Finance

• Budgeting
• Finance Team
• Monthly Financial Review Process
• Donations & Fundraising
• Community MicroGrant Program
• Donor Cultivation
• Capital Campaigns
• Internal Controls
• Records Retention & Destruction

Budgeting

1. Purpose

This guidance exists to support an aligned, transparent, and mission-driven budgeting process that empowers staff while ensuring accountability to Board policy. It clarifies roles and timelines in the development of the annual operating budget and reinforces our values of collective courage and joyful resilience through shared responsibility and proactive planning.

2. Organizational Guidance

The annual budgeting process is led by the Senior Minister, who may delegate preparation tasks to executive staff while maintaining overall accountability. The framework for staff and group involvement is as follows:

• The Senior Minister may delegate part or all of the budget preparation process to members of the Executive Team.

• Individual staff members are expected to collaborate with the Finance Executive to:

  • Review current-year activity,

  • Forecast needs, and

  • Submit proposed budgets for their areas of responsibility.

• The Finance Executive is responsible for producing a draft working budget and leading collaborative review cycles.

• The budgeting process must begin no later than September 1 each year.

• The Board must affirm the proposed budget no later than November 30 so that it may be presented to the congregation in time for approval.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.2 – Budget Creation and Oversight

• Board Policy 3.3.2.1 – Operating Budget

Finance Team

1. Purpose
This guidance defines the structure and role of the Finance Team in supporting transparency, accountability, and sound financial practices. As a lay-led body of financial advisors, the Finance Team helps ensure alignment between financial reporting and the Board’s policies, while fostering congregational trust through shared leadership and oversight. This team reflects our values of transparency, shared wisdom, and responsible stewardship.

2. Organizational Guidance
The Finance Executive (Director of Finance and Operations) maintains a Finance Team composed of church members with relevant financial expertise. The framework for team composition and responsibilities includes:

• The team must consist of at least three members.

• Members must be current Foothills Unitarian members; non-members are not eligible to serve.

• No team member may have official responsibility in the church’s accounting process (e.g., bookkeeper, controller).

• All members must complete a nondisclosure agreement and pass a background check prior to serving.

Responsibilities and expectations:

• Meet at least quarterly, but may choose to meet monthly.

• Review monthly financial reports, including Statement of Activities (P&L), Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet), and cash flow forecasting.

• Review the Quarterly Board Report for accuracy, clarity, and transparency before submission to the Board of Trustees.

• Stay familiar with all relevant Board Policies, especially those under 3.3 Care for Material Resources.

• Suggest additions and revisions to organizational guidance that aligns with Board Policy. 
• Offer feedback and recommendations to the Finance Executive to support sound financial strategy and risk mitigation.

• Be available to audit finance meetings upon request (open to church members only).

• Support the Finance Executive in any additional expertise sought that you are able to offer.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.8 – Financial Transparency and Reporting

• Board Policy 3.3.1 – Financial Accountability of the Senior Minister

• Board Policy 3.3.2 – Budget Creation and Oversight

Monthly Financial Review Process

1. Purpose
This guidance establishes the internal monthly financial review process to ensure accurate reporting, effective oversight, and compliance with Board policies. It reflects our commitment to financial transparency, accountability, and responsible stewardship in service of our mission and values.

2. Organizational Guidance
The monthly review process involves coordinated responsibilities among staff and external review with financial oversight roles. Each role contributes to producing accurate and meaningful financial information for decision-making and monitoring:

• Bookkeeper Responsibilities:

  • Manage all Accounts Payable transactions.

  • Ensure accurate chart of accounts coding for all entries.

  • Receive and deposit funds in a timely and secure manner.
    
    

• Controller Responsibilities:

  • Oversee and execute the month-end closing process.

  • Reconcile accounts and generate accurate monthly financial reports.

  • Provide completed financial reports to the Finance Executive.
    
    

• Finance Executive Responsibilities:

  • Review all monthly reports for accuracy, consistency, and clarity.

  • Make budget amendments in response to actual activity, within Board policy limitations.

  • Submit final financial reports to:

    • The Staff Executive Team for operational awareness.

    • The Board of Trustees as part of financial monitoring and oversight.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.1 – Financial Accountability of the Senior Minister

• Board Policy 3.3.8 – Financial Transparency and Reporting

• Finance Team Guidance

Donations & Fundraising

1. Purpose
This guidance supports responsible and transparent stewardship of donor contributions in alignment with Foothills’ mission and Board policy. It ensures that donations are handled consistently, with clarity about their use and expectations for record-keeping. It reflects our values of trust, integrity, and shared responsibility in sustaining our ministries.

