Jan Gartner, Compensation and Staffing Practices Manager

UU Congregations have been asked to participate in this year's Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey, which explores religious life in America. Congregational Administrators, Board Presidents, and Ministers received a link to the survey on March 1. Please coordinate so that ONE survey is filled out per congregation by March 22.

This is the seventh survey in the FACT series, begun in the year 2000. It provides religious leaders of all traditions critical information about the changing nature of congregational life and how to respond effectively. The 2023 survey is also being conducted in partnership with the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations study, which is actively researching change and innovation in the American religious landscape as a result of COVID-19.

The survey is completely confidential. Combined results will be published later this year on the Faith Communities Today website, where previous findings are freely available, as well.

Did you know that you can now have your insurance invoices paid automatically from your congregation's bank account? ACH forms were recently sent to congregations. Additionally, as a convenience, you can sign up for online insurance invoice access, although your congregation will continue to receive invoices via snail-mail, regardless.

While our Retirement Plan recordkeeper change requires all congregations to shift to electronic remitting of contributions, nothing about your insurance invoices or payments is changing at this time – unless you want it to!  

Are you, or is someone you know, a lay leader in Unitarian Universalism who will be entering the first year of seminary in 2023, or is undertaking undergraduate work to prepare for
seminary? The Rev. Chuck and Nancy Thomas Scholarship honors Rev. Chuck Thomas’s career and his family’s commitment to lay leadership in Unitarian Universalism by awarding this scholarship to one such student each year. Thomas Scholars qualify for this award by demonstrating their outstanding commitment to Unitarian Universalism as lay leaders. 

Click on the button below to learn more and to apply for this and other scholarships for ministerial students. Applications are being accepted now and must be submitted no later than April 14, 2023.  

Hello, friends! It has been a long time coming, but the transition from TIAA to Empower has officially started. We are currently in “blackout” as the transition teams from both TIAA and Empower work together to make sure that all assets and participant accounts are transferred to Empower accurately. We know that some of you have experienced distress (either personally or one of your staff) in discovering that your TIAA balance is now $0, but rest assured our participant funds will be ready at Empower once we come out of blackout and go live. The target date for the end of blackout is March 12th, so stay tuned for an official announcement that the Plan is live.   

Thank you to all of the Plan admins on this list who attended one of the Empower Plan Service Center (PSC) training sessions hosted by Empower the week of February 13th. Hopefully you found those sessions helpful. For those who were not able to attend, Empower is in the process of compiling the recordings and the FAQs and we will be pushing out those resources to all of you as soon as we have access. In the meantime, please visit our Knowledge Base Plan Admin section (button below) for instructions, resources and links to the form templates needed for enrolling employees and remitting contributions.

For those of you who are set up as Empower PSC users for your location, Jackie Toone, our Employer Liaison, is hosting open Office Hours this week and next to provide assistance and answer questions on the new enrollment and remitting processes. Check your email for the dates, times, and zoom link.

REMINDER: Please make sure that your location has turned off autopay for contributions to be sent to TIAA. We are still receiving notifications from TIAA that they are receiving checks. TIAA will not process these checks and will refund them back to your location. You will need to resubmit those contributions to Empower once the Plan is live.   

Many thanks to all of you for your patience and willingness to learn new processes as we move through this very important transition for the UU Retirement Plan. Continue to reach out with your questions and feedback at RetirementPlan@uua.org.

  

We appreciate all of you so much and look forward to working with you through the transition and beyond.