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7th Tradition

for Online Groups

WSO Depends on the 7th Tradition to Carry the Message

Challenges for Online Groups

One of the challenges with 7th Tradition has to do with collection during online meetings. You may have noticed that many online ACA meetings are simply asking members to go to the adultchildren.org website and contribute during the 7th tradition portion of the meeting.  This approach is unfortunately not working.  With in person meetings, most ACA’s would put a contribution in the basket.  This simple act would often only take 30 seconds for each individual member, and hardly distract them from continuing to listen and participate during the meeting.  However, taking the time to change the screen from the virtual meeting to the donation page on our website, is a big ask.  As it is much harder, if not impossible, to stay present during a  meeting while filling out an online donation form. Thus a lot of ACA’s who used to give on a weekly basis are simply not doing it anymore.

ACA is Self Supporting

7th Tradition

7th Tradition is Part of Doing Service to the Fellowship

How Our Groups Make This Work

  1. Use a virtual basket.  For example, many groups have reported using Paypal.  WSO is completely neutral to the type of virtual basket you use, but whatever virtual basket is chosen should work well for the majority of group members.  This can be decided via group conscience.
  2. Stop the meeting for 1-3 minutes during the 7th tradition to give people the opportunity to donate without missing out on what is being said in the meeting, as it takes more attention to do a virtual donation than put physical money in a basket.
  3. Have the treasurer report periodically  how much money the group has in its treasury.   Most groups do this weekly or monthly.  This way members can know how collecting the 7th tradition is going with their virtual basket.
  4. Develop a prudent reserve.  A prudent reserve is the amount of money that a group has decided the treasury should not fall below.  For example, this might be a year of online room fees.
  5. Quarterly or more often, donate all funds above your prudent reserve to intergroup, region, and WSO. 
  6. Have a group conscience to determine your group’s best practices for the 7th tradition.

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