16 • Philanthropy Journal of North Carohna
October i993
BRIEFLY
Support for
block dance
The American Dance
Festival in Durham received
$486,900 from the Lila
Wallace-Readers Digest
Fund to develop and expand
audiences for its Black
Tradition in American
Modern Dance on Tour
project.
Day school
creates endowment
The Greensboro Day
School received $50,000
from the Edward E. Ford
Foundation of Providence,
R.l. to create an endowment
for minority teaching intern
ships and minority teacher
development.
Latin dance
in Raleigh
A performance by the
Columbian National
Dance Ensemble for the
Latin American Resource
Center's Community /
Schools Residency Program
will be held at 2 p.m. Oct.
8 at the NC Museum of
Art, Raleigh.
Massage center
offers prizes
The Carolina Therapeutic
Massage Center in Raleigh is
offering a prize of eight mas
sages for the top money rais
ers in the Oct. 10 Thad Eure
Jr. Walk for Hope.
The walk begins at 9 a.m. at
the Angus Barn and will ben
efit the Foundation for Hope.
Drug action
launches campaign
Drug Action, a Raleigh non
profit helping substance
abusers, has launched its-
annual fundraising drive.
The campaign will include
mailings to residents and
businesses. For information
on the organization's pro
grams, call 832-4453.
Chef's auction
in Triangle
Some of the Triangle's lead
ing chefs and caterers will
take part in a culinary auc
tion Oct. 7 to benefit the
March of Dimes Birth Defects
Foundation. The event, at
the North Raleigh Hilton, will
feature food samples. For
information, call 781-2481.
Looking long-term
Religious organizations plan ahead
with new forms of ^vmg
Religious organizations in North
Carolina are working with their
congregations to develop long
term financial plans, including
the creation of endowments and
planned-giving strategies such
as wills, trusts and insurance
policies. Administrators of
evisting endowments say funds
are being used more often for
social-service programs than for
brick-and-mortar types of pro
jects.
By Barbara Solow
D ouglas Byrd is trying to
change the way church
members look at giving.
As executive director of the
United Methodist Foundation Inc., he
is responsible for helping churches
and their members develop better
financial planning.
Established in 1955, the founda
tion manages about 260 endowment
and investment accounts for
Methodist churches throughout
North Carolina. The funds range in
size from a few thousand to several
hundred thousand dollars.
Throng workshops and meetings
at individual churches, Byrd tries to
encourage congregants to look at giv
ing over the long-term.
“We try to open up an under
standing of what Christian steward
ship is all about,” he says. “It’s not
just. I’m going to give X percent of
my income to the church. But it’s that
everything I have is a trust from God
and I’m responsible for all of it. I
should think about the total of what I
have, not just my paycheck.”
Faced with uncertain economic
times and changing demographics,
many Tar Heel religious congrega
tions are turning to new strategies to
achieve long-term financial stability.
Among the most popular are
estate planning and endowment
building.
A new study by the nonprofit
RELIGION
Religious Giving
A survey of 727 religious congreqations nationwide showed most expected
only small increases in individual pledges compared to the previous year.
Large increase
Source; Independent Sector
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First Counsel, Inc.
428 llastFourtb Street, SuiteJlO
; Charlottej^orth Carolina ?8202
T, % (7ft4) :M2-1100
* Atlanta, Charlotte, NC • Washington, DC ‘
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research and advocacy group.
Independent Sector, showed a major
ity of U.S. rehgious congregations did
not expect much change in individual
giving.
The study, “From Belief to
Commitment,” showed more than
one-third expected an increase of
less than five percent in giving
through pledges, and nearly one-
fourth expected pledge-giving to
remain flat. The study involved 727
religious congregations across the
country.
The North Carolina Baptist Foun
dation is thou^t to be the oldest reli
gious foundation in the nation.
Chartered in 1920, it manages
approximately 960 endowment funds
representing more than $43 milhon.
“We’re unique in Baptist life in
that a person who chooses to use the
foundation can use one instrument to
direct their income to one or more of
several insti
tutions or
mission caus
es,” says
Execu-tive
Director
Edwin
Coates.
About $16
million of the
$43 million
managed by
the founda
tion is
involved in
deferred-giv
ing funds that
generate in
come that
eventually
will be used
for charitable
purposes.
“There
are so many
creative ways
that people
can make
gifts and not really take away from
their family and their heirs,” Coates
says. “Most of the funds we have
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
received in recent years have been
through deferred-type vehicles.”
