Time For A Change
by
Marcia Slentz-Whalen
Each year PW’s Creative Ministries Offering Committee (CMOC) awards money to
selected recipients who apply for grants through the PW Birthday Offering
program. These grants are funded by the Birthday Offering collections from
local PW circles, and the CMOC is entrusted with a stewardship role in
determining how those individual offerings will be spent.
It is time for the CMOC to change its way of doing things. It is becoming
increasingly clear that monies are being directed to organizations whose
programs and policies directly contradict the Biblical and Constitutional
standards of the PC(USA).
In response to reasonable requests for information about grant recipients,
the CMOC has failed to provide complete and accurate disclosure.
Specifically, requests were not honored for copies of the Mission Statements
of each of the recipient organizations. In some cases, the response was
simply that the grant applicant did not have a Mission Statement. In other
cases, a ‘focus statement” was offered in lieu of the organization’s
overall Mission Statement. A simple “focus statement” addressing a specific
need within the organization is inadequate. No matter how worthy a
particular project may appear to be, if the mission of the organization is
contrary in any way to PC(USA) reformed theology, then no PC(USA) financial
resources should be turned over to such an organization. Even if the
specific project is a worthy project, helping an unworthy organization fund
a particular project simply ‘frees up” other monies at their disposal to
finance their mischief-making.
Three changes need to be made immediately:
(1) The CMOC must revise its application procedure to REQUIRE each grant
applicant to submit a copy of the organization’s Mission Statement.
(2) The CMOC must rule out any request from any faith-based organization
whose Mission Statement is not in alignment with the Biblical and
Constitutional standards of the PC(USA).
(3) Those Mission Statements must be published by the CMOC at the same
time that they publish the list of grant recipients. (Previously, the
announcement of award recipients has included only a brief statement
about the specific project toward which the grant money will be directed
by the organization.)
Even if your PW circle already has submitted its Birthday Offering
contribution for 2004, it is not too late to press for accountability.
Contact PW Officers in Louisville and request copies of the Mission
Statements for each of the organizations that were selected for the 2004
grants. If even one Presbyterian woman from every circle will take just a
moment to make a quick phone call or send a brief note or e-mail message,
the national PW leadership may finally get a sense of their responsibility
to be accountable to the women of the church in gathering and providing
relevant information regarding financial stewardship. Even if it does not
change anything for this current round of grants, it is likely that gentle
but persistent calls for disclosure will make, over time, a difference for
the better.
The bottom line here is that no organization should even be considered for a
Birthday Offering grant unless a copy a that organization’s Mission
Statement has been submitted with the application. And if that Mission
Statement in any way contradicts the Biblical and Constitutional standards
of the PC(USA), that grant application should be eliminated from further
consideration.
________
Points of contact for those in charge of the Birthday Offering grant awards:
Fannye Belt
Email: fbelt@ctr.pcusa.org [1]
Ann Ferguson (PW Program Coordinator)
Email: aferguson@ctr.pcusa.org [2]
Phone: 888-728-7228 ext. 5365
Address: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
100 Witherspoon St
Louisville, KY 40202-1396
_________
[1] mailto: fbelt@ctr.pcusa.org
[2] mailto: aferguson@ctr.pcusa.org