"LOUISVILLE — Exploring whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) fundraising campaign is the best way to finance international missionaries and, if so, how to keep the campaign itself funded, is the focus of action slated to go before the General Assembly Council (GAC) on Friday. ..."Important Note: For those unfamiliar with Presbyterian alphabet soup, the WMD in the article (and blog post) title stands for Worldwide Ministries Division.
There is more detail in this article that was in a previous Outlook article (MIJHH update: Trust, stability of mission program affects giving; operating costs shortfall) that I blogged on two days ago.
The problem is not simply that fact that most of the money received is designated (and not for operating budgets). There are other things going on ranging from a less than satisfactory working relationship between the Joining Hearts and Hands initiative and the Worldwide Ministries Division to a paradigm shift over the past couple years in how Mission is to be funded and administered.
If gifts are designated, then that designation is honored. This can lead disparities in funding that are awkward -- such the MIJHH situation where donations are designated for specific programs, but not for the administrative functions to see to it that the money gets to its proper destination.
The General Assembly Council has some tough choices to make, and one of them may be to find a way to administer the designated funds already received, even if MIJHH was to be fully self-funded by this time.
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