A “leap of faith” — that is what Rusty Leonard calls giving to a religious ministry that is not financially transparent. By financially transparent, Leonard means being accountable to donors by opening financial records for inspection.
Leonard heads a group called Wall Watchers, a North Carolina-based advocacy group for donors to Christian ministries. This group monitors hundreds of Christian organizations. Most of these organizations, Leonard says, freely provide financial reports to the public. About 85 percent of the ministries tracked by this organization provide financial statements for analysis by donors.
Unfortunately, some large Christian ministries do not. One evangelistic ministry says its income last year was at least $89 million. This same ministry refuses to acknowledge how the money was used. The result is that donors have no official way to find out how their donations were spent. In this case, Wall Watchers points to the multimillion dollar mansion of the ministry leader and speculates that top executives benefit richly from the large revenues.
Several other well known religious personalities are among those who refuse to provide any financial details to donors. Details can be found at www.ministrywatch.com.
His long work of monitoring Christian ministries led Leonard to conclude, “For anyone to support a ministry that refuses to be financially transparent truly takes a leap of faith.”
Thankfully, Alabama Baptists do not take such “leaps of faith” when they support Baptist work at home and around the world through the Cooperative Program. While one cannot make a blanket statement about all Alabama Baptist churches, the vast majority of churches have budgets that are approved by the membership. Periodical reports about receipts and expenditures are made to the entire congregation. Some of the larger membership churches have committees that closely track income and expenditures to ensure that all financial transactions comply with church actions.
In Wall Watcher terms, the financial records of Alabama Baptist churches are “transparent.” So are funds going beyond the churches to ministries of the Alabama Baptist State Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention.
In Alabama, messengers to the state convention adopt an income goal as well as an expenditure budget. Members of the State Board of Missions, elected by these same messengers, monitor the expenditures to make sure decisions of the messengers are carried out.
An annual financial audit is conducted and reported to the full State Board of Missions. In addition, a state convention-appointed audit committee reviews the audit of the State Board of Missions and reports its findings to the messengers in annual session.
Finally, the yearly audit is printed in the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual and distributed to every church for their information.
State convention entities follow a similar pattern. Proposed annual budgets are shared with the State Board of Missions before final approval from the respective governing body. After approval, regular financial reports are shared with directors or trustees. An annual audit is conducted. At The Alabama Baptist, as with most entities, the auditor meets with the appropriate committee without staff presence to ensure honest and open communication.
The annual audit is reviewed and approved by the full governing board. In addition, every entity must appear before the state convention’s audit committee to defend its audit and answer whatever questions might arise.
Finally, the audit of every convention entity is printed in the convention annual.
From top to bottom, the financial records of Alabama Baptists are totally transparent. Baptists believe in being accountable to one another, and the way financial matters are handled demonstrates that commitment.
The Southern Baptist Convention follows a similar pattern. Messengers to the national convention approve an annual income goal and an annual expense budget. The governing bodies of the various entities approve entity budgets. Committees monitor expenses. Audits are conducted for each entity. The SBC Executive Committee reviews each entity’s audit as a financial safeguard.
Alabama Baptists practice financial transparency at every level — in the church, in the state and in the national convention. That means when you place your tithes and offerings in the church offering plate, you do not have to wonder how your money will be used. You can know. You can know how it is supposed to be used and how it was actually used. You do not have to take a blind “leap of faith” and hope it is used for the Lord’s work rather than for the personal benefit of some religious figure somewhere.
Accountability to the donors — that is just another advantage of the Cooperative Program.
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