Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee are 5.02 percent above the year-to-date budgeted goal and are less than 1 percent (0.82 percent) behind contributions received during the same time frame last year, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee president and chief executive officer Frank Page.
As of Jan. 31, gifts received by the Executive Committee for distribution through the Cooperative Program Allocation Budget totaled $65,113,287, or 105.02 percent of the $62,000,000 year-to-date amount budgeted to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America. The total is $539,172 less than the $65,652,460 received through the end of January 2011.
“Nonprofits typically rebound from economic crises at a slower pace than the general economy,” Page said. “In light of giving trends over the past three years, the SBC reduced its 2011-2012 budget by 6.9 percent and the SBC Operating Budget by 13.6 percent from the 2010-2011 adopted budgets. Given where our cooperative giving is at this point, these seem to be wise and prudent moves.”
The convention-adopted budget is distributed 50.2 percent to international missions through IMB, 22.79 percent to North American missions through NAMB, 22.16 percent to theological education, 3.2 percent to the SBC operating budget, and 1.65 percent to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “While we celebrate every gift to each area of our cooperative missions and ministries,” Page said, “we are especially grateful that more than $47.5 million in Cooperative Program contributions have gone directly to missions through IMB and NAMB in the first four months of our fiscal year.”
According to the budget adopted by the SBC at its June 2011 annual meeting in Phoenix, if the convention exceeds its annual budget goal of $186 million, IMB’s share will go to 51 percent of any overage in Cooperative Program allocation budget receipts. Other ministry entities of the SBC will receive their adopted percentage amounts and the SBC operating budget’s portion will be reduced to 2.4 percent of any overage.
Designated giving of $40,729,354 for the same year-to-date period is 8.72 percent, or $3,267,717, above gifts of $37,461,636 received at this point last year. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee and does not reflect designated gifts contributed directly to SBC entities. – BP