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December, 2003
The Massachusetts Conference is temporarily suspending a popular subscription to the church demographic information service Percept due to budgetary constraints.
“More than half of our churches have enlisted in this program, so we do see it as valuable,” said Susan Dickerman, Associate Conference Minister for Leadership Development. “However, with Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support contributions down we had to cut the budget, and this service costs $13,000 annually.”
Dickerman said the hope is that the Conference will be able to subscribe to the service every two or three years in order to receive updated information.
The Conference has subscribed to Percept services since 2000. This has allowed Conference churches, through the Link2Lead.com Web site, to download “FirstView” reports based on zip code that include information on population growth, diversity, income, community issues and faith preferences.
Churches have used the information to help with visioning, particularly in helping to determine what types of outreach programs might be effective in their communities.
Churches can continue to access this information until December 31st by visiting Link2Lead.com. After that time, they will no longer be able to access that Web site.
In preparation for the discontinuation of the service, the Conference staff has downloaded and printed out the “FirstView” reports for each zip code in the Commonwealth. After December 31st, churches can request printed copies of their reports by contacting Lynda McGarrahan-Blunt at bluntl@macucc.org or at 508-875-5233.
Dickerman said the demographic data does not change that dramatically year-to-year, so said the information downloaded this year will be helpful to churches for some time to come.
“There is only about a .05 change in the statistics each year,” she said. “The majority of the data comes from the federal census, which is taken every 10 years. That data is combined with statistics from other services that look at specific faith-based issues. The variation from year-to-year is minute.”
A $70,000 shortfall in expected contributions from churches in 2002 led the Conference Board of Directors to cut $72,000 from the 2003 budget, which is in effect through the calendar year. That cut was achieved by level funding salaries and reducing program spending by $50,000. The 2004 Percept subscription would normally have been paid for in December, 2003.