About a decade ago, Elmer Brinkman basically donated his 1998 Toyota Corolla to the Conference. That was our first fleet vehicle. I knew it would save us a ton of money. Before this, we reimbursed mileage at the IRS rate whenever someone had to travel for work. I was so proud of it, I actually…
The Why’s and How’s of Electronic Giving
Electronic giving isn’t going away yet some churches are still resistant to allowing people to give electronically. I wonder if there was a time when checks were knew and churches only accepted cash, livestock or grain. In this webinar, I try to make the case for why churches should make the switch. Long story short,…
Donating Farmland to the Church
In the Dakotas, many of our churches are connected to agriculture. We have members that our farmers, retired farmers, and/or children who inherited farmland from their folks. The scary thing about farmland transactions is the tax basis. Most farmland has been held for decades so the tax basis could easily be $100/acre or less. If…
What is an Endowment, and How does it work?
Endowments can be a huge blessing to the church or ministry that you love, but few people understand how it works. I’m not sure I do the best in explaining it in this video, but imagine if one of the biggest annual givers to your church is a dead person. That’s what an endowment can…
Articles of Faith
I made a series of 29 short videos back in 2019 as part of a personal devotional. For United Methodists, you might recall that was the year of the special session of the General Conference that was to put an end to the debate on homosexuality. GC2019 was probably the lowest point in my time…
The Win-Win of the Charitable Remainder Trust
I don’t want this to sound like a gimmick or some slick way to raise money from gullible elderly church members. That is not what a Charitable Remainder Trust is. The Charitable Remainder Trust can be an wonderful part of a person’s retirement/estate plan. What makes it so wonderful? Here’s a list: Guaranteed Income for…
Single Board Governance #3 – How do you implement?
If you watched the previous videos, the problem with the traditional church governance is clear…to you. Also, the solution of the Single Board Governance is clear…to you. But you need to remember that pushing for change, even good common sense change, is hard and often dangerous. Kermit Culver has over 40 years of experience in…