Update from Finance & Planning

March donations down
from last year

By Ronald Kelly

PASADENA—After two months of contribution increases, regular mail donations took a bit of a drop in March.

Donations in March were just under $1.5 million, while last year, March donations were right at $1.9 million. It is interesting that March 2002 was the second highest donation month of that year, topped only by December. So statistically we were up against a high month.

However, because of the litigation settlement with the Philadelphia Church of God and with the cash inflow from sales of a couple of peripheral pieces of property that were not part of the proposed development, our cash position is better than it has been for a while. The drop in March income brought the year-to-date contributions and other sources of income (excluding property sales and litigation settlement) for the first quarter of this year down six percent compared to 2002.

Also, for the first three months of the year, our expenses have been almost $5 million less than the cash inflow, thus allowing us to anticipate maintaining a positive cash flow and actually see an increase in our cash reserves.

As always, our principle source of funding comes from the generous tithes and offerings of our members. We project member donation income to average about $1.6 million per month.

We then forecast a variety of other sources of income such as estate donations, surplus property, equipment and furnishing sales, rental income and co-worker donations. That forms the basis of determining an annual budget.

This year, with all of our combined sources of income, we anticipate that we will maintain a small increase in our cash reserves by the time the year closes. Obviously that is dependent on our projections being accurate and realistic—and it assumes no significant increase in expenses.

With the decrease in March donation income, our Small-Step program to return cash to the local congregations did not have the numbers we had for January and February. You may remember from last month’s WN article, we returned cash to 60 percent of our local congregations. For March, 35 percent of our local church congregations will receive funds back.

I encourage each pastor and congregation to prayerfully discuss how to benefit from this beginning step toward our new financial model. Proactive planning can result in having funds for local outreach and evangelism or for other congregational programs.

Because we combined income statistics for January and February, a number asked how that occurred. Internal Revenue Service regulations require us to credit all donations to the year in which the donations are posted. The only month this creates special handling is December. So long as a donation is postmarked in December, no matter when we receive and process it, it must be credited to December.

So, for example, if a member writes a check and puts it in the mail Dec. 29, we might receive it Jan. 5. Our staff may not post it on our books until Jan. 10 or later. However, it must be credited to December, not January.

As we process December donations, we usually fall behind processing January contributions, and it might take us into February to catch up. That is why we combined January and February to determine our Small-Step fund returns.

For the rest of the year, we credit donations when they are processed without regard to the date on the check or the postmark.

I want to remind everyone that the contributions you make to the local church are always credited to that local congregation. Pastors and church treasurers are working with computer and budget programs that will be in place when we move to our new financial model. They are gaining experience that will greatly benefit our future transition to local financial management.

For most of you, what month a donation is credited will make little difference. But I have received enough questions that I thought a more detailed explanation would be helpful.

We’ll be back again next month with our financial update.

Wills and Trusts

Many members have requested information on how best to make a gift to the Worldwide Church of God, either during their lifetime or upon death through wills, trusts or other means.

If you want to receive information regarding such gifts, the Legal Department of the church is available to aid you in this regard without cost or obligation. Please write to Legal Office, Worldwide Church of God, Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.

 

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2003