Unrestricted trust that grew tenfold was established before mainline Presbyterian decline
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 9, 2006
In 1966 – the zenith for membership in mainline Presbyterian denominations in the United States – Gertrude Heiserman, the widow of Lemont Heiserman, a prominent Yuma, Colorado, agribusinessman, died and left $900,000 to a trust fund to be maintained by a Yuma bank.
The terms of the trust were that the bank would manage the funds for 40 years, with the United Presbyterian Church (USA) being the ultimate beneficiary. Recently, US Bank, a subsidiary of US Bancorp, notified the Presbyterian Foundation that it was sending the assets in the trust account to the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Over the 40 years, those assets increased tenfold to $9.6 million – about two-thirds in cash and the rest in land. Foundation officials say they expect a check for the cash soon and that the land will be sold or possibly held if it has mineral rights.
The foundation, which solicited the bequest by Mrs. Heiserman after her husband died in 1961, gets nearly $500,000 (5%) in administrative fees. The remaining $9.12 million goes to the General Assembly Council.
What is known about the Heisermans is sketchy. They probably did not have children because there was no bequest to any. That they were once prominent in the Yuma community was established. They were members of Yuma Presbyterian Church, but they left nothing to that congregation. They did leave money to a non-Presbyterian congregation in Boston.
The strongest connection in Yuma has been that farmers have leased land from the Heiserman trust fund. The last of those leases will expire soon. There are no Heisermans in the Yuma telephone book.
Notable about the bequest to the PCUSA, which was formed out of the 1983 reunion of the United Presbyterian Church and Presbyterian Church US, is that it came with no strings attached – an unrestricted windfall for the General Assembly Council. The council can spend it any way it chooses.
Today, more than 70 percent of the money given to the Presbyterian Church (USA) is restricted, which limits how much leeway the General Assembly Council can exercise in the distribution of funds. Before the reunion of the mainline denominations, 70 percent of the income was unrestricted.
But the 1960s – the period in which the UPCUSA was talking to Mrs. Heiserman about her estate – were banner years for the mainline denominations, years in which Presbyterians demonstrated high confidence in their denominations. Membership increased annually from 1960 to 1966, reaching a high of 4.25 million in 1966.
But the growth ended suddenly after the General Assembly of the UPCUSA adopted the Confession of 1967 – a document that relegated Scripture to being “nonetheless the words of men.” The downward spiral has continued unabated. At the end of 2005, PCUSA membership was 2.31 million – a loss of nearly 2 million. The denomination has projected the loss during 2006 will be 85,000.
There’s no way to tell whether Gertrude Heiserman would have made a similar bequest in light of how the denomination has veered from its historical orthodoxy since 1966. But fundraisers in the denomination’s $40-million Joining Hearts & Hands campaign say they will be forced to conclude the campaign if the denomination doesn’t pay their expenses. In three years, they have spent $1 million more than they have raised in cash. The cash shortage, they say, is because Presbyterians do not trust the denomination to spend gifts without restrictions.
One interesting consideration about the Heiserman grant is a proposal that is being weighed by a General Assembly Council task force that will make recommendations on how to spend the money. The recommendation is that 10 percent of the funds be used in the mission of Yuma Presbyterian Church. But the minutes of the General Assembly Council’s executive committee suggest that the 10 percent – roughly $900,000 – be held by the presbytery in an endowment for the church.
Such a maneuver would reinforce the denomination’s stated claim to the property and assets of a congregation that might be dissolved or leave the denomination.