Annual Pledge Drive
As Fall nears, some of you may be thinking, “It’s stewardship time again. The church is going to ask for more money.” And you wouldn’t be incorrect. By now, most of you have received the letter mailed in early July outlining the Vestry’s difficult decision to make cuts to our budget in response to the global financial crisis that is affecting everyone. The budget reductions, as considerable as they are, will still not completely ameliorate the deficit situation we face in the coming years. Our endowments have been crippled by the market drops and the earning power is not what it used to be. Although St. Paul’s has relied on endowment income to balance the budget for the last decade, we have relied more heavily on our endowments in recent years in an effort to grow and live out a vision that the Vestry saw was a sound investment in trying to turn the tide of a church in decline. Building up programs that will help a church in our particular situation takes a lot of time, energy, money and congregational support. Unfortunately, time and money are running out and congregational support has been less than stellar and, in some cases, non-existent. The bottom line is this: our pledges and plate collections have hovered between $115,000 and $140,000 per year from 1997-2007, and 2009 will be about the same. Our expenses have increased over that same time to over $400,000 projected for 2010. Our portfolio managers tell us we can safely draw up to $90,000 next year, and that is a best guess in light of the uncertain economy. We make some money on rentals, but nothing close to closing a deficit gap of $170,000. If we don’t close the gap, or at least reduce it significantly, St. Paul’s will probably run out of endowment money in 3-5 years, perhaps sooner. We will have a special congregational meeting on Sunday, September 13 on where we are as a parish. Please plan on attending.
Our pledge drive is getting started with a mystery theatre dinner on Saturday, October 3. The information above is no mystery, however. The stewardship committee is going to ask all of us to really give special consideration this year to our situation, not only financially, but spiritually as well.
–The Stewardship Committee
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