By Editor Bob Terry
Leaders of nonprofit organizations across America are holding their collective breath to see if the fallout at the American Red Cross will impact them. Mark W. Everson was recently fired as president of the Red Cross, America’s best-known nonprofit organization. Unfortunately it was not an isolated event. He is the third president of that organization to be fired or resign in the last six years. Some have said the Red Cross has been “unstable” for at least a decade.
Whenever stories about an organization focus more on its governance and management than the services it provides, the less likely people are to support the organization financially. And this latest incident occurred just as nonprofits across the nation are in the midst of their end-of-the-year fund-raising season.
Leaders of nonprofits fear that donors will point to the situation at the Red Cross and project that organization’s problems onto all nonprofits. Of course, it is unfair to draw a general conclusion from a single event but it has happened before. Independent Sector, an organization that tracks charitable giving nationwide, points to a correlation between a well-publicized negative incident at a major charity and a drop off in giving to all charities.
The same principle can be seen in church-related giving. Two decades ago when a scandal among TV evangelists broke, giving to religious institutions and ministries dropped precipitously.
Now leaders of religious ministries, including churches, wonder if they face similar circumstances.
On Nov. 6, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley announced that he would conduct an investigation into the financial affairs of six media-based ministries. He wondered out loud if these ministries had abused the laws that govern charitable giving and promised to find out.
Sen. Grassley is not a wide-eyed, anti-religious politician. He is known as a no-nonsense, conservative Republican who did Ph.D. work at the University of Iowa. He has been in the Senate since 1980 and is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance. He is also an active Baptist churchman. Credentials like these give credibility to his concerns.
The promised investigation is weeks, if not months, away. But the impact of the announcement is immediate. People nationwide, including Baptists in Alabama, may be pointing to the upcoming investigation and deciding to take a wait-and-see attitude before giving to any religious ministry.
Such a decision would be unfortunate. It would have a negative impact on churches and ministries alike, including Alabama Baptist ministries. And such a decision is not necessary where Alabama Baptists are concerned.
In addition to boards of trustees or directors that oversee the financial affairs of every institution, Alabama Baptists have a convention audit committee that reviews every audit of every Alabama Baptist entity and reports the results to convention messengers assembled at the annual meeting.
Financial integrity is valued by Alabama Baptists and by every Alabama Baptist entity. This is not to say there will never be problems in a convention-related entity. There have been problems in past years, and there likely will be problems in the future. That is almost inevitable. But Alabama Baptists have procedures in place to identify problems and to work through them. Our history demonstrates that fact.
One can make a year-end gift to an Alabama Baptist entity and know the money will be managed with integrity and used for the purposes intended.
Churches also count on year-end gifts. Yes, Baptists teach the biblical principle of tithing. But Baptists also accept year-end gifts. That is when some individuals work with their accountants to determine how much they can donate to a church or charity and deduct it all from their income taxes.
Thankfully some people go beyond the tax-deductible giving and give of their own financial resources. That is the way Baptists in other parts of the world give. They are not afforded income tax deductions for charitable giving.
One church pastor reported that more than 20 percent of the church’s annual gifts come in the last month of the year, and this is a church with a multimillion-dollar budget. That is why churches and convention-related entities alike are concerned about the impact of Senate investigations and reports on charities like the American Red Cross.
Every church and every Alabama Baptist entity needs the financial support expressed in end-of-the-year gifts. That includes the state Baptist paper. Gifts help keep the paper affordable for churches. Gifts provide ministry tools and training to improve sharing the news of what God is doing through Baptists in our state and around the world. Gifts can help provide much-needed space for the core ministry of the paper.
Just imagine what Baptist life would be like without the common base of reliable information that flows through the state Baptist paper each week. If The Alabama Baptist did not exist, then a newspaper would have to be created to undergird the corporate life of Baptists in the state. Ours may not be the largest ministry, but it is a vitally important one.
Do not be dissuaded from supporting your local church or an Alabama Baptist entity by the stories about wrongdoing in other places. Good things are being done in Alabama Baptist life, and they are being done the right way. They are worthy of financial support.
Share with others: