About USPS

Welcome to the temporary home page of the Unitarian Service Pension Society. 

We are a non-profit organization that manages a fund that provides a modest gratuity to hundreds of retired Unitarian Universalist ministers. These clergy are retired, in Full Ministerial Fellowship with the UUA, and have served 20 or more years as a parish minister. 

Our organization was founded in 1907 in response to a concern at that time about the financial challenges that many Unitarian ministers and their families faced when they retired.  Funds were raised and this Society was formed.  Ever since the Unitarian Service Pension Society has provided a quarterly gift - or gratuity - to our retired ministers who qualify. 

This is not a pension in the modern legal definition of that word.  No amount of money has been paid to this fund by the recipient’s congregation or by the UUA while they are working.  Instead this is a “forever” fund prudently overseen by the Board with the help of professional management. 

Out of this fund we make gifts – or pay gratuities – to our retired clergy.  While we wish the fund was larger than it is, we take our mission seriously to provide these quarterly gifts to those who have spent their careers in service to Unitarian Universalist congregations as parish ministers.