary registrations we provide at NCYC, NCCYM, and at the Annual Membership Meeting
• Increased the number of grant applications for specific NFCYM programs

The board of directors will review our financial reality and current budget at their January meeting and inform our membership about our financial health, conscious of our financial goals:

• To be good stewards of our resources
• To develop the financial resources needed to actualize our mission
• To assure our financial future by steadily increasing our reserve funds

Just as in one’s personal life where stress can magnify our strengths and our weaknesses, the current economic stress highlights our organizational character. And we can rest assured that NFCYM is blessed with proactive, visionary leadership in our board, management committees, and staff.