wfn.org | Sales of New Curriculum Justify Great Expectations

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Note #5896 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

16-May-2000
00193

	Sales of New Curriculum Justify Great Expectations

	Total for 4-month period tops projection by a cool $460,000

	by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Sales of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s new "Covenant
People" curriculum exceeded projections by more than $460,000 for the first
four months of year 2000.

	Total curriculum sales -- including "Covenant People" and two other new
product lines, "Bible Quest" and "The Present Word," as well as previous
curriculum such as "Bible Discovery" and "Celebrate" -- for the period from
January through April totaled $964,504, an increase of more than 100 percent
over the figure for the comparable period in 1999.

	"This news is actually very good," Publisher Sandra Moak Sorem said. "We
think the numbers are quite encouraging. We're finding that people are
enthusiastic about having something distinctively Presbyterian -- and that
the new curriculum is meeting a heartfelt need in the church."

	Joey Bailey, deputy director of Mission Support Services, was ebullient
when he presented the sharply improved sales figures to the executive
committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC) a few weeks ago.

	"This is very good news," he said. "Sales are well above projections and
well above the prior-year totals. The new marketing efforts seem to be
paying off."

	Officials of the Curriculum Publishing Program Area (CPPA) attributed most
of the improvement to "sales of about four times budgeted levels in ‘Bible
Discovery'" and "earlier-than-budgeted sales for the new product lines."

	Because of higher than budgeted expenses in the Editorial, Production and
Marketing departments, CPPA still had a net loss of about $621,000 for the
four-month period -- about $15,000 more than was projected.

	Editorial costs for the four-month period exceeded budget by $116,000,
partly because the Point Program -- a new marketing program in which sales
"facilitators" have been appointed in nearly every presbytery -- was $46,000
over budget. Production costs exceeded budget by about $87,000. Many of
these expenses were start-of-year costs that will likely be recovered by
year's end.

	All the materials in the "Covenant People" product line had been sent to
the printer by the end of March.

	Sorem said feedback from Christian educators and others has been
overwhelmingly positive. She said she has heard just one complaint -- that
the curriculum presents educators with so many options that they sometimes
get confused.

	One of CPPA's announced goals is to boost the number of congregations that
have "standing orders" for curriculum materials from about 34 percent to at
least 50 percent.

	About 3,400 PC(USA) churches -- about one-third -- were standing-order
customers at the beginning of the year, and another 1,800 had bought some
curriculum materials during 1999. CPPA managers said last October that an
increase in standing orders to 50 percent of PC(USA) congregations would put
CPPA on solid financial ground.

	Sorem said CPPA has made progress toward that goal but "is not quite there
yet."

	She added that everyone in the recently downsized program area has been
working very hard for a long time under a lot of pressure.

	"All of them deserve to be commended and applauded," she said.

	In his report to the GAC executive committee, the Rev. Don Campbell,
director of the Congregational Ministries Division, of which CPPA is a part,
also had high praise for CPPA.

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