"To Expand the Circle of Thankful People." To achieve this mission, we encourage daily prayers, offerings, and an awareness of God's blessings.
The United Thank Offering is a program of the Episcopal Church for the mission of the whole church, founded by and administered by women since 1889. To achieve this mission, daily prayers, offerings and awareness of the abundance of God's blessings are encouraged. The offerings are then collected, primarily during parish "ingatherings" on two designated Sundays each year - the Sunday following Ascension Day and the Sunday closest to All Saints' Day.
A UTO Committee is entrusted to promote thank offerings to receive the offerings and to annually distribute the thank offering monies through national and international grants. The committee awards and administers grant monies within the framework of the policies and procedures of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. In 2007, 104 UTO grants totaling $2,439,342.46 were awarded. A little more than 50 percent of the grant requests were funded, though many of those did not receive the full asking as monies were just not available. The total amount of requests came to over $8 million. The many prayer offerings given by North Carolinians do indeed come back to North Carolina through the UTO. To understand just how it works, read the 2007 United Thank Offering Annual Report by Eva Morriss.
How to apply: United Thank Offering application forms for grants to be disbursed the following year are available by October 1 of each year. To request a 2008 grant application, call Margo Acomb or Pat Hathaway at Diocesan House (919-834-7474 or 800-448-8775), or get in touch with Eva Morriss, UTO Coordinator.
The absolute deadline for completed UTO grant applications for 2008 is November 30, 2007. In advance of each granting cycle, specific deadlines will be published in this space as well as in other ECW literature. A screening committee, chaired by the Diocesan UTO Coordinator, and comprised primarily of Diocesan ECW board members, meets in early December to review all applications, and along with the Diocesan Bishop, selects two to be submitted to the national reviewing committee in January. Grants are announced in the spring or summer.
United Thank Offering materials -- "blue boxes", offering envelopes, bulletin inserts, placemats, logos, etc. -- may be ordered in one of three ways:
(1) contact Episcopal Books and Resources (EBAR) at (800) 903-5544 or online (type "UTO" in the search box)
(3) use the order form in the UTO packet sent to your church