Faced with a Rowing number of
parishioners, the Catholic Diocese of
Raleigh is looking at ways to fund
future vocations to the priesthood.
The Diocese, which grew by about
6 percent last year to 35,000 house
holds, has just begun a planned giv
ing program to make parishioners
aware of how they can give to the
church throng wills, trusts and life
insurance policies.
The program will be publicized
through workshops, weekly adver
tisements in the Dioscesan newspa
per and mailings to member house
holds, says James Mulvey, director of
development for the Diocese.
“We know through demographic
studies that there will be a tremen
dous transfer of wealth and asSets
from aging baby-boomer parents
over the next several years,” he says.
“This is an opportunity to remind
people that they can remember the
church as they are doing estate plan-
ning.”
Since it began a similar program
in 1990, the Catholic Diocese of
Charlotte has raised $13 million in
commitments through wills, trusts
and estate planning.
Development Director Jim Kelley
says the Diocese is talking about
establishing a foundation that would
raise money for elderly housing,
scholarships, parish maintenance
and other church-related needs.
“My hope is that after about 10 to
15 years, we’ll have 40 or 50 separate
endowments set up,” he says. “We
don’t find our giving has flattened.
It’s more that there is stiU a lot of
potential out there that’s untapped.”
Endowment-building also is a pri
ority for the Jewish Federation of
Greater Charlotte, which acts as a
giving system for local social-service
agencies such as the Jewish
Community Center and the
Blumenthal Home for the Aged.
“In the last seven years, we have
built a Jewish Community Center,
built a $6 million building for Temple
Israel and an approximately $4 mil
lion building for Temple Beth El,”
says Alan Kronovet, campaign asso-
How giving
affects programs
A survey of 727 religious
congregations reported
the extent to which
availability of funds
influenced programs
percent responding
Not at all - Not too
jlSiiMSSi'Bi;:-:. much
5.4
Somewhat!
^ar\/ mi
No answer
7.1
Very much:
1.1
A lot
-1.3
Source; Indpendent Sedor
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina
date for the federation. “Now that
the infrastructure of our community
is built, the next thing is perpetual
care.”
Not every congregation is in a
position to establish long-term funds.
Henry Unger, head of the congre
gation at Temple Beth Or in Ralei^
says it “would be lovely to set up an
endowment. But it’s a question of not
being blessed with any big hitters.
Endowments traditionally have got
ten started with large initial funding
by someone. We don’t really have
any big industrialists in Ralei^.”
Coates of the Southern Baptist
foundation advises congregations to
start small.
“So that every member of the
church can feel part of this, we’ve
permitted individuals to start funds
and grow them to where they would
not be paying out any income [to the
church] until they reach $5,000,” he
says.
“We feel an obligation to the indi
vidual who would like to be a philan
thropist but really could not consider
themselves as such.”
Boone
Continued from page 14
ter is 95 miles away in Asheville.
There also are chapters in the Triad,
Triangle, Charlotte and Wilmington.
“We’re kind of isolated up here,”
Moretz says, “But we have enough
folks to be able to have a chapter.”
The idea for the chapter grew out
of a meeting of fundraising execu
tives. They were gathered to discuss
computer software but spent a lot of
time lamenting how far they had to
drive to NSFRE meetings.
Moretz decided to look into form
ing a chapter. With the help of Tom
Lawson, director of development at
Appalachian State University in
Boone, the two determined how
much interest there was for a chap
ter, and how to go about forming one.
The group is now 19 members
strong. Moretz says he thinks the
chapter wUl grow to about 25 mem
bers.
“That will be small, but large
enough to attract speakers to come
in. We can get seasoned veterans to
come in and work with us.”
Membership at other chapters
includes Charlotte, 99; the Triad, 90;
the Triangle, 52; Asheville, 36; and
Cape Fear (Wilmington), 15.
Most of the fundraisers in Boone -
including Moretz - are relatively new
to the profession, which makes a
NSFRE chapter even more impor
tant.
Moretz is just completing his first
million-dollar-plus campai^ to
replenish the 129-bed hospital’s
reserve funds for construction of a
cancer treatment facility.
The facility opened in Janaury
1993.
Having a NSFRE chapter in
Boone “will give the fundraising busi
ness an opportunity to get together
and to ne^ork on an organizational
basis,” Moretz says.
“It will provide an opportunity to
bring educational programs lo
fundraisers. Anything we can do to.
further our education in the field is
very appreciate and very valuable.”