Title: ELCA Council Approves Mission Development Fund, Spending Authorizations ELCA NEWS SERVICE
November 15, 2006
ELCA Council Approves Mission Development Fund, Spending Authorizations 06-174-MRC
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved the establishment of the "Mission Development Fund," a new temporarily restricted fund in the ELCA Foundation, and it approved initial 2007 fiscal spending authorizations for the churchwide organization and ELCA World Hunger.
The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. The council met here Nov. 11-13. Assemblies are held ever other year; the next is here Aug. 6-11, 2007.
Financial gifts to the ELCA in the form of unrestricted bequests and trusts in excess of the church's budgeted amount will be placed in the new fund, "after covering any shortfall in other current income categories, in any fiscal year," according to the council's action. Additional consideration will be given to the cash balances available for the ELCA to meet its cash management policies. The transfer of such income will be authorized by the ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop and the ELCA Office of the Treasurer.
Resources from the mission development fund will be used as "seed money for new and innovative ministries and in support of churchwide priorities," said Grieg L. Anderson, Portland, Ore., council member. He said the creation of the fund serves to "set a policy for large, unrestricted gifts" to the church.
Funds will be allocated the request of the ELCA Office of Presiding Bishop in consultation with the ELCA Office of the Treasurer and the ELCA Foundation. The council amended the action to include consultation with the ELCA Cabinet of Executives, and it added that "expenditure from the Mission Development Fund in an amount greater than $1 million shall require action by the Church Council."
Christina Jackson-Skelton, ELCA treasurer, said the fund will first be available in February 2007.
In a separate action, the council approved an initial 2007 fiscal year current fund spending authorization of $80,727,000 for the ELCA churchwide organization and a spending authorization of $17.5 million for ELCA World Hunger.
Anderson, who delivered a report from the council's budget and finance committee, said mission support -- funds contributed to the churchwide organization by congregations through the 65 synods of the ELCA -- continues to remain "flat." Income estimates for mission support in 2006 and 2007 will remain the same at $65.5 million. Actual mission support received in 2005 totaled more than $65.468 million.
Phyllis L. Wallace, Saint Thomas, V.I., council member, was elected chair of the budget and finance committee. Ann F. Niedringhaus, Duluth, Minn., council member, was elected vice chair of the committee. Wallace succeeds Earl L. Mummert, 61, who died Oct. 20 in Hershey, Pa.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog