Watch Barbara Wendland’s Story

My Story: Barbara Wendland

Many of the church-related concerns that I address on this site have grown out of my personal experience, so I’m sharing it here as a background for what follows.

The only child of loving parents

I grew up in Houston as the only child of loving, conservative, church-going Methodist parents. My father was an executive of a small oil company and my mother was a full-time homemaker. Both had grown up in families who were barely able to scrape by financially. My mother was valedictorian of her high school class, but even with the scholarship to which that entitled her, she couldn’t afford to go to college. Her mother, a piano teacher, had sold her piano to pay for the dress my mother needed for the graduation ceremony. The $320 she would need for college was out of the question for her family to pay, and the college president told her there were no jobs available for girls. My father, however, managed to pay for college and graduate, despite having the flu in a 1918 epidemic. He earned the necessary college funds by holding several jobs. Among them was playing clarinet in a dance band, and a telephone company job that involved climbing poles to do repairs in the daytime and operating a switchboard at night. When my parents married, they became determined to work hard, live frugally, save and invest wisely, and if possible, avoid the financial hardship their parents had experienced.  If they succeeded, they would then help other needy students to go to college. They succeeded so well that I grew up knowing that I could have whatever I needed and much of what I wanted.

Continued below….

Listen to Barbara on the Faith and Reason Podcast

Barbara discusses the need for a radical update of creed, attitude, and structure in the Christian church. Its practices, Wendland says, are outdated, and this behind-the-times attitude, though revered as traditional by many, comes at the expense of church effectiveness. The world has changed dramatically since the 3rd century; is the church ready to catch up?

Continued from above…

After following in my mother’s pattern as high-school valedictorian, I graduated from S.M.U. , worked in Dallas for a year, and then worked in Houston for a major oil company for four years as a mathematician doing computer programming in the geophysics research department. I was one of very few women holding such jobs, and mine had huge possibilities, but I never thought of it as a career. All along, I assumed that it was only a time-filler until I married and became the full-time homemaker, mother, and church and community volunteer that I thought all adult women were supposed to be.  When I married, I reluctantly quit my job and moved to Temple, a central Texas town whose population now is 70,000 but at that time was much smaller—definitely too small to need mathematicians, even if I had wanted to keep being one.

I'd always read a lot, and I often read serious books, including some about theology that looked interesting to me when I browsed in bookstores. But now I was devouring one book after another, and some were on topics that I'd hardly been aware of before. I reread the Bible first, then moved on to reading about its origin and about the church’s history and purpose. I felt drawn beyond those subjects into depth psychology, religious experience, and other topics that led me to look at aspects of my own life and my future. I soon realized that something odd was happening. Whenever I began tiring of one topic, I found myself eager to read about a surprising new one. It was like being led through a custom­designed course of study that was systematically preparing me for something, though I couldn't imagine what the something might be. Finally I suspected that God was somehow behind this process.

A different kind of pastor

None of the books that I read during these years were brought to my attention by any pastor or church program. In fact, I'd never heard any pastor mention that he was interested in such topics, much less notice that I was. But then to my surprise, a new pastor came to my church and revealed that like me he was dealing with midlife issues and he was reading and thinking about the same kinds of things I was. And he wanted to talk about them. Unlike all pastors I’d previously known, he frankly shared his real beliefs, concerns, and even doubts. Unlike other pastors I’d known, too, he seemed to see me as a real person instead of just one more church member who did the routine church jobs that women were expected to do. He asked about my interests and noticed some of my unused abilities. It felt like a God-send.

A life-changing discovery

A life-changing discovery I made during those years of investigating was a system of classifying personality types--the different ways in which people react to the world around them and receive and evaluate information. I read that these differences might be innate, that they were unevenly distributed in the population, and that my type was the least common. No wonder I sometimes felt odd and alone! For years I had seen that many activities other people enjoyed were uninteresting to me, and I often had found widely accepted customs and beliefs pointless. I had seen no one questioning these, however, and I wasn't brave enough to be the lone questioner. I had merely assumed that everyone else was right and I was wrong. What a relief it was to realize that it was okay to be the way I really was!

One day I daringly told my parents, to whom I had always been close, about this and other exciting new discoveries I was making. This was the first time in my nearly fifty years that I had risked telling my parents anything I thought they might disapprove of or disagree with. I told them about how I had realized that I was different from them in personality and some other ways, and about how I was seeing the need to relate to them as an adult instead of a permanent child. To my dismay they heard what I said as a betrayal and a shocking rejection of the loving upbringing they had given me. That night, after seeing how what I had said had hurt them, I had the most memorable dream of my life.

Dreams had meaning and gave guidance

As part of my mysterious course of study, I had learned about the many dreams described in the Bible, realized that dreams had meaning, and seen that God sometimes gave guidance through them. When I thought about my dream, therefore, I recognized what it was saying. God was making me aware, I saw, that my life was full of God's presence and power, which I would never have found without making the break from my former childlike way of functioning.

My dream also showed me that I was ready to clear out some useless junk within myself, and to climb to places I couldn't yet see. Finally I also saw that the dream showed I was full of anger. I had always been told never to be angry, so I had assured myself that I wasn't. Now I could see that I was angry, especially about the church and about leaving my main abilities and interests unused. I saw, too, that anger was a valuable motivation for change.

Starved for kindred spirits

As a result of the reading and thinking I was doing, I felt starved for contact with other people who had church-related concerns similar to mine. I had recently found some in a group of women friends who met weekly to pray for our church because of the problems in it. Soon, however, I found that what I was looking for was different from what the others in that group seemed to want.

I couldn’t see anything encouraging to look forward to. My nest was empty. I’d done the usual church-volunteer jobs. I’d held the offices in the community-volunteer organizations that interested me. I felt starved for something challenging to fill my time, and for the intellectual stimulation I’d been without since quitting my job as a mathematician twenty-five years earlier.[1]

My jubilee year

I had just turned fifty, and that was the first birthday that made me feel old--over the hill. It felt miserable. But then a friend reminded me of the year of Jubilee—every fiftieth year--described in the Bible (Lev. 25:9-17). Fifty didn't have to be such a bad time after all, I realized. I began looking at the Bible's description of Jubilee as I would look at a dream or a work of art, expressed in symbolic language.

When I looked at "the land" as a way of picturing a person's whole self, as it might be in a dream, I saw the fiftieth year as a time for recovering parts of myself that I had in effect allowed to be taken away from me or to be enslaved, either by other people's unreasonable demands and expectations or by my own. Fifty, I realized, was a time for reclaiming skills, talents, and interests that I had abandoned years earlier in order to follow the pattern that I had mistakenly thought God wanted all women to follow forever.

I saw fifty as a time to stop worrying about some of the "fields" that I'd been feeling responsible for. It was time to stop worrying about "unpruned vineyards"--things I maybe should have done but had not done. I realized that I had sown a lot of good seeds, tended a lot of vines, and reaped good harvests. I saw that I needed to appreciate those accomplishments but not to continue all of them forever. I also saw that some of them had never been required.

Through the Jubilee scripture I felt God was saying to me, "Don't cheat or mistreat any parts of yourself. I love and accept them all. Dedicate this time of your life to letting the best and truest parts of yourself bear fruit." Fifty thus became an eye-opening time for me. I set out in some previously unthinkable new directions that turned out to be life-changing, in response to what I later saw as God's call.[2]

Time to look for the kindred spirits

Finally, I felt starved enough to get out and look for the kindred spirits and mental activity I wanted. To my surprise I found them at a seminary, S.M.U.'s Perkins School of Theology. It was a 2½-hour drive from my home and I knew few people who had a good opinion of seminaries. Besides, I had no desire to be ordained,  and I thought of that as the only thing seminaries did.  I enrolled in a Perkins course anyway. By the end of the first class, I knew I'd found what I was looking for. I commuted for the three years it took to get a master's degree.

In those years I also participated in the Academy for Spiritual Formation, a UMC-sponsored program promoting spiritual growth and giving training in spiritual direction. It was a new program, and no one I knew had heard of it. All I knew about it was what I had read in the United Methodist Reporter and in the materials the Academy sent when I wrote for information, and it sounded like exactly what I was looking for.  It featured outstanding speakers on church-related topics, plus reading and discussing interesting books with other participants. The Academy met for five days every three months for two years, in Nashville. To attend, I flew alone for the first time in 25 years.

