A step toward our
new financial model

By Ronald Kelly

PASADENA—We are pleased to announce a step toward the implementation of our projected new financial model.

Your contributions to the WCG are normally attributed to the congregation you attend. Your pastor and district superintendent receive monthly reports showing the total donation income for the congregation (not each individual) as well as expenses that headquarters pays on behalf of the congregation. Most pastors share this information in the weekly church bulletin or announcements during worship services.

For budget-planning purposes, we establish an annual donation base calculated on a fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and continuing through Sept. 30 the following year. Your pastor now has received a spreadsheet from his district superintendent showing the new fiscal base for 2003. It also shows expense projections such as hall rent, the pastors pay package and ministerial expenses.

This step we are implementing, although small, certainly has the potential to be quite encouraging— to return to the local church 80 percent of all member contributions that exceed the budgeted fiscal base.

Here’s an example of how it will work. Let’s say the annual contribution for the previous fiscal year is $108,000. Divide that number by 12 to determine the average monthly donation—in this case $9,000 a month. As a phase-in to the new model, every month in which donations exceed $9,000, 80 percent will be returned to the local account. Let’s say in January, donations are $8,000. That does not meet the fiscal base, so there will be no return.

In February, though, the contributions are $10,000. That’s $1,000 above base, so $800 will be returned. If July donations are $12,000, then $2,400 will be returned. And so it will go throughout the year.

Months with no increase above base will not impact other months that exceed the base. In other words, every month that shows an increase over the fiscal base results in 80 percent of the increase of that month being returned to the local church.

The reason I think this can be encouraging is that our experience with the pilot program congregations shows an average increase in donations of 15 percent. One congregation in the pilot program has experienced more than 40 percent increase. If an average of 15 percent were realized in our example above, the $108,000 would increase to more than $124,000—or almost $13,000 being sent back to the local congregation.

Of course the denomination benefits as well, because 20 percent of the increase assists the international administrative work of the church. That’s about as near a win-win situation as I can imagine under our current circumstances.

It is interesting that the idea for this phase-in was presented by a member in the Northeast district. This is a great example of members participating with the denominational leadership to assist the work of our fellowship.

Sometimes members ask why we can’t implement the new financial model now. We have been unable to move more rapidly in that direction because implementation of the new model is dependent on the successful sale of the Pasadena property.

Although I have attempted to explain why the property sale is so important, let me rehearse it once again. The church has two major financial responsibilities that will not be required after the property sale. The first responsibility is the maintenance of the Pasadena property itself. After the sale, headquarters will be relocated into a facility smaller than even the current administration building, ending the expense of maintaining the 50-acre campus.

The second financial expense is discretionary assistance, which cares for more than 230 former employees who faithfully served the church, but are now in their retirement years. Discretionary assistance will be fully funded with a portion of the proceeds from the campus sale and will thereafter not require funding from general contributions. Until we no longer have these responsibilities, we have no capacity to implement our new financial model.

We continue to explore a variety of ways to defray these two major expenditures even before the property sells, but up to now we have not found a way. If we can determine a method to do so, we will move rapidly toward the new financial model.

Our financial decisions are motivated by our desire to have funds available in every local church for outreach, evangelism and ministry programs. A downsized headquarters will then be properly positioned to provide a variety of services that will benefit the work of congregations and international missions.

These last few years have been a long, hard, uphill struggle financially. The financial burdens, however, have been offset by the joy and excitement of God’s loving grace to our fellowship in doctrinal and administrative changes that have brought us into even richer fellowship with our Lord and Savior and with fellow members of the Body of Christ.

We hope you will rejoice with us in this first step toward our new model. Please pray for your local church to grow both spiritually and then in numbers as we share the truly Good News we have been privileged to understand.

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2002