Your support today will keep me living indoors.

I'm sure you've seen them, all the letters that folk like me send to folk like you because we know that this is the time of the year when most of our fund raising dollars will come in. And in an economy like this one, there are loads of Executive Directors out there, like me, who are wondering if the money will come at all.

The answer is only known by you, trusty donor.

But, one thing is certain, now more than ever thinking about who you're giving your hard earned money, donations and time is vital to the life of the programs that support those who are most vulnerable. And this is the part of the letter where beg you to make Welcome the organization you give your money to.

Insert a heart warming story for those who give from the heart. Insert a fancy invitation and creative end of the year fundraiser, for those who need an event.

The links above will connect you to the tried and true fund raising strategies that you'll find in all those letters coming to your doorstep this month. Enjoy them if that's what works for you.

But I thought this year I'd try something new: the truth. The truth is that Welcome is an amazing organization that helps people one-on-one improve their quality of life through our core programing that teaches volunteers hospitality as we feed more than 680 individuals a month.

We also provide education for congregations and faithful individuals throughout the country. More than 89,000 read our blogs, I led 74 church services and spoke at 13 universities, national conferences, shelters and congregations around the country.

All our work is completed by 1 staff person and our more than 875 volunteers a year. But, we are so good an organizing communities, that nearly all the stuff we give away (more than 3,600 outfits, toiletries and socks a year and more than $3,000 of food a month) we get for free from donations.

This means when other organizations tell you that they spend very little on salaries and most of their funds go towards stuff for people, we do the exact opposite. We get all the stuff donated from congregations, organizations and individuals around the country and feed more than 8,000 people a year for about $7,000 a month. Most of this cost is my salary.

So today, I am literally begging you to help pay my rent. Living in San Francisco, my salary at Welcome only $7,000 a year more than my rent costs. You can see why a downturn in the economy makes me very very nervous. We are not an organization that can cut fluff from our budget during a tough fund raising year.

I am a pastor who works with the homeless, but I am reminded with each paycheck how close to homelessness I am myself.

Why would you want to help pay my rent? Well, if you've followed my blogs you've probably noticed how hard I work and how much I get done. But beyond that, you know that helping me stay housed, in turn helps thousands and thousands of others.

When I had the idea to make a farm that could provide free food to people in our neighborhood people thought I was crazy and it couldn't be done. When I fought to create the Homeless Identification Project, people thought we could never get funding for it.

These ideas have all come out of my deep listening to the homeless that I am blessed to get to work with. But, the real truth is that each year Welcome needs to come up with new innovative ways to serve the homeless or we are unable to get major grant support from foundations.

Together, with hundreds of other donors, your gift of $20, $150, $2000 can make a real difference to me.

Your gift today will take my mind off paying my own rent, so I can go back to supporting the homeless and hungry who need my time and support more than they ever had. $43 pays for an hour I spend with someone to help them avoid relapse; $129 can provide trauma care for a veteran and help them navigate life in supportive housing; and $258 allows me enough time with a homeless youth to help them find a job, reconnect with family and find alternatives to suicide.

If you don't have cash to spare during this difficult time, you can always help by recommending our program to your friends; asking folk to support us rather than giving you Christmas gifts; donating items to Community Thrift on behalf of our organization or by encouraging your congregations to support us with their benevolence funds.

Please consider donating now online or by mail:
Welcome, 1751 Sacramento St., San Francisco, 94109

Thank you for all the ways you support Welcome throughout the year!

Rev. Megan Rohrer
Executive Director

P.S. Your support now, helps us feed and care for thousands of homeless individuals in San Francisco.

Doing More with Less

Throughout this blog, you have probably noticed that Welcome is doing more to directly support those living in poverty and to educate communities about homelessness and poverty than we have ever done before.

We not only have more programs, but we are also serving more people than ever before due to the economic downturn and closure of many other local organizations. At the same time, foundations that we were once able to count on for regular operational support have shifted their focus or stopped giving out money all together. While giving from individuals exceeded our budget in every area, we still had to tap into our rainy day fund in order to make it through 2009.

Thankfully, frugal spending and smart saving in past years was able to help us weather this difficult new economy. This year, Welcome faces the unique challenge of not only raising our general operating expenses, but also replenishing our rainy day funds.

Other organizations like to show that only a small percentage of their budget goes to staff salaries, Welcome works so closely with the community that we are able to get in-kind donations for nearly all of the food, toiletries, garden supplies and other material items that we share with those living in poverty. As a result, almost our entire budget is the salaries of our Executive Director, Director of Independent Living, Intern and Volunteer Corp member.

While the overwhelming majority of our donations come in during November and December (around Thanksgiving and Christmas), the salaries of the Welcome staff are paid evenly throughout the whole year. This year, because we do not have a surplus from 2009, we are currently forced to do more with less than ever before.

Today I ask you not to wait until November or December, and if you can to give your full annual donation now. Your gift today will support the staff of Welcome and help us spend less time fundraising and more time directly work with our guests.

Rev. Megan Rohrer

WELCOME Needs Donations

One of our more recent programs is an interfaith/meditative time of worship every Thursday for any and all that wish to come. There are a number of things we need to do to transform our worship space. The following list of donations would be most helpful to us in making the space as worshipful as possible

• Unscented white candles of all sizes (especially tea lights)

• Simple decorative candle holders (with no scent).

• Cultural tablecloths/tapestries

• Any framed or sturdy visual art

• $50 donation to acquire music rights for J. Rundman songs.

• Recorded/sheet music for simple interfaith songs.

• Basic craft supplies for adults – such as markers, cardstock, etc (all unscented/non-toxic)

• Prayer books and/or devotional objects for interfaith.

We are also looking for Volunteers to help with this time of interfaith meditation. Volunteers would help set up/clean up. Any volunteers that would be interested in sharing music, prayer, or crafts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for considering these needs!

Community Dinners!

On the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, WELCOME hosts a Community Dinner at Old First Presbyterian (1752 Sacramento at Van Ness) for any and all that need a good, hot meal. Our guests usually start lining up to come in around 4pm, and then we open the doors to begin serving at 5:30. We have been serving around 200 people per dinner.

As you might imagine, this sort of undertaking cannot be done without a solid volunteer base. If you or a group that you're involved with would be interested in volunteering with these meals, please email our volunteer coordinator at: petefeltman@gmail.com.

We are currently looking for people or organizations to donate food, paper products, and the time to cook and serve.

Here is a typical rundown of our dinners.

2pm: Cooks arrive and begin prepping and cooking the meal.

4pm: Volunteers begin to arrive. They prep the dining room as they set up tables and chairs (and in some cases decorations!), coffee station, serving station, and clothing distribution room.

The coffee station never fails to see a lot of activity and we're always looking for creamer and sugar donations as our guests love to flavor their coffee.

The serving station is set up in the Munroe Room of Old First, and is simply a few tables with food on them.

The clothing distribution room (which doubles as our guest computer lab during the week) is where we give away all the clothes and toiletries that we receive as donations.

5:15: Volunteers circle up to receive instructions about serving. Generally, every volunteer gets one table which becomes their only responsibility for serving throughout the dinner hour.

5:30: The doors open and our guests file in to find a spot at any of our tables. Then the fun begins!

6:30: Most guests are done eating and volunteers begin the clean-up process. Clean-up usually takes about an hour if all the volunteers are working hard.

The dinners are always well received by our guests – and we attribute this to the fact that we cook tasty, healthy meals and that we provide a safe space for all that need to sit and rest for a little while. Our volunteers have enjoyed the work that they do as well – many of them have become regulars for every meal. Perhaps you would like to as well?

Get in touch with us at: petefeltman@gmail.com

Will Write for Food: a benefit for WELCOME

A Conversation with Anne Lamott
Saturday, November 21st
Reception with our Writers: $100 at 7pm
General Admission is $20 (main event at 8pm)
The event will be followed by a book signing
Tickets can be purchased a the door or online at: www.willwriteforfood.eventbrite.com

Proceeds help support the additional food needs of the homeless and hungry in San Francisco. You can learn more about WELCOME at www.welcomeministry.org

Ordinary Sundays

Old First and Welcome Ministry Staff and Volunteers:

The Welcome Ministry staff, Pastor Megan and Jay, thank you for helping us create consistent boundaries for our guests and volunteers! We continuously evaluate how our programs support or create barriers for the homeless and hungry who are trying to improve their quality of life. We hope this will make our expectations more clear and provide a safer space for all who participate in the life and ministry of Old First.

Remember that it’s Jay and Megan’s job to work with individual requests, so if you have any questions or uncertainty, just refer them to us!

-We accept usable donations from anyone, provided we have room to store them.

Many times, we are aware of unusual individual or community needs for donations that seem unhelpful to others. For example, one guest donated a broken stereo which another guest was able to fix and use. So if a Welcome Ministry guest wants to donate something, please let us know and we can gladly accept it (or not, if we need to decline the 8 foot tall paper mache elephant). That doesn’t mean that everything is usable or redistributed, but many donations from church/community members aren’t usable either. One of the ways in which the Welcome Ministry is a community and an empowerment ministry (rather than a traditional charity) is that we encourage, welcome, and assist people to give back when they can. If we’re not here, and the items are small, put them in our offices, under the green benches, or ask the person to come back when we’re here.

