wfn.org | No Place for Optimism about Future Finances, WCC Told

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

31-August-1999 
99288 
 
    No Place for Optimism about Future Finances, WCC Told 
 
    by Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News Service 
 
GENEVA - The central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the 
world's biggest ecumenical organization, has been warned that there is no 
place for an "optimistic perspective" about the organization's financial 
future. 
 
    The moderator of the WCC's finance committee, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, a 
leading Protestant from Germany,  told the central committee yesterday that 
on current figures the WCC was facing a deficit of at least 300 000 Swiss 
Francs ($200,000 US) this year, due to a "tremendous decrease" in 
contributions by member churches. 
 
    Although the finance committee was not yet in a position to present a 
budget for 2000, initial figures suggested that there would be further 
reductions in contributions by member churches, Bishop Huber said, although 
he did not specify any amount. 
 
    He said that the WCC's executive committee had instructed staff to make 
cuts to bring the deficit down to no more than 50 000 Swiss Francs this 
year. There would have to be further cuts in 2000 if no new sources of 
income could be found, so that the deficit in 2000 also would not exceed 50 
000 Swiss Francs. 
 
    However, Bishop Huber, who was presenting an initial report on WCC 
finances to the central committee, which is meeting in Geneva until 3 
September, said that in 1998 the WCC had made a modest surplus. 
 
    (According to the organization's financial report for 1998, which was 
distributed to the central committee's 158 members, the WCC's net operating 
results, excluding investment income, for last year showed a surplus of 
1.229 million Swiss Francs [$811,000 US], compared to a deficit in 1997 of 
1.960 million Swiss Francs.) 
 
    Bishop Huber also told the central committee that "the majority of 
member churches of this council do not pay their membership fees, do not 
pay the minimum [amount of 1000 Swiss Francs] which is in the rules." 
 
    In recent years, the WCC has been plagued by a series of financial 
crises, leading to major restructuring of the organization and staff 
reductions in 1998. The former moderator of the WCC's finance committee, 
Birgitta Rantakari, told the WCC's Harare assembly last December that the 
series of budget and staff cuts, begun in 1991, combined with extraordinary 
investment results in 1996, had made WCC financial officials "cautiously 
optimistic." 

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