The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh strives to be welcoming to all people who seek a liberal religious home.
While committed to this ideal, we at UUFR recognize that we sometimes fall short of it regarding being welcoming to people from historically marginalized communities.
Unfortunately, we know that participants at UUFR sometimes say or do things or create situations make individuals who identify as belonging to a historically marginalized community feel unwelcome. While likely infrequent and unintentional, these interactions can still cause harm by making people feel “othered” and unwelcomed at UUFR.
It is for this reason that UUFR formed the Welcoming to All Team and created a process for people to report negative interactions.
If you are a member of a historically marginalized community and have had an interaction with somebody at UUFR or faced a situation that impacted you negatively, we encourage you to fill out our incident form or contact our Welcoming to All Team. You may also contact individual team members using the contact information below.
It is possible to fill out the form anonymously. This will at least allow us to track how often individuals with historically marginalized identities experience interactions or situations that impact them negatively and allow us to create educational opportunities for the congregation as a whole.
However, we strongly encourage you to provide your contact information when filling out the form so that a member of the Welcoming to All Team can follow up with you. It is sometimes useful to have another person compassionately listen to your experience. Your name will be shared only with members of the team.
If and only if you desire to do so, a member of the Welcoming to All Team can also arrange to facilitate a conversation with the person or people who said something or did something that impacted you negatively.
If there has been a situation that involves more egregious behavior and violates the congregation’s Unacceptable Conduct Policy, the Lead Minister also has the ability to initiate a process to limit an individual’s future participation in the congregation.
It is also true that we live in a society in which social norms are changing quickly. Sometimes people genuinely wonder about what is welcoming or even acceptable to say or ask or do when interacting with members of historically marginalized communities. Even members of historically marginalized communities themselves sometimes have questions, and not all members of historically marginalized communities agree about what is most welcoming or even acceptable. However, if you would like to initiate a conversation where you can ask questions in a safe space, you can contact the Welcoming to All Team as a whole at or you can contact individual team members using the contact information below.
