wfn.org | WCC's Financial Crisis Is Over, Says Finance Official

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7-December-1998 
 
    WCC's Financial Crisis Is Over, Says Finance Official 
 
    by Jerry Van Marter and Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
Harare, Zimbabwe -The financial crisis that has plagued the World Council 
of Churches (WCC) for a number of years is over, delegates to the 
organization's eighth assembly were told yesterday, 4 December. 
 
    In her preliminary report to the assembly, WCC finance committee chair 
Birgitta Rantakari, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 
said that a series of budget and staff cuts, begun in 1991, combined with 
extraordinary investment results in 1996, had made WCC financial officials 
"cautiously optimistic". 
 
    However, Rantakari added that there was "still more to do" and that the 
"main goal now is to balance the WCC's budget without reliance on 
investment income".  Depending on such volatile 
sources of funds, she said, was "an invitation to disaster".  For example, 
although investment income reached 10 million Swiss francs (US$7.29 
million) in 1996, it dropped by several 
million francs last year. 
 
    WCC operating budgets showed modest surpluses for the last two years, 
Rantakari said, adding that  she was "much encouraged" by reports that the 
operating surplus for the first nine months of 1998 was 1.4 million francs. 
 
    Rantakari urged WCC member churches to "stand by your commitment to the 
WCC, which includes the financial security of the council".  She noted that 
only about half of the WCC's 332 member churches made any contribution at 
all.  Figures also showed that member church contributions accounted for 
only about 10 per cent of the WCC's budget. 
 
    The WCC's income and expenditure figures from 1994 to 1997, reproduced 
in the preliminary report presented to delegates on 4 December, suggests 
that the organization's financial situation has improved markedly in the 
four-year period. Contributions (churches' membership fees) 
improved from Sfr 7 100 000 in 1994 to Sfr 9 128 00 in 1997, although 
income for WCC programs - for specific activities by the council - fell 
from Sfr 20 172 000 to Sfr 18 566 000 in the same period. 
 
    Figures for the "net operating results" show that in 1994 the WCC had a 
deficit of  Sfr 5 770 000 in 1994, while in 1997 there was a deficit of Sfr 
1 960 000. 
 
    However the document does not indicate expected expenditure for 1998, 
nor does it state the expected final cost of the Harare assembly, which in 
1996 had  been budgeted at Sfr11 million.  In September the WCC's general 
secretary, Dr Konrad Raiser, said that it was likely the assembly would 
keep within its budget. 
 
    The document also indicates that both the Ecumenical Center, the WCC's 
headquarters in Geneva, and the building housing the Ecumenical Institute 
at Bossey, near Geneva, will "need extensive repair and renovation work". A 
fund-raising campaign is under way to pay for these projects. 
 
    The WCC is also eager to become less financially dependent on the 
Protestant churches of northern Europe, notably those in Germany, which pay 
the lion's share of the organization's costs. WCC financial director Robert 
Christeler this week told Jubilee, the daily newspaper published in Harare 
for the assembly delegates: "We must decrease our dependence on traditional 
Western and North European partners who are also feeling the ripple effects 
of the economic downturn. And the churches in Germany, for example, have to 
make the difficult decision whether to finance international ecumenism 
through the WCC or help meet the local social demand after the 
reintegration of the former Eastern Germany." 
 
    The WCC should diversify its sources of income, he said. "We are 
looking at building stronger relationships with North America, because with 
closer relationships and understanding come a deeper commitment. That will 
hopefully lead to a more generous source of income." 

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