Integrity Faces Budget Deficit

From The Living Church via TitusOneNine:

Posted on: April 22, 2009

At its semi-annual meeting on April 17, the board of directors for Integrity, an advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Episcopalians, approved a budget which will deplete most of its reserves by the end of the year.

The board convened electronically in order to reduce travel costs and carbon emissions, according to minutes of the meeting published on one of the organization’s websites.

The approved budget assumes income of $270,000, primarily from member dues, and total expenses of approximately $313,000. Previously the organization has said that it plans for its presence at this summer’s General Convention to be its largest ever.

“Integrity believes that [The Episcopal Church] is on the tipping-point of becoming unequivocally welcoming and affirming of LGBT people. General Convention 2009 is a decisive opportunity for TEC to move beyond its de facto moratorium on additional LGBT bishops and forward on the blessing of same-gender relationships,” the group said in an appeal for donations sent in January.

Among other business, the board also learned that the organization’s chapters in Austin, Texas, Dallas, Kansas City, Princeton, N.J., Southern Nevada and Western Michigan had either been decertified or begun the process of decertification.

The Rev. Susan Russell, priest associate at All Saints, Pasadena, Calif., and president of Integrity, denied that the organization is losing members or is in financial difficulty.

“We are a membership-driven organization, not an endowed one,” she said. “A few years ago we received a substantial gift and we are simply applying our resources to further ministry. Integrity is not dying on the vine.

“These changes are part of our normal evolution as an organization. We have been trying to find new ways of organizing and in some cases chapters are being decertified in favor of status as a network or circle.”