Even with pledges, NCC debt is nearly $3 million
The Layman Online, May 30, 2000
The National Council of Churches says it has raised commitments that would nearly wipe out its 1999 deficit, but that there will still be nearly $3 million in carryover debt.
During its recent board meeting, Barbara Ellen Black, the council’s interim general manager, said pledges and commitments toward erasing the 1999 deficit of nearly $4 million stand at $3.8 million, which would leave an accumulated deficit of $2.7 million.
She said the organization is “monitoring cash flow on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. We’ve renegotiated contracts for equipment, maintenance and delivery services and for property insurance at substantial savings. We are consolidating space to reduce occupancy costs.”
Despite email, letters and phone calls running more than 9-1 against increased funding for the NCC, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has committed $500,000 to the 1999 bailout fund.
Robert Edgar, the general secretary of the NCC, plans to attend the PCUSA’s General Assembly in Long Beach June 24-July 1 to make a pitch for continued high-level funding from the PCUSA. Edgar will attempt to counteract an overture that would reduce the PCUSA’s funding for the National Council of Churches by nearly 40 percent per year.
According to NCC figures, the PCUSA’s 1999 support for the NCC was $2,066,202, more than $500,000 ahead of the second-place United Methodist Church, which has more than three times as many members as the PCUSA.
The council’s executive board has authorized Church World Service, which raises more than 80 percent of the NCC funds, to separate its financial management from the NCC.
The relationship between the NCC and Church World Service has been a touchy issue for years. Church World Service has enjoyed broad-based support in communities throughout America for its local CROP walks to raise money for hunger relief.
As its deficit rose, the NCC increased its take from Church World Service’s relief funds. According to a plan presented to the executive board, the new arrangement will bring to an end the practice of charging Church World Service for financial services.
In the past, some Church World Service leaders expressed their desire to break away from the NCC altogether. They feared that the NCC’s low credibility and deep involvement in partisan politics would hurt their own fundraising efforts.
“For far too long the council has expended energy and goodwill in addressing the kinds of contentious issues that are inevitable when one part of a structure so overwhelmingly dominates the budget,” commented Episcopal Church Canon Patrick Mauney, chair of Church World Service and Witness.
He expressed his belief that the plan “will remove the principal contentious issues and allow the NCC to place itself at the service of a larger calling – a truly inclusive ecumenical entity in the United States,” and will strengthen the entire NCC as clearer and tighter financial reports make funding sources and uses more transparent.
A six-member Financial Transition Task Force will carry forward implementation. This separation of financial management takes place in the context of an intensive effort to bring overall expenditures under control and to begin to rebuild the Council’s badly eroded financial reserves. A cash flow crisis – expected to continue through the summer – is being addressed through staff travel restrictions and request for early payment of fiscal commitments from communions, governmental agencies and other donors that ordinarily would come later in the year.