A reminder that I was an adult

Trivial as it may seem, on those trips, merely not having anyone pointing out the restrooms to me in the airports or telling me when to cross the streets—well-intentioned but annoying habits of my husband-- was a much­ needed reminder for me that I was a capable, intelligent adult! At home, I had come to see myself instead as someone who needed to be looked after. At home I had come to feel that my interests and abilities were unimportant, and that my calling in life was simply to conform to others' interests, opinions, and expectations. But at Academy sessions, I felt like a person who had something worthwhile to contribute. On these trips I felt as if I had emerged into the sunlight after spending years in a fog. For the first time l began feeling like a competent person for whom God might have something specific in mind.

Often a new step you need to take is one that doesn't seem the least bit hard or daring to anyone else. But it may be crucially important for you. When I realized God was nudging me in some new directions a few years ago, one of my tiny-but-important new steps was learning to fill my own car with gasoline. All gas stations were full-service in the years before I married, so I never filled my own car then, and after I married, my husband always filled our cars. As a result, I had no occasion to operate a gasoline pump. By the time I began making some car trips alone, however, gas stations were self-service. I felt stupid and helpless when I was away from home and needed gas. I realized that filling my own car was a change I needed to make.

More little-but-big changes

Driving from Temple to Dallas to attend Perkins classes was an even larger change. My cautious parents always insisted that it was dangerous for a woman to be on the highway alone, and for many years I meekly accepted their opinion, despite plentiful evidence against it.

Plane trips alone were another new step. I had made frequent plane trips alone as part of my job before I married. But after marriage, my husband was always with me when I flew anywhere. In fact, he was usually with me whenever I traveled to new places or met new people. And unlike me, my extrovert husband usually seemed to feel totally confident about what needed doing, and to feel comfortable talking with unfamiliar people. So for years, I let him do the talking for both of us when we were together in public, just as I had gladly let my mother play that role when I was growing up. I was a silent partner, a spectator, a follower. In this regard I was acting like a child, even after I had chronologically been an adult for years. But now, flying to and from Nashville, I talked to people in adjacent seats on the planes, which was totally uncharacteristic for me.

Other people may not help

People around you often discourage you from doing anything new and different. Without intending to, they may make responding to God hard. They're likely to give you the impression that you are being unwise, unkind, illogical, and maybe unchristian to even consider acting or thinking in any new way. As a result, you feel almost like a criminal or at least a sinner when you take even the tiniest new step.

In families, churches, and other groups, each member tends to play a part that helps to keep the group functioning in its present way. That way may not be serving the group’s intended purpose. It may even be harming most people in the group. But they tend to keep playing their familiar roles anyway because maintaining the status quo is easier and more comfortable than changing. If you stop playing your usual role, you disrupt the system. In effect, you force change onto the other people in it, who have not chosen to change. So when you start to change, they're likely to complain, resist, and criticize you. Then, because they act so sure of themselves and you still feel unsure, it's hard not to cave in and assume they're right, even if deep down you know that change is needed.

Being with new people on your own gives you good opportunities to try new ways of functioning. Getting some practice and encouragement elsewhere helps you hold your own when you encounter the resistance that you're likely to find at home where everyone expects you to stay the same forever. Being accepted as a capable adult individual by strangers can let you know that you have valuable ideas, skills, spiritual gifts, and talents. Perkins and the Academy did that for me.

Starting to write

After my time in those ended, I was back at home in the familiar patterns. I began experimenting with writing. I did it as a way of praying and reflecting at first, but eventually I got a few things published. I even co-authored a book about the ministry of the laity, with a Perkins professor. That made me realize that having standard credentials wasn't always necessary.

During the previous several years I had started realizing how women had been unjustly relegated to second-class status, not only by society at large but also by the church despite its claim to consider all people equally valuable. I saw how this second­ class status was maintained by many church practices, like the use of all-masculine language. I became determined to work toward changing that. In my home church, I felt alone in this concern, and when I found a few other women elsewhere who shared it, I saw that they felt alone in theirs. I began to feel that someone needed to write a monthly letter and sending it to the people who shared this concern, to keep us all encouraged by reminding us that we were neither alone nor crazy.

The “someone” could be me!

