Saguaro Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Guidelines

Guideline 1 - Care Abounds in Communities Funds must benefit persons living within our Chapter area, Pima and Santa Cruz Counties, Arizona.

A) As an exception to Guideline 1 we will consider the following type of request for funding: If a Service Team within our Chapter is to travel to an area outside of our chapter to do a Hands on Service project should the Saguaro Chapter allow funding (example: A group is to travel to a Mission School in Northern Arizona and will spend a few days painting classrooms and doing other upkeep. Note: All other requirements would apply, i.e. the work could not be for a mission congregation. In this case the requested funds would be used to pay for supplies to complete the activity and the Recipient would be the non-profit org. (outside our Chapter area) for which the work was being done. Additional consideration: It is felt that the youth traveling from our Chapter area would benefit by being able to participate in such a project, however; they would not be the named recipient in this scenario.

B) We will consider the following type of request for funding. A Service Team, who is a group associated with a Congregation, plans an event to raise funds so that they can travel to an event outside of our area where they will do a Hands on Service Project. The group request additional funds for their fundraiser. The Recipient in this case is a group of individuals associated with the Congregation. Can we fund this type of request? Thrivent Fraternal says it’s a ‘grey area’ since the group is associated with a congregation and are not connected with a non-profit group other than the congregation. Thrivent Fraternal indicated that they should only receive Community Funds if the individuals within the Recipient group are considered "needy," in other words, they wouldn’t be able to make the trip without the additional Thrivent funding. This would be a named individual recipient, and names and addresses of the individuals receiving funds to help them travel would have to be included in the Completed Project Envelope.

C) We will consider for approval, Fund Requests for fund raisers that will benefit our Thrivent Service Team’s Mission Projects, for our neighbors just south of the Border in Mexico. In other words, we will consider "Just South of the Border" as part of our area since there is not a Thrivent Chapter there for which these types of request can be directed.

D) We will consider for approval, Fund Requests for educational funds for "needy" students who originally resided within our chapter but are currently attending an out of state Lutheran College/University or Seminary.

E) We will not fund a Request for Fund Raising Projects for National Organizations that will in some way benefit persons within our chapter. Examples: A Youth Service Team raises funds by taking pledges for a Jump Rope-A-Thon for the American Heart Association (AHA) - Funds are directed to the national level and the National AHA in turn directs funds back to the local level where persons within our chapter receive the benefit.

Guideline 2 - We will use a 4:1 ratio; $100 for 25 volunteer hours or $100 additional funds for every $400 raised or a combination of the two.

F) Requests must be received by the Community Service Team Director (contact information listed in G)) no later than the Thursday before the last Tuesday of the month for Board review. All requests must be filled out completely on the correct form – preferably e-mailed to the Community Service Team Director. Hand-printed requests may not be in cursive and must be neat and legible. We will not consider requests for activities occurring after our monthly board meeting, which is the last Tuesday of each month, except for “Personal Emergencies.”

G) Note: We are using Thrivent’s Request For Funding Form 20885F R4-09 that is posted on the Saguaro Chapter Web site: www.LutheransOnline.com/SaguaroChapter click on Guidelines page.

Any questions about the form, contact the Community Service Team Director, Jere Hill, at cactusdata@aol.com (include the word "Thrivent" in the subject line) or phone 749-2979.

H) No requests will be approved for activities occurring after November 30th.

I) Reports must to be received not more than 14 days after completion of the activity.

J) Any events not reported by December 14th will forfeit their funds for that event.