William Thornton is the SBC Plodder.
The SBC Executive Committee has closed the books on the fiscal year 2013-2014 and Baptist Press reports that “The Southern Baptist Convention ended its fiscal year 0.76% below last year’s contributions and missed its Cooperative Program allocation budgeted projection of $191.5 million by 2.58%…”
Here are the relevant figures as compared to the last fiscal year. These are for monies received by the SBC Executive Committee for distribution to the SBC entities IMB, NAMB, the seminaries, ERLC, and EC itself. The figures, in millions of dollars, do not include total Cooperative Program gifts as received by all the state conventions.
2013-2014 2012-2013 Change
CP Allocation Budget Gifts
$186.6 $188.0 -0.75%
Designated Gifts
$194.7 $193.1 0.81%
Designated gifts include Lottie Moon receipts, Annie Armstrong, World Hunger, and CP monies sent directly to the Executive Committee designated for the CP allocation budget.
A few observations:
1. Frank Page believes that CP giving may “have reached the nadir, or lowest point, for national Cooperative Program gifts.” While I hope so, I don’t know of anything that allows for such a conclusion.
2. We are not a bad off as others. I’m all for finding a positive spin for negative news. The CP is down but, Page says, “the Atlas of Giving forecasts that giving to religious organizations will decline by 2 percent year-to-year, so the fact that our national CP giving was down by less than 1 percent and overall giving was slightly up shows we are bucking the trend.” Another way to say this is that CP giving is down less that one might have predicted and designated giving is up, against the trends.
3. For the second consecutive year, the Executive Committee received more designated funds (almost all Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, and Global Hunger Relief) than undesignated money for the CP allocation budget. The proportion is now about 51% designated, 49% undesignated. I’m not sure why this particular statistic is not spoken of more often among Southern Baptists. At the SBC level we follow a societal giving system for most of our money.
4. We are dealing in fractions of percentage points here, but churches are showing a preference for funding the two mission boards directly, rather than the Cooperative Program.
5. Frank Page’s one percent increase plan has some success, but not enough to move the needle.
6. As always, it’s easy to be negative but one must not forget that the CP is a mammoth ministry funding plan and on the SBC level still divides over $186 million to our mission boards, the six seminaries, the ERLC, with a little kept by the Executive Committee.
The EC has cut back the budget to the goal of 2012-13, $188 million.
My friend, brother, and fellow Georgian, Hope you’re well, Wm. I have a question(s). You indicated that the SBC is now prone to societal rather than cooperative giving. How do you account for that? Do you think the tipping of the balance, so to speak, may be cast at the feet of the GCR with its GCG? Or, is/was the GCR only a minor or perhaps a lesser contributor if contributor at all? Finally, even if only “fractions” of percentages reflecting a tendency toward societal giving are recorded, this may mean the ultimate dismantling of the CP. Whether that’s a… Read more »
I’ll make a longer answer. You ask good questions. I wrote on GCG a short while ago. It is growing as CP is declining.
http://sbcplodder.blogspot.com/2014/08/great-commission-giving-vs-cooperative.html
Dave didn’t pick that one up for here.
I’ll try and get to Macon to see you and others.
William–I tweaked your post just a bit to get the numbers under the headings. I think our “column width” has gotten narrower, so it wasn’t showing quite right.
Doug
“At the SBC level we follow a societal giving system for most of our money.”
I just want to point out for those like myself who read too quickly the first time….as you say, this only applies AT THE SBC LEVEL.”
Obviously, if 186 million is roughly 40% of all CP funds the states collect…that means that (consulting calculator) 465 million is the total CP collections from the churches…still WAY MORE than designated giving.
So AS A WHOLE, SBC CP giving still dwarfs societal giving.
That’s all.
On target: I wonder about the 1% challenge and moving the needle, and when it would show up. For example, if a church budgets annually and they have been picking up the “I upped my CP, up yours!” concept all year, when would it actually show? If you started convincing Almyra Baptist to tweak our budget in January, apart from a crisis it would the following January before it actually hit. So, if a pastor or leadership/budget/missions committee has been working for months to persuade the church to change their giving, it may be better next year. All in all,… Read more »
The 1% Challenge is several years old and 15% or so of churches were reported to have adopted the increase, so the current CP figures already reflect that.
I agree that the CP market basket of ministries might be less compelling than some specific direct appeals. I suppose that is why CP promotion is often heavy on IMB/NAMB as state conventions piggyback funding appeals to that which so best received and understood by churches and members. To be fair, I see a lot of attempts by state conventions to personalize CP appeals.
I see that as well. I think that’s part of the reason why you don’t see the groundswell for states to shift more to Nashville. The state puts the face on the CP–so now when our church thinks of CP they think of the guy from the state who worked with them on a disaster or the lady who helped our missions day, or someone else… I think my main point is this: we keep talking about efficiencies or percentages, and even points of doctrine –but the root is relational in the local church. They hold on to the CP… Read more »
I liked reading through these points of view. It appears that the people that give the money are no longer comfortable with the ambiguity of the CP. How then can the CP be made less ambiguous? Designated giving seems to give a level of control to the giver that the CP may never have the ability to grant.
This has always been the case but let’s be clear here. Almost all of what is reported as designated by the executive committee is Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, and Global Hunger Relief (formerly World Hunger Fund).
What has happened over a period of years is that the CP has declined while the mission offerings have slightly increased. I expect that in a decade or less the EC will receive more money from Lottie Moon offerings alone than CP.
Chris
Please elaborate on the ambiguity concept…thanks
D.L., what I am think about when I say ambiguity, that term may not be as accurate as the CP is just simply a familiar term, that lacks fresh focus and definition. The advantage of designating a specific gift, is that there is a sense of newness or proximity that is not seen in the CP at this point in time. I think much of that is attributed to the speed at which data is distributed, and the ease of designation. With an information laden society, instant information, and ease of monetary distribution, the CP may be simply thought of… Read more »
meant to say …. “D.L., what I think about when I say ambiguity,..is that the term, Cooperative Program, is just simply a familiar term… that lacks fresh focus and definition.”
Chris
Thanks much. I think you make a salient point. familiarity brings complacency at times.
William
Re. direct giving….I would assume that the lion’s share of direct giving is Lottie, Annie, and World hunger. How much was given that was designed to bypass the state convention?
Very little…in the low single digit percentage of total EC CP.