Dan Brody

UUA Financial Advisor

I was elected to a four-year term as UUA Financial Advisor at General Assembly in Fort Worth in 2005, and was re-elected in 2009.

Qualifications

I was formerly Chief Financial Officer of a non-profit start-up, The Boston Museum. Holding this part-time job permits me to devote a considerable amount of time, including many weekday meetings, to my service as UUA Financial Advisor.

I previously served as chief financial officer for the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and as Deputy State Budget Director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I have a bachelor's degree from Harvard, and a master's degree in city planning from the University of California at Berkeley.

I've been a member of the First Unitarian Society in Newton for fifteen years, and have served on its Board of Investment and its planned giving committee. (If you follow the link to the FUSN home page, you can see me helping to carry our Welcoming Congregation banner at the Boston Gay Pride Parade several years ago.)

As UUA Financial Advisor since 2005, I've served on these boards and committees:

• UUA Board of Trustees and its Executive Committee
• Finance Committee
• Audit Committee
• Investment Committee
• Committee on Socially Responsible Investing
• Administrative Organization and Personnel Committee
• UU Health Plan Board of Trustees
• Compensation, Benefits and Pensions Committee
• Congregational Properties and Loan Committee
• UUA Scholarship Committee

An article on UUWorld.org provides more information about my background and my candidacy for re-election.

Accomplishments

The Financial Advisor has no independent authority, but instead works to improve the UUA's financial operations through education, negotiation, providing advice when asked (and sometimes when not asked), and, yes, by just showing up at an awful lot of committee meetings. Since my election as Financial Advisor, I've played a role in these accomplishments:

• Assisting in the creation of the new UUA Health Plan, which now provides excellent health insurance coverage to 700 UU ministers, congregational staff, and UUA and district staff, many of whom previously had no health insurance or inadequate coverage. The Health Plan has completed two full years of operation in excellent financial condition.

• Building a strong working relationship between the two UUA committees that are responsible for investing UUA funds: the Investment Committee and the Committee on Socially Responsible Investing. An important result of this collaboration was the unanimous adoption by the UUA Board of Trustees of a new UUA Investment Policy.

• Initiating the establishment of a system to allocate the cost of office space among the UUA's programs. The purpose of this system is to give the staff and Board better feedback about the true operating cost of each program.

Goals

In the remaining years of my service, I will work with the new President and the Board of Trustees to address the following topics:

• Endowment spending policy
• Options for funding the cost of future capital campaigns
• Continued improvements to UUA financial reporting
• Accounting for unrestricted gift and bequest income
• The role of the Liberal Religious Charitable Society (LRCS) and other organizations that hold funds to benefit the UUA and UU-related purposes
• Conflict of interest and whistle-blower policies
• Management of debt, cash, and short-term investments
• Facilities renewal policies

It is an honor and a privilege to serve our Association.

Personal Information

I do consulting work for Raise Up Massachusetts, Field First LLC, and Senator Ed Markey's re-election campaign.

I manage the Boston Ethnic Markets website.