National WMU faces potential funding crisis

National WMU faces potential funding crisis

A potential funding crisis, redesigned missions education curriculum and record missions offerings were the hot topics at the national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) annual executive board meeting Jan. 14–16.

“WMU is at a crossroads as to how it will fund its ministry,” said Wanda Lee, WMU executive director, during her report Jan. 14 at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega. “The publishing industry as a whole is experiencing a business model cultural shift.”

Eventually WMU, with subscription-based funding, will no longer be able to fund itself “as we normally do,” Lee said, noting that WMU’s strategic plan mandates that the organization is to have income exceeding expenses in the operating budget by 2010. Looking at strictly revenue and expenses, WMU has been operating at a deficit for more than 10 years.

But its first helping hand came during the meeting from WMU Foundation, which presented WMU with its first-ever grant from the Joy Fund for $35,000.

“They are your (financial) needs, and you are dealing with them effectively, but here’s how we can help those needs,” said David George, president of WMU Foundation.

Lee said WMU is also putting great stock in its redesigned children’s curriculum, set to debut in fall 2007.

The new curriculum for Girls in Action (GAs), girls in first through sixth grade, and Children in Action (CiA), a coed program for first- through sixth-graders, is the product of more than two years of extensive research and a pilot program involving more than 100 churches.

Updates include:

  • changing the name of the GA leader publication from Aware to GA Leader;
  • redesigning GA World, the publication for GAs in fourth through sixth grade, to serve first through third grade as well;
  • discontinuing Discovery, the current publication for GAs in first through third grade; and
  • changing the name of Missions MatchFile, the current resource for CiA leaders, to Children in Action Leader.

During mission board reports, WMU leaders celebrated the announcement of the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) record Annie Armstrong Easter Offering in 2006 — $58.475 million, exceeding the goal of $56 million.

“More than ever, we need to work closer together to produce more between us,” said Carlos Ferrer, NAMB interim executive vice president for missionary services.

He thanked WMU for its missions education efforts that promoted the offering, presenting Lee with a giant “thank you” card signed by the NAMB staff.

Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board (IMB), said IMB, NAMB and WMU have “a wonderful synergy of being on the same page.”

“We have to work through crises sometimes and strategies and our relationships, and God works through that,” he said.

NAMB’s Easter offering, he added, “sets a momentum” that’s going to continue among Southern Baptists where missions giving is concerned.

Though final totals for the IMB’s 2006 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering will not be released until May, the offering brought record receipts in 2005 with $137.9 million.