Gradually I realized that I had the resources for doing what I felt was needed. I had developed some writing ability, I was financially able, and I had pertinent information and experience. I was already using a computer program that had some desktop-publishing features. And unlike clergy and church employees and their family members, I could speak frankly without risking income or status. Besides, by now I’d realized it was okay to be a nonconformist. Maybe the “someone” who needed to write the letter was me!

Doing such a thing seemed too unheard-of to consider seriously. When I couldn't get rid of it, however. I finally decided to pursue it. I started writing my monthly letter Connections.

I soon saw that if I spent the time, money, and effort to send a letter of the quality I wanted, I could just as easily send it to more people than just the kindred spirits I’d found at Perkins and the Academy. I saw, too, that sending it only to people who already shared my views wasn't likely to promote change, so I decided to write to a larger and more diverse list than I had originally had in mind.

Also,  I knew that the church's treatment of women wasn't all that needed changing. I soon became a lay member of my area’s Annual Conference, the regional UMC governing body, and I was elected as a lay delegate for the first time to General Conference, the UMC’s top worldwide governing body. As I got to know kindred spirits in these beyond-the-local-church groups, I  realized that other church members shared many of my concerns: the so-called “women’s issues” especially, but also the need for change in the roles of laity and clergy, in the church’s failure to communicate in today's languages, and in its habit of focusing on relatively minor issues instead of those that God seemed to consider most important.

I felt that someone needed to speak up about these subjects in a way that would bring them to the attention of church members, especially those who hadn’t given such subjects much thought, who rarely read the kind of books I read, and whose main or only church involvement was in their local congregation.[3]

It was still scary at first

Even though I had started feeling okay about being more of a nonconformist than I’d ever previously been, revealing my unsolicited views so widely in Connections was scary. I felt the way John Powell, a Catholic priest, described in his book Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am: “I am afraid to tell you who I am,” Powell writes, “because you may not like who I am, and it’s all that I have.”[4]

To my surprise, favorable responses quickly started coming right away, and my list mushroomed. And the responses to Connections that I’ve gotten over the years have been almost entirely appreciative. Readers have repeatedly thanked me for writing it. They’ve said, “You’re saying what I’ve been wanting to say!” and “I’m so glad to know I’m not alone!”

Because of the many grateful responses from readers of Connections and my book Misfits, and from people in groups I’ve spoken to, I now know that there are many other people “out there” who have had church-related experiences similar to mine and who have views, concerns, and feelings similar to mine. I suspected that, years ago, but now I’m sure of it. Recent surveys that report increases in the numbers of progressive Christians and decreases in traditional church participation have also made me sure now that I’m not as alone as I felt years ago. 

A congregation moving to the right

In my part of the U.S., however, change has often been in the opposite direction. Much of Texas is increasingly dominated by conservative Christians who don’t even want Christians with other understandings of Christianity to have a voice. The traditionalist, conservative Christians here not only don’t want liberal or progressive Christians to have a voice in the church. Many also don’t want us or adherents of other religions to have a voice in the secular community. Whether it’s by presenting 19th-century Christian teachings in public schools, opening government meetings with evangelical prayers, or putting nativity scenes and the Ten Commandments on courthouse lawns, traditionalist Christians in much of the South are actively working to block the religious freedom that the U.S. Constitution guarantees.

That seems especially true in central Texas, where I live. During the years I’ve been writing Connections, my local congregation has moved steadily to the right theologically. Its Bible studies promote fundamentalism and oppose critical thinking. Programs such as Beth Moore Bible studies and the MOPS program for pre-school mothers have encouraged submissive roles for women. Also, the congregation has added a new fortress-like building facing the less affluent part of town, with a high, windowless brick wall and a solid fence blocking streets and sending unmistakable keep-out messages to neighbors.

As a result of these changes, I now feel ignored and unwanted. That’s a big difference from earlier years when I was very active in the church and had at least a small voice not only in my home congregation but also in some UMC decision-making bodies at levels above the local church. 

