My co-worker, Kelsey, has a candy dish that I walk past at least a twenty times a day. I bet I have self control when I pass that candy dish, 85% of the time. That sounds pretty good, but it also means that I’m eating 3+ pieces of candy from Kelsey’s dish every day. Probably close to 20 per week. That could be 1,000 pieces of candy in a year! Sorry, Kelsey! I don’t have the self control necessary to pass by the persistent temptation.
What does Kelsey’s candy dish have to do with church foundations? A pot of money for a church is just like a candy dish. We’ll see that pot each month when we look at the balance sheet. 85% of the time we’ll ignore it, but that still means we’ll likely dip into those funds more often than we should. We’ll have a $100,000 bequest that we’ve faithfully invested only to find out that it’s down to $20,000 because we just needed to “borrow” some.
Now, imagine that I had to ask Kelsey for piece of candy whenever I wanted something sweet. Kelsey, being a nice person, would likely rarely so no. That little hurdle though would probably cut me down from 3 candies a day to maybe a couple per week. In fact, I’m pretty sure Kelsey would have to offer candy to me if she didn’t want to eat it all.
For a long time, I’ve had a negative view on church foundations. I’ve seen church foundations as an unnecessary hurdle to getting to the money needed for ministry. I feel like I’m a pretty smart and responsible guy, but Kelsey’s candy dish proves that probably 15% of the time I’m not nearly as smart and responsible as I think I am. The church foundation adds a little bit of protection from using money out of convenience instead of as part of a strategy.
One of the main top reasons for setting up a church foundation is to protect pots of money from church leadership. I give you two other really good reasons as well in the video.
Useful Links
- Template Articles of Incorp/Bylaws: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7juc9xawz20p5h9/Foundation_Articles_of_Inc.docx?dl=0
- Dakotas Methodist Foundation: http://dakotasumf.org/
- Minnesota Methodist Foundation: https://www.mnumf.org/
JCT Accounting Co 