To the Deputies and Bishops of The Episcopal Church assembled at the 81st General Convention:

The Young Adult Caucus of General Convention expresses grave concerns about the current state of our Church’s capacity for data collection, research, monitoring, and evaluation. The Church has canonical and pragmatic needs for data pertaining to our members, congregations, and dioceses, but we are not currently investing in data and research to make effective use of that information and support our shared mission. We need to be able to understand who is and isn’t served by the Church so that we can plan for our future.

Going beyond the Parochial and Diocesan Reports, there are at least 13 resolutions submitted for this triennium that call for the collection, analysis, or dissemination of data for our Church. Our current data practices in The Episcopal Church mean that interim bodies have limited support and access to resources to fulfill their mandates. Interim bodies generate surveys, collect data, and analyze the results on an ad hoc basis. Interim bodies may include members with expertise in survey design and data analysis, but if not, the usefulness of the results may be severely limited. When we turn to outside experts to address these gaps, we pay a premium and may lose important contextual information held by our interim bodies. Bringing research and data skills in-house would provide for greater continuity and collaboration. Interim bodies raise important questions for the church to answer, but they may not have the tools or experience to rigorously answer them.

We often hear concerns about the efficiency of the Church, and whether funds are spent effectively on our mission. An Officer for Mission-Driven Data Strategy at the churchwide level will support the Church’s ability to evaluate the efficacy of programs. Our budget will be able to go farther if we can prioritize effective initiatives and improve and learn from less effective initiatives. We would be better able to identify when an approach is working well in one diocese, so that it could be tried in others. We could make better, more informed governance decisions with better information on the effectiveness of past and present programs.

Investing in our churchwide data capacity is also not out of step with comparable denominations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Presbyterian Church (USA) (PC(USA)), United Methodist Church (UMC), and United Church of Christ (UCC) all have research and data capacities that far outpace The Episcopal Church. A churchwide officer need not only serve the needs of DFMS, either. Research Services of PC(USA), for example, serves their whole church, from their General Assembly to individual congregations. Investing in this initiative will strengthen our Church from top to bottom.

This Caucus urges the Church to prioritize long-term planning based on data. This is an opportunity to be more collaborative and to be better informed in the decisions we make together.

Respectfully submitted,
Evangeline Warren, Ohio (on behalf of The Young Adult Caucus of General Convention)

Endorsed by:
Laura Curlin, California
Elizabeth Rousseau, Connecticut
Lindsey Hardegree, Atlanta

Supported by:
The Young Adult Caucus of General Convention