UCE Pledge Drive

What does love in action mean for you?

At UCE, love is not just something we feel. It is something we practice.
Love in action is showing up for one another.
Love in action is a sustaining community that nurtures the human spirit, especially in uncertain and difficult times. 

❤️It’s families coming together for fun and connection.
🧡It’s sending Get Out The Vote postcards, and notes of encouragement or sympathy.
💛It’s tending to our gardens and clearing leaves to keep our neighbors safe.
💚It’s worshipping and singing together…and a vibrant, noisy Nest.
💙It’s showing up at protests, rallies, and vigils as a Beacon of Light.
💜It’s hosting an overnight shelter or offering a free meal. 

Love means choosing to invest in a beloved community that helps us live out our values.

Our annual pledge drive is one of the primary ways love becomes tangible here. It helps ensure that UCE remains a place of spiritual grounding, meaningful worship, courageous justice-seeking, lifelong faith formation, and deep belonging. Simply put, your financial support helps love move from intention into action.

As we look toward the next church year, the Board of Trustees continues to steward UCE’s resources with care and clarity. Our shared goals include sustaining strong programming, fairly compensating our staff, and supporting the long-term financial health of the congregation so that UCE can remain a steady, loving presence in our wider community. Our pledge drive goal for the 2026-2027 Fiscal year is $701,500, a modest annual increase of 5.5%.

Members and friends should receive a personalized ask letter via e-mail in January or February. If you didn’t receive that, please let the Pledge Drive Team know. Once you’ve read your letter, take a moment to complete your pledge form online today. If it is possible for you to make your pledge payments automatically through your bank account, that maximizes your contribution as there are no fees. Setting that up can be done through vanco. If you have any questions about that, please contact our Staff Accountant, Vickie Doebele at finance@ucevanston.og. 

We are attempting to make filling out your pledge form easier this year by setting it up directly through Realm. If you have any questions or challenges in doing filling it out, please contact Adam Gough at agough@ucevanston.org or 847-864-1330.

The Support Team will be available to answer your questions and help you complete the form, either online or on paper. You can reach the team by calling 847-864-1330, Ext. 111, or emailing pledgeinfo@ucevanston.org.  In addition, members of the Support Team will be available before and after the Sunday service on February 15th, 22nd, and March 1st to assist you with completing your pledge form.

We ask that you submit your pledge by March 1st, 2026. Doing so allows the Board to finalize the 2026–2027 budget in time to present it to the congregation in May.

We understand that each family has a different circumstance and everyone has to decide for themselves the right level of giving. Some are long-time supporters who pledge early each year. Some are newer and still learning how the pledge process works, and what level of contribution makes sense. Others may feel less connected or unsure about how to engage. We hope to encourage each individual and family to contribute in a meaningful and joy-filled way.

We hope you have already seen love in action at UCE this year:
…in worship that holds both grief and hope,
…in care offered quietly and faithfully,
…in justice work that serves the wider community,
…and in moments of laughter, music, and connection that remind us why this beloved community matters.

Thank you for all the ways you show up. Thank you for the love you bring. And thank you for helping ensure that UCE remains a place where love is not only spoken, but lived.

With gratitude,

Rev. Eileen Wiviott
Senior Minister and member of the UCE 2026–2027 Pledge Drive Team

Actions and Asks:

❤️Complete your pledge form online today.
💛Set up automatic payments from your bank account through vanco.
💜Contact the Pledge Drive Team with questions or concerns.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Each year the Budget Working Group (composed of our Treasurer, Senior Minister, and members of the Integrated Stewardship Council) drafts an operating budget to reflect the priorities of the congregation and to meet the needs identified by the ministers, staff, and lay leadership. It embodies the ways in which we seek to live out our shared values together.

At the heart of our budget is support for our staff. Their dedication helps bring our mission statement to life by providing the vision and structure through which we, as members and friends, can contribute our gifts and passions.

Your donations, including pledges, shared offering, and congregational fundraisers, provide 80 percent of the operating budget, with the remaining 20 percent coming from rentals each year. Once approved by the congregation in May, the budget is our guide for spending throughout the coming year, as well as a tool for transparency and accountability.

The Board of Trustees and Integrated Stewardship Council commits to living into these values through our budget:

  • Paying our dedicated staff an equitable and living wage
  • Continuing our Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression work
  • Investing in and supporting efforts to be a welcoming and diverse Beloved community
  • Making decisions that support operational vitality and viability
  • Empowering the Board to work towards their priorities, including exploring our identity and communication across difference

In our efforts to be as fiscally responsible as we can be and to manage the stewardship of our congregation in a transparent way, we ask each member and pledging friend household to submit a pledge every year (approximately 3 months before the fiscal year begins on July 1) so that we can budget and responsibly plan for the coming year. If you want to continue the pledge you submitted when joining, please let us know by completing the form for the coming fiscal year.

We encourage you to complete the pledge form online, which you can find by clicking here. When you submit your pledge, you will receive a receipt via e-mail. You may also complete a printed form and mail it to UCE, 1330 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201.

Yes! We have UCE members trained to answer your questions about the pledge drive and to assist you in completing and submitting your pledge. You can reach the Pledge Drive Team by calling 847-864-1330 ext. 111 or e-mailing them at pledgeinfo@ucevanston.org.

If you can’t make a pledge at this time but would like to affirm your membership, please contact Rev. Eileen Wiviott (ewiviott@ucevanston.org), Rev. Susan Frances (sfrances@ucevanston.org), or a member of the pledge drive team (pledgeinfo@ucevanston.org).

Love in Action: 2026/2027 UCE Pledge Drive; A World Made Whole Production

Progress towards our goal:

$703,102 / $701,500

Pledge Form

Download printable form
How to set up Vanco payments

How can I make my pledge payments?

If you make your contributions by automatic bank account withdrawal, it involves fewer steps for you and the UCE administrative office, but it does incur a transaction fee. However, the fee is lower than making your contribution by credit or debit card. Please click here for instructions to set up automatic withdrawal via Vanco.

If you make your contribution by check, it involves a few steps for you and the UCE administrative office, but it does not incur a transaction fee. Compared to the other modes, using checks to make your contributions is the least expensive to UCE.

If you select this mode of making your contribution, please write PLEDGE in the memo line of your check. You may mail the check to the UCE office, or you can drop the check off at the collection basket during the Sunday services.

If you make your contributions by credit or debit card, it involves fewer steps for you and UCE, but it incurs a transaction fee. Using your credit or debit card to make your contribution incurs a higher fee than the other modes of payment. Please click here for instructions to set up payment via Vanco.

If you make your contributions via Text-To-Give, it involves additional steps for you and a few for the UCE office, but it incurs transaction fees. You cannot set up a recurring payment, and the transaction fees are similar to those of credit and debit cards.

If you select this mode of payment, please text a message at 844-730-6645. Enter the dollar amount of your contribution in your message and the word PLEDGE (e.g., 100 PLEDGE to make a $100 payment). Adding the notation helps the UCE office to allocate your contribution as part of your pledge.

Please consider making your pledge contribution by donating shares of common stock to UCE. This option might have tax advantages for you over making cash donations. This is a relatively simple process, which your broker and the UCE office can handle.

You may increase the value of your donation to UCE at no additional cost to you. Some employers have programs to match employees’ charitable contributions. Contact the UCE office for more information about the employer matching contribution program.

You may have other financial means to make charitable contribution, which often provides benefits to you, such as in taxation. If you like to explore using other forms of making your pledge contributions, please contact the UCE office.