Baptist Press issued some figures about the pace of Cooperative Program giving over the last few months. We have seen hints that it was coming and today we get confirmation. The news wasn’t good and we’re 5% behind the 2008 pace. But the real headline was buried in the article.
For the (2008-2009) SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget, the year-to-date total of $47,251,306.70 is 91.88 percent of the $51,429,208.50 budgeted to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America.
Remember, the SBC operates on an Oct. 1-Sept. 30 fiscal year. So, these figures are describing the first quarter of our fiscal year which includes October – December 2008. That means a 4 million dollar budget shortage after only one quarter.
How will our entities weather this 8% drop in funding? What about the state conventions, who depend on the CP for their operating budgets?
Tony, It is only going to get worse… “For the month, receipts of $14,067,108.90 were 14.71 percent, or $2,426,627.36 below the $16,493,736.26 received in December 2007.” “The $3,335,204.76 in designated gifts received last month is $1,340,441.20 below the $4,675,645.96 received in December 2007, a decrease of 28.76 percent.” And the economy is still shrinking… we very well could see a 20% decrease in overall giving by the time 2008-2009 is over. This is going to hurt, there is no way to avoid it. It is time to start asking some very tough questions about how and where the money is… Read more »
I don’t know what other churches do, but our church holds all of our CP dollars until the very end of the year when we have our big World Missions in-gathering day. I doubt the SBC would be able to process our gift until early January. There may not be many churches that do things the way we do, but I’m curious to see how the second quarter turns out.
@Cameron: Good point, I wasn’t aware that was the practice in some parts. The bad news was the comparison to Dec 07 giving was way down too.