Cooperative Program giving from South Carolina Baptist churches improves in 2014

Great Commission Living SCBC

By

Published on

Although the South Carolina Baptist Convention fell short of meeting its 2014 budget, gifts from churches to the Cooperative Program were up for the year.

Churches forwarded $27,625,409 toward the state convention’s $28.5 million CP budget in 2014. Although CP gifts were 3.07 percent below budgeted amounts, South Carolina Baptists gave $279,669 more than they did in 2013, according to information released by Pam Carroll, the SCBC’s chief executive officer.

Carroll said 41 percent of budget receipts were forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention and that the SCBC’s seven institutions received “their full GCR-budgeted funding.”

She said the Executive Board ministries portion of the budget was fully funded in 2014, leaving $245,804 available for direct distribution to the International Mission Board. (The supplemental funding for IMB, contingent upon the SCBC meeting its operating budget, was called for in the 2011 Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report.) In December 2014, the SCBC’s Executive Board voted to use the convention’s Fund Balance to bring the IMB gift up to $400,000.

Carroll told the Courier she was “very encouraged” by the increase in CP giving. She also noted that more churches are using the convention’s online giving option, which she said allows churches to forward their gifts “quite efficiently” and without the expense of postage or checks. Churches interested in online giving can find more information at scbaptist.org/supporting/scbc-accounting/online-giving.

Marshall Blalock, chairman of the SCBC’s Budget, Finance & Audit Committee, said 2014 saw the first real increase in SCBC giving since the start of the recession. “Although modest, this increase in giving is a huge step forward,” he said. “Giving through the Cooperative Program touches thousands of lives in our state, but it also extends the good news to people in every corner of the world. Only in heaven will we know the full impact of this gift [to the IMB], but we can rejoice for the thousands more who will hear the priceless news of the Prince of Peace.”