2. Organizational Guidance

• Donation Allocation

  • Unless otherwise designated by the donor or specified in a fundraising effort, all donations are allocated to the general operating fund.

  • Donations to the general operating fund may be used within the limits of the congregation-approved budget at the discretion of the Senior Minister, in compliance with Board Policy.
    
    

• Designated Contributions

  • Donor intent must be honored for all designated or restricted gifts.

  • The Finance Executive is responsible for ensuring proper tracking and use of these funds.
    
    

• Record Retention

  • Records of all donations must be retained for a minimum of seven years.

  • Donation records must be stored in a secure, access-controlled system that is available to at least two staff members to ensure continuity and oversight.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.5 – Fundraising

• Board Policy 3.3.8 – Financial Transparency and Reporting

Community MicroGrant Program

1. Purpose

This procedure sets consistent expectations for how the Community MicroGrant Program works at Foothills - what donors are told, how the offering is divided, and how it relates to the procedures governing any specific fund (such as the Food Security Fund) that occupies the recipient slot for a given series.

The Program is Foothills' standing practice for the weekly offering: it runs every Sunday, so this procedure covers the church's regular Sunday giving as a whole.

2. The Basic Mechanism

Every Sunday, the offering is split 50% to the current series' designated recipient and 50% to the church's general mission. The recipient rotates by worship series, not week to week - a series typically runs somewhere between 4 and 8 Sundays, and is named at the start of the series it serves. The "general mission" half is not itself a specific fund; it always supports Foothills' own operations, regardless of which recipient is designated for that series.

A given series' recipient is usually an outside community partner organization, but the same slot can instead be filled by one of Foothills' own internal funds (see Section 7), or by a UUA program or fund (see Section 8).

3. Timing & Scope of a Designation

A recipient's designation runs from the first Sunday they are introduced through the Saturday before the next recipient is introduced. This window - matching the length of the current worship series - rather than a fixed calendar period, is what defines which Sundays count toward a given recipient.

A designation is a commitment of a share of the collective plate over that window, not a pass-through of any individual person's specific gift to that organization. Foothills is not routing a particular donor's money to a particular recipient; it is designating 50% of the offering, in aggregate, for the duration of that recipient's window.

Because of this, requests to direct a gift to a recipient whose window has already closed are not accommodated. A gift received after a recipient's window ends counts toward whichever recipient is currently designated, not a past one - there is nothing to "redirect," since no individual gift was ever earmarked to begin with.

Program giving is also entirely separate from pledge giving. A gift given through the basket, QR code, or Church Center App during a Program offering does not count toward, reduce, or fulfill any pledge a donor has made to Foothills' annual giving campaign. Pledge fulfillment and Program giving are tracked as two distinct funds.

4. Giving Channels

Donors may give through the offering basket (cash or check), a QR code, or the Church Center App. Basket cash generally cannot be traced back to an individual giver; QR code and Church Center App gifts can.

5. What Donors Should Be Told: the Standard Script

Foothills uses a common script each Sunday describing how the offering is shared with the current series' community partner. It should be used consistently (minor wording variation is fine, but the elements below should always be present):

 In our congregation, we share in a practice of generosity by giving away half of our offering plate every Sunday to a community partner who shares our values. This month, our designated Share the Plate recipient is ___________.

 (Community MicroGrant slide showing the recipient's name and logo, with information about their mission, their impact, and how it connects to Foothills' mission.)

  Everything you place in the basket or give via the QR code or Church Center App will be shared equally with ______________ and to support our mission to unleash courageous love in our lives and all across Northern Colorado, and beyond. We will now gratefully receive your generous offering.

At minimum, the script should always name the current series' recipient, describe its mission/impact and connection to Foothills, and state plainly that giving is shared equally between that recipient and the church's general mission. This spoken script is the primary record of what donors were told for any given window.

6. Selecting Series Designations

Recipients are chosen series by series, not month by month. The Senior Minister generally selects designations as part of planning the worship calendar, and tries to choose a recipient whose mission connects to the theme of the upcoming series.

The Senior Minister retains ongoing discretion to add a new recipient, end an existing recipient's status, or replace a planned designation at any point. This includes redirecting a series toward an urgent, short-term need; a redirection of this kind may be determined by either the Senior Minister or Executive Minister, without needing to redo the broader plan. Any such change still follows the transparency requirement in Section 5: whoever leads the ask must clearly state the recipient and purpose to donors that Sunday.

7. When an Internal Fund Is the Designated Recipient

For some series, the recipient slot is filled by one of Foothills' own funds (for example, the Food Security Fund) rather than an outside organization. In that case:

• The fund receives the 50% recipient share for every Sunday within its designated window, on the same terms as an outside partner would.
• The script's description of the recipient's "mission, impact, and connection to our congregation's mission" should describe the fund's current purpose in plain terms, consistent with that fund's own procedure.
• The fund's own administrative procedure - not this one - governs how its share is subsequently used, who may authorize disbursements, and how it is reported on.

8. Eligibility of Designated Recipients

Recipients are not selected from the general public or from cold outreach. To be eligible for a series designation, an organization or group must be one of the following:

• An active partner of one of Foothills' justice teams, or a partner in active relationship with the congregation as a whole, in an ongoing, regular, and accountable relationship with Foothills - not a one-time or nominal connection. This relationship is itself the vetting mechanism, rather than a separate application or approval process.
• A UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) program or fund, which is eligible by virtue of Foothills' ongoing denominational relationship with the Association, without needing to separately meet the justice-team/congregational-partner test above.
• One of Foothills' own internal funds (see Section 7).

9. Handling & Recordkeeping

A designated staff person, usually the Groups Coordinator, counts the Sunday offering and records it in the Sunday report in Base Camp, alongside attendance headcounts. From there, the bookkeeper handles the accounting: cutting the check to that series' external recipient, and recording totals in the Worship Coordinating Hub Spreadsheet once the check has been cut. When the recipient is an internal fund, the bookkeeper credits the share to that fund's records instead of cutting an outside check.

10. Relationship to Fund-Specific Procedures

When the designated recipient is an internal fund, that fund's own procedure governs its further use, eligible purposes, disbursement authorization, and reporting once its share is received. This procedure governs only how the Community MicroGrant Program itself works: what donors are told, how the offering is divided, and how a given window's recipient is chosen.

11. Reporting

Program activity - recipients, windows served, and amounts raised - is reported to the Executive Team quarterly by the Controller, and to the Board by the Senior Minister as part of the quarterly financial report, and summarized again as part of annual reporting.

12. Annual Review

This procedure should be reviewed annually by the Senior Minister and revised as needed to reflect actual practice.

13. Board Policy Basis: This procedure is issued under the Senior Minister's global delegation of authority (Board Policy 2.2) and interprets the following Board policies:

• 2.2.3 (Information Retention and Distribution) - written procedures for how Program proceeds are counted, recorded, and transferred. 
• 2.4.1 (Financial Accountability of the Senior Minister) - preventing unauthorized use of designated funds, which is the basis for Section 3's rule that a designation cannot be redirected after a recipient's window closes.
• 2.4.5 (Fundraising) - the Senior Minister's responsibility to ensure fundraising activities that further the Mission, Values, and Vision.
  
• 2.4.8 (Financial Transparency and Reporting) - quarterly and annual reporting to the Board.

Note on fiscal agency: Policy 2.4.7 describes fiscal sponsorship as Foothills supporting a new organization that doesn't yet have its own 501(c)(3) status, acting as its sponsor under Foothills' own tax-exempt status. Distributing Program proceeds to an already-established 501(c)(3) partner organization is ordinary charitable giving, not fiscal sponsorship.

Issued by: Rev. Gretchen Haley, Senior Minister
Effective Date: July 20, 2026

Donor Cultivation

1. Purpose
This guidance articulates Foothills’ fundraising philosophy, grounded in abundance, gratitude, and relational stewardship. It affirms that our approach to generosity-building should reflect our mission, center in partnership for resourcing, include joyful connection, and uplift the dignity of all participants.

2. Organizational Guidance

• Philosophy of Generosity

  • Whenever possible, fundraising should be rooted in a mindset of abundance, not scarcity.

  • We acknowledge and celebrate the generosity of all contributors, regardless of amount.
    
