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Friends United Meeting |
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September 1998
Friends United Meeting and Money
By Johan Maurer
In my office is a beautiful print of the scripture, Consider the lilies of the field, a gift which my former boss Florence Skove of the Logos Bookstore in Charlottesville gave me when I left for Indiana in 1982. The print hangs in the very room where I spend a lot of time worrying about money FUM's budget, to be specific!
Along with most people in the world of Christian nonprofits, my focus is to offer the best possible programming, and to present it as attractively as possible and then (runs the idealistic way of thinking) the donors will be eager to fund us. Assuming we don't waste resources, deficits should be a thing of the past, right? We should be considering the lilies and spreading the Gospel, and the God of abundance will take care of the rest.
Yes and no. Donations for specific programs are coming in well. For example, in World Ministries, aside from an $11,000 deficit in Lugulu's accounts and a $7,000 deficit in those of the Chicago Fellowship of Friends, we are more than keeping pace. However, the general budget accounts which pay for World Ministries staff (and Meeting Ministries staff, and my office, and the bookkeeping, maintenance and insurance costs for the FUM offices) were running behind by about $121,000 at mid-year.
We certainly need donors to support the field staff and field programs these activities are ways that you make a difference in the physical and spiritual lives of people in many places. However, we cannot run those programs and maintain their integrity without paying and equipping qualified staff here at home. In the past, we tried to achieve some balance between popular programs and this administrative reality by taking 5% of each restricted gift and transferred that 5% into the general budget as an overhead charge. Although this charge was never adequate, we knew it was unpopular, and we have made an important change. In World Ministries' case, for example, the 5% contribution to the general budget for World Ministries administrative overhead is now taken from missions gifts not directed to specific World Ministries programs so that we can assure donors that 100% of your gift to a field staff support budget or a field program budget goes to that budget.
For many years, there has been an unwritten contract between FUM and its constituency, by which the yearly meetings raised the money for FUM's general budget (including World and Meeting Ministries staff) and core programming. When a meeting or individual wanted to give to some special FUM program, they knew that their gift could go to that concern; the basic expenses of FUM were already covered. As the century comes to an end, old loyalties and assumptions about denominational support are weakening and are being replaced by a more individualistic approach to philanthropy. This accounts for some of the changing proportion between general budget and restricted giving.
Thankfully, many yearly meetings, monthly meetings and individuals are doing well in supporting FUM's field work. They also purchase services from FUM (such as Meeting Ministries' seminars, Jubilee curriculum, and so on) at an impressive rate. Now how do we make the administration of all this work as attractive to meetings and individuals as the programs are? Do we need to re-examine, modify or even replace the old unwritten contract ?
I wrote these thoughts for two reasons: First, I wanted to open a conversation
about how FUM should be funded. In these changing times, this is a conversation
that every denomination and missions agency needs to have, not just FUM.
Secondly, and more basically, I think there has been a vacuum of information
about FUM's finances, which probably has had its own negative impact on
our income. It is time we did a better job of informing you. I hope these
thoughts are a start.
Johan Maurer is editor of Quaker Life and general secretary of Friends United Meeting
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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