October is a big month for the church. The Board of Business will present its challenge budget for 2024 and ask for congregational approval. We have approved that budget as a board and have forwarded it to Church Council for their review and approval. More on that at the congregational meeting on October 15.
An important part of the financial life of UCG happens outside our annual pledge budget. You have heard me talk about designated accounts where the expenses for many of our church programs and special giving are documented. A better name for these accounts would be reserve or restricted accounts.
Many of these funds have been given for a specific purpose and their use is permanently restricted to those purposes. Examples are donations for Food 4 Kids, Building Improvements, Disaster Relief or funds raised by one of our many committees to fulfill their purposes.
Other funds are temporarily restricted. They are registrations or other payments for an event and their restriction is released once the event has occurred. Examples are All-Church Retreat, Men’s and Women’s Overnights, Summer Church Camp, and the Youth Work Tour. Football parking revenue flows through a temporarily restricted account. While the church collects parking fees for the entire season, we recognize a portion of revenue after each home game.
At the beginning of 2023, the church had reserved $215,536 as designated funds. Through August additions to these funds have totaled $177,069. Disbursements have totaled $237,522. The bulk of the decline in these balances has been the use of funds donated for building improvements, the installation of our solar panels, and work on upgrading the UCG website. For facilities and equipment reserved funds in 2023, we have received an additional $31,163 in contributions while spending $96,536 on our facilities and website.
Designated funds for Outreach and Inreach include Food 4 Kids, Growing Hope Globally, GCM Food First, Emergency Loan Fund, Operation Hope, several of our social justice committees, and donations to Camp Highlands in honor of Andy Bachmann. Those designated funds have taken in $58,624 and disbursed $59,944 through August of this year.
Adult Program funds include the various retreats, lunch groups, open and affirming ministry, workshops and speaker funds, the young adult group and funds set aside for Our Whole Life training. Through August this group of funds had taken in $23,773 and spent $27,084. Most of this activity has been receiving member registrations and using those funds for events.
Children and youth programs include the Parents’ Night Out program, summer church camp, and high school and middle youth groups. Much of these funds come from youth fund raising, summer camp registration, and some member donations. Through August these programs took in $41,572 and spent $51,751. The bulk of these funds can be attributed to the youth work tour to West Virginia in June.
As members of UCG we should be proud of the support provided for so many programs and special needs outside of our basic pledge budget. Much of that pledge budget does support these programs by funding the ministers and staff that lead them and covering the cost of the space and technology that they use.
The Board of Business is contemplating ways to better present these other financial activities to the congregation and possibly include some of the temporarily restricted income and expenses in the regular budget for future years. More on this later.