A sad end to decades of gifts and service

In recent years, my husband and I kept becoming increasingly dismayed by the literalist interpretations of Christianity that were filling our congregation’s worship services. Then its efforts to oust a pastor whose sexual orientation some members suspected was one they considered sinful felt like the last straw. And when a new pastor came, it was clear that he and powerful lay leaders were going to work even more actively than earlier leaders to stifle voices like ours that disagreed with them. In 2006, my husband and I therefore stopped participating, even though he had been a super-active member of this very congregation for his whole life and I had been since 1959. For decades, we had both sung in the choir every week. We had consistently served on committees and generously supported budget and building campaigns. I had taught children’s Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, enlisted teachers, and planned and taught numerous adult classes. In more recent years, I’d gotten a seminary degree, written Connections, started a progressive study in my home, had books published, and hosted two large conferences for Connections readers from many states.

Ordered to have no contact

But despite this extensive participation, soon after we stopped attending I got an e-mail from one of our associate pastors saying that she had been ordered to have no further contact with me and my husband. She also warned me that everything I said about religious beliefs was being watched, yet if I revealed that she had sent me this warning, she would deny it. She asked me to keep her messages confidential, and for several years I did. But I now think that for the good of the church, it’s past time to speak out.

In fact, I now wish that I had immediately responded to her with some questions: “Who gave you that order, on what authority?” And above all, “Why are you obeying it?” (The answer would evidently have been “to keep my job,” which unfortunately shows that church staff sometimes feel they must sacrifice their integrity to protect their income.)

That wasn’t all. The senior pastor was quoted as using a vulgar term to refer to me and my husband. Later, the congregation’s five top lay office holders sent a letter to all lay Annual Conference (regional UMC decision-making body) members, urging them not to vote for me as a delegate to General Conference (worldwide body). The letter appeared to speak for the entire congregation, yet only a very few members had had a voice in the decision to send it, and the congregation was never even told about it.

I was so astonished and so deeply hurt by this treatment, that at first I didn’t ask questions, investigate, or even respond. Later, when I eventually began telling some people what had happened, all seemed shocked, but as far as I know, no congregation members, and no UMC clergy in supervisory or other influential positions, have tried to get the situation changed, or have even spoken out to clergy or lay leaders. I’ve therefore felt that my speaking about what happened would be futile. I’ve felt that simply moving on, rather than continuing to agonize over what has happened to me, would be personally healthier, so I’ve mostly tried to forget and keep quiet about it.

A painful experience, but also a relief

Feeling rejected by my congregation after so many years of having been so active in it has been, I think, the most painful experience of my life. But no longer participating has also been a welcome relief. It’s a relief not to sing and say things that I don’t believe, or to hear sermons and prayers that I feel contradict what Jesus taught and what is now known about him, the Bible, human beings, and the universe. It’s also a relief not to spend time with people who have helped to get me silenced, have been unwilling to speak on my behalf, or have ignored or even opposed my efforts to grow spiritually and help the church do the same. To me, my church is no longer a friendly place. [5]

Have I helped or hurt?

Have my efforts helped or hurt the church? I’m not sure. I’ve always thought they would help—that’s why I made them—but looking back now, I’m not sure about some of them.

A few times during my 50-plus years at FUMC, for example, I tried to get a pastor moved. Was that harmful? Maybe it was. But one of those pastors allowed some staff members to be verbally abusive—even sexually abusive, in one case—to other staff members continually. He also made a habit of saying one thing to one member and the opposite of that to another. And he once told me that his way of deciding what to do was to find out what the majority of the congregation wanted, and then do that. It seems to me that what’s needed instead is to try to discern what following Jesus requires, and then do that. So to me, that pastor’s behavior seemed to be clear evidence that a change was needed.

My efforts to get an earlier pastor moved, however, were mainly because he and his wife and a staff member that he had brought were presenting a liberal interpretation of Christianity, which my family and friends and I saw as wrong. A large number of members left, because they also saw it as wrong. But many of my religious beliefs have changed greatly since then. My theological perspective is now more like what that pastor and his wife and staff member were expressing, or even more liberal/progressive than that.

Should I have kept quiet about that pastor? I’m not sure. Ironically, my anger about the congregational turmoil and loss of members during his pastorate was what first motivated me to investigate what the church’s real purpose was supposed to be. That investigation expanded greatly over the years and is still going on. It has opened my eyes in many helpful ways and has led me to make much-needed changes in my beliefs and my life. So if I treated that pastor and his wife unfairly, I’m sorry. But I’m not sure I could have done anything differently at that time in my life.