    

• Relational Approach

  • Fundraising teams and leaders should prioritize:

    • Personal outreach and relationship building

    • Transparent communication about needs and impact

    • Timely gratitude and acknowledgment
      
      

• Team Involvement

  • A volunteer team should be engaged regularly to:

    • Support outreach to individual donors

    • Thank and celebrate contributions

    • Help grow the culture of generosity within the congregation

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.5 – Fundraising

Capital Campaigns

1. Purpose
This guidance defines the shared responsibilities for discerning, initiating, and planning a capital campaign. It ensures that capital fundraising efforts are strategic, feasible, and aligned with mission-driven priorities.

2. Organizational Guidance

• Assessment and Initiation

  • When operational or capital needs exceed regular fundraising capacity, the Executive Team shall:

    • Assess feasibility using internal data and community input
      

    • Develop a study or planning process to clarify capacity and timeline

    • Evaluate and identify staffing and funding resources needed for implementation. 
      
      

• Role Clarity

  • The Board initiates capital campaigns by vote.

  • The Senior Minister and Executive Team operationalize and lead the campaign with staff and volunteer teams.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.5 – Fundraising

• Board Policy 3.3.3.2 – Endowment Fund

• Board Policy 3.3.3 – Spending and Reserve Limits

Internal Controls

1. Purpose
This guidance outlines Foothills Unitarian’s internal control framework to safeguard financial assets, ensure the integrity of financial information, and uphold trust in the stewardship of congregational resources. It supports compliance with Board Policy and reflects our values of accountability, transparency, and shared leadership.

2. Organizational Guidance
Foothills implements a multi-layered internal controls system to prevent fraud, ensure accurate reporting, and promote responsible financial management. 

Separation of Duties

• No single staff member may hold full responsibility for authorization, custody, and record-keeping of any financial transaction.

• Core financial processes (e.g., deposits, disbursements, reconciliations, reporting) are distributed across distinct roles.

Authorization and Approval Thresholds

• The Finance Executive reviews all expenses exceeding $500.

Banking & Payment Controls

• Credit cards are issued by role and managed through Bill.com, which includes approval workflows and transaction coding.

• Receipts or verifiable online transaction records are required for all purchases over $75.

• All staff with a business credit card are required to provide purchase coding and receipts by the 5th of the month for the prior month. 

Access and Permissions

• Access to QuickBooks Online, Church Center, and other financial systems is restricted by role.

• The Finance Executive oversees permissions and conducts periodic audits of user access.

Reconciliation & Review

• Monthly reconciliation of bank and credit card accounts is conducted by the Bookkeeper and reviewed by the Controller.

• Monthly financial reports are reviewed by the Executive Team and Finance Team.

• Quarterly financial reports are reviewed by the Board of Trustees.

Documentation & Retention

• A current Chart of Accounts is maintained and shared with staff who have budget oversight.

• All financial records (digital and physical) are retained for at least 7 years.

• Secure storage protocols are in place to protect confidential or sensitive information.

Training & Accountability

• Staff with financial responsibilities receive training on this internal controls framework.

• The Finance Executive monitors implementation through ongoing review and spot checks.

3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.1 – Financial Accountability

• Board Policy 3.3.8 – Financial Transparency and Reporting

• SOP – Expense Approval and Reimbursement (need to create/tag)

• SOP – Monthly Close and Reconciliation (need to create/tag)

Records Retention & Destruction

1. Purpose
This guidance ensures that Foothills Unitarian retains and securely manages records in accordance with legal, ethical, and operational standards. It supports Board Policy 3.3.8 by safeguarding sensitive information, maintaining accountability, and preserving the institutional memory vital to our mission and continuity.

2. Organizational Guidance

Foothills Unitarian maintains a structured retention and destruction system for financial, administrative, and pastoral records. This ensures appropriate access, compliance, and care throughout the lifecycle of church documentation.

Retention Schedule

Records are kept for the minimum duration required to fulfill regulatory, legal, operational, and historical needs.

Secure Storage

• Digital records are maintained in secure, access-restricted platforms (e.g., QuickBooks Online, Church Center, Google Drive).
• Physical records are kept in locked file cabinets or designated archive areas within the building.
• Access is granted only to appropriate staff based on their role.

Authorized Destruction

• Records exceeding their retention timeline are destroyed annually by designated staff.

• Destruction must be secure:

  • Shredding for physical records
  • Permanent deletion from cloud platforms

• Exceptions: Records under legal hold or investigation may not be destroyed, even if they have passed their retention period.

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3. Related Content

• Board Policy 3.3.8 – Financial Transparency and Reporting
• Internal Controls