-Please do not sub-contract work to guests.

If you want to employ a guest to do a one-time or ongoing job, you need to follow employment laws, pay at least minimum wage and go through Pastor Megan or Barry to do so. It is illegal, not ethical, and patronizing to pay homeless people under the table to do your work for you. It is even more unethical to ask guests to do your work for you for free, or to occasionally give them a small amount of cash to do your work for free. If you have more work than you can realistically do in your job at Old First or in volunteering, you need to discuss ways to solve this with your supervisor.

We welcome guests to volunteer, like we welcome anyone else to volunteer. Volunteer work is not paid, not professional-level work, and is entered into with a clear understanding of no pay.

It can be helpful and wonderful to help our guests to get real work for real pay, but please make sure that you are doing so in a way that is not keeping them from taking charge of their own life. All employees must be held to the same legal and performance standards -to do otherwise is discrimination. Remember that work can affect government benefits, so check with Jay to help a guest explore how to legally keep their benefits in good standing. However, Jay is not allowed to discuss details of guests’ finances with you without their written permission.

-Do not let Welcome Ministry guests (or others wanting to talk to Jay or Megan) in the building!

It may seem helpful to let people in and then inform us, but it is really unhelpful. We may be meeting with someone else, need a few minutes to prepare to meet with the person, or have already told the person we cannot meet their request and now must convince them to leave again. Also do not assume that because you know someone or because they often volunteer that they should be let in the building. We may have asked a regular volunteer to help in different ways or asked them not to come in early any more.

Megan and Jay are responsible for guests when in they are in the building, but it is difficult to be responsible when we don’t know who is in the building, where they are, or who let them in. The official waiting area for the Welcome Ministry is outdoors, not in the lobby. We hope some day to have a space where we have a waiting area and drop-in room, but for now this is how we try to be good stewards of the gift of the OFPC building and all who use it.

During regular office hours, there is really no reason that non-Welcome Ministry staff need to answer the door for our guests at all. If you do feel compelled to answer the door, simply ask them to ring the “Social Hall” button for Jay or “Welcome Ministry” button for Megan, or say, “I’ll go get Jay (or Megan),” and ask them to wait outside. You do not need to hear their request/story, give them anything, or ask what they need. It would be preferable to simply let us know the door needs to be answered. Often we are on our way to answer it before we hear from anyone, and then three people are trying to answer the door at once.

This is the same rule for everyone! Some church members (including Welcome Ministry guests) have keys if they have a need to be in the building, but most people who come to the church need to be let in. It’s helpful to enforce the rules clearly and consistently rather than selectively. Remember that choosing who you do and do not enforce a rule with based on whether you like someone, politeness, whether or not they look homeless, their grammar, or how cleanly they’re dressed is discrimination. If you let them in because they have a legitimate reason that they need to be in the building, regardless of these factors, that is not discrimination but doing business—just watch that your judgment of this is based on reasons and facts rather than stereotypes or rules that only are applied to people who look homeless.

Anytime you let someone in the building to use the bathroom or for another group (Welcome Ministry, Concerts or AA), you should wait with them until they leave the building or someone from the group they are with comes to greet them.

If Megan and Jay are not in the building, you can let a guest know that our activities are posted on the door and additional information about how to make an appointment is posted outside in the display case by the elevator door. Guests who call the church office should be directed to Jay at 424-3536 or Megan at 567-2661.

-Please do not give cash to guests/volunteers!

We want to make it clear that the Welcome Ministry does not give cash to guests. Instead, we help individuals with specific money problems, such as budgeting help, getting a payee, getting discounted services, helping with food/clothing/toiletries, referrals to community agencies, or getting addiction help.

The Welcome Ministry says “no” to all requests for money, and we ask all members and staff of the church to do the same. We also ask our guests not to ask for money in the church. When people give money to the few individuals who do ask for money, it is not fair to guests that follow the rules. Additionally, by giving cash, we teach them to keep coming to us for cash and the root of their problems never get solved.

If someone asks you for money, we encourage you to say something like “no, we don’t give cash, but you can talk to Jay about other ways you can meet your need.” Please DO NOT say, “ask Jay or Megan,” since you know our answer has to be no. It’s more helpful for people to hear a consistent “No.” If you feel compelled to personally give cash, do not do it on church grounds and make clear that it’s not from the church or the Welcome Ministry.