Harmony isn’t necessarily helpful

I’m not the team player that leaders of companies and churches seem to want their subordinates to be. I may actually be harmful in the eyes of the many church people who seem to agree with a friend who recently commented to me that her main desire in groups was for harmony. But I don’t see constant harmony as helpful, because change is often needed, and change inevitably causes some conflict.

Women of age, wisdom, and power

In Barbara Walker’s book The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power, Walker points out that in many early societies this was how older women were seen. The crone was the life stage that finished a sequence that began with the virgin and the mother. Unlike the mean, ugly old women that we now think of as crones, they were the healers, arbiters of moral law, owners of the sacred lore, and mediators between the realms of flesh and spirit. “Their wrinkles,” explains Walker, “would have been badges of honor, not of shame.”[6] I recalled this recently when my church’s historian asked me to write an article for its archives and she asked me to say how I want to be remembered after my death. I had to give that some fresh thought.

In the obituaries I see in newspapers, many women near my present age are described only as having been a loving wife, mother, and friend, and a faithful church participant and lover of God and Jesus. I’d be glad to be remembered for those qualities, but I hope to be remembered for more than those. I’d like to be remembered also for having some abilities that weren’t the same as everyone else’s, and especially for having done some things that few other women in my generation and my setting did. I want to be remembered for having written Connections, which was unlike anything I know anyone else to have done. I’d like to be remembered for having had four books published. Above all, I want to be remembered for having asked questions, including some that made churchgoers uncomfortable but maybe helped to bring about needed changes, even though those probably won’t happen until long after I’m gone, if ever. I want to be remembered for having spoken up about what I believed being a Christian required, and about the changes that I thought were needed for the good of the church and the world. I want to be remembered for having recognized injustices in the church and the society and for having tried to help get some of them stopped. That would be more than enough.[7]

[1] November 1992, April 1993, November 1999, June 2001

[2] November 1998

[3] November 1992, April 1993, November 1999, June 2001

[4] November 1992

[5] November 2013

[6] November 1998

[7] June 2017

Read interviews with Barbara from:

• Austin American Statesman

• Temple Daily Telegram

Author

A Lifelong Methodist

• a lay delegate in 1996 and 1988 to General Conference, the worldwide governing body of the United Methodist Church (UMC), which meets every four years

• a lay delegate in 2004, 2000, 1996, and 1988 to UMC Jurisdictional Conference, the body that meets every 4 years to elect UMC bishops

• a speaker at church-related events throughout the U.S.

• 2007 recipient of the annual Seals laity award given by SMU’s Perkins School of Theology

• First recipient of the Advocate for Public Religious Literacy (APRL) award given by the Westar Institute

• a graduate of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, a 2-year ecumenical program sponsored by the United Methodist Church

• a member of the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society and its Executive Committee, 1996-2004

• in her local congregation, First United Methodist Church of Temple Texas, a long-time Sunday School teacher and choir member, past chairperson of numerous committees and projects, and frequent developer and teacher of short courses about theology, church membership, and spiritual growth. (Barbara has been a member of this congregation for more than 50 years, but because of what she sees as its increasingly narrow and outdated interpretation of the Bible and Christianity, in 2006 she stopped participating. She soon received an e-mail from an FUMC pastor informing her that this pastor had been ordered to have no further contact with Barbara or her husband. They have never received any explanation of this order. For more, see the November 2013 Connections.)

A university graduate in math and theology

• a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Southern Methodist University with a degree in mathematics

• recipient of a Master of Theological Studies degree from SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary

• formerly a mathematician and computer programmer in the geophysics research department of a major oil company

An active participant in family and community

since 1959 the wife of a business owner and active volunteer in church, civic, and professional organizations, who died in June 2018.

• since 1959 a resident of Temple, a central Texas town of 70,000

• the mother of a grown daughter

• past president of community-volunteer organizations

A philanthropist

• founding donor of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School

• with her family, donor of the Wendland-Cook Fellowship in Constructive Theology at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology (currently unoccupied)

• with her family, donor of the David W. Starr Visiting Professorship in Mathematics at SMU

• trustee of a small family charitable foundation, contributing to the arts, education, medicine, and progressive Christianity (But because the foundation has no staff and the trustees are already aware of many more deserving organizations and projects than they can afford to contribute to, they neither accept nor respond to unsolicited grant requests.)