Purpose:
The Bylaws Renewal Team is a UUA Board-appointed committee charged with a comprehensive, forward-looking renewal of the Unitarian Universalist Association bylaws. This work moves beyond routine updates to a values-driven reassessment of whether the bylaws reflect governance practices that enable Unitarian Universalism to more fully live into its mission in the world.
Approaching the bylaws as an integrated system, the Team engages in holistic discernment to ensure coherence, clarity, and alignment with UU theology, evolving governance practices, and the Association’s future needs. This is a time-limited effort intended to lay the foundation for adaptive, mission-aligned governance for decades to come.
Key Responsibilities:
- Whole-System Review
- Review the bylaws for coherence, clarity, and alignment with UU theology, governance practices, and current realities
- Identify outdated assumptions and areas of unnecessary complexity or constraint
- Support integrated, system-wide renewal rather than incremental fixes
- Grounding in Identity and Future Needs
- Center the UUA’s purpose, covenant, and values
- Consider evolving models of leadership, authority, and accountability
- Focus on long-term, mission-aligned governance
- Engagement
- Gather input from across the Association, including volunteers, staff, delegates, and marginalized voices
- Ensure bylaws are accessible, usable, and grounded in lived experience
- Values-Based Discernment
- Apply UU and anti-oppressive lenses, prioritizing: interdependence, trust, equity, clarity, effective use of time, and mission-aligned authority
- Drafting and Board Partnership
- Develop proposals in collaboration with the Board of Trustees
- Clarify what belongs in bylaws versus policy or practice
- Preparation for General Assembly
- Clearly explain proposed changes, including rationale and tradeoffs
Skills Needed:
- Systems thinking and strategic perspective
- Understanding of UU values and governance, with a specific focus on the UUA’s bylaws
- Experience in nonprofit governance, policy, or organizational design
- Ability to engage across difference with an equity lens
- Strong collaboration and communication skills
- Comfort with iterative, discernment-based work
Terms and Term Limits:
- Term Length - 3 years
- Term Limit - 2 terms of 3 years, each
Time Commitment:
- Meetings - 2 meetings per month, 1 hour each
- Stakeholder sessions - multiple per year, determined by the task at hand in any given year
- Writing - writing of new bylaws as well as other writing tasks - 1-2 hours per month
- General Assembly - 5 hours to prepare for it and attendance at each GA is required
Additional Information:
- The Bylaws Renewal Team is accountable to the Board of Trustees, which determines final proposals to General Assembly and guides the Team’s work.
- Time-limited, focused effort
- Grounded in UU values and aimed at creating adaptive, mission-aligned governance for the future