GAC plans two study committees on incorporation of relief agency
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, September 28, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly Council’s executive committee is recommending to the full council that it create two committees to study the possibility of incorporating a Presbyterian relief and development entity as a 501(c)3 charitable non-profit corporation.
The first would be an incorporation criteria study team that would develop criteria that the GAC would use when it considers requests to incorporate new entities. It would consider the impact on mission coordination and GAC “fragmentation,” Book of Order directives and relationships with all parts of the church.
The second would be a relief and development entity study team that would consider whether to incorporate a Presbyterian relief and development entity, its possible nature, process of incorporation and stable business plan.
According to the recommendation, the first team should finish developing its criteria for incorporating new entities by March, so that the second team could use that criteria in making their recommendation on a relief agency by the September 2007 GAC meeting.
If the recommendation from that committee is to go forward with the incorporation, there would still be time for the GAC to make any refinements to the plan and meet the 2008 General Assembly deadline for considering new business.
The idea for an incorporated non-profit relief agency came from the Worldwide Ministries Division at the September 2005 meeting. WMD thought that more funds could be raised, and possibly more work done, by incorporating a non-profit entity.
At the February 2006 meeting, the recommendation was brought before the GAC to incorporate a Presbyterian relief and development entity as a subsidiary of the General Assembly Council. According to the recommendation, the work of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Jinishian Memorial Program would be done through this not-for-profit charitable corporation.
At the April 2006 meeting, the executive committee directed “a staff team, advised by the staff leadership team and the chairs of the three ministries divisions and of MSS, develop and propose a design for a year of further study of the proposed incorporation of a Presbyterian Relief and Development entity as a 501(c)3 charitable non-profit corporation. The design will assure the development of criteria the council may use to assess this and any future proposals for incorporation and will be presented for consideration and approval at the September 2006 meeting of the General Assembly Council.”
The staff team, instead, came back with the recommendation for two study committees.