Fund campaign leader cites ‘substantial’ gifts
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 29, 2003
MONTREAT, N.C. – The $40-million Mission Initiative Campaign – a.k.a., Joining Hearts and Hands – is picking up “substantial” gifts, Bill Sauls, the campaign chairman, told the General Assembly Council on Saturday.
But, other than referring to a $100,000 gift from an unidentified donor, Sauls did not provide any new figures on how much money the campaign has raised since it was authorized by the 213th General Assembly in 2001.
The Presbyterian News Service recently reported that the campaign – intended to last five years – had raised $8 million in cash and pledges. The latest figures posted on the Presbyterian Church (USA) Web site for the campaign showed gifts and pledges totaling $6 million.
Whatever the figure, Sauls declared that “the Mission Initiative is alive and well; it’s moving on rapidly.”
He praised the work of Jan Updike, who has become the interim executive director of the campaign following the resignation of Ron Lundeen.
“She is an absolute diamond,” Sauls said. “Actually, the pace has picked up.”
The campaign leaders are searching for Lundeen’s permanent successor. Updike, who previously served as the Western associate director for the campaign, is not being considered for that position because she does not want to move from her home in Redland, Calif., Sauls said.
When the campaign began, fundraisers said they were targeting wealthy individuals, such as, Lundeen once told The Layman, elderly women who gave generously to the arts. But Sauls noted that the campaign has adapted to also focus on presbyteries’ raising money.
Most of the money raised through the campaign would go to two programs: global missions and new church development, with an emphasis on developing racial/ethnic congregations.
An analysis of the campaign’s financial disclosures – the last posted on the Web site as of the end of June 2003 – showed that presbyteries that have made pledges to the campaign have designated most their gifts to new church development.
The individual contributions, when designated, tend to go for global missions. The same General Assembly that authorized the Mission Initiative also voted to cut 34 global mission assignments.