Money
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Board of the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) held its first quarterly meeting of 2021on Feb. 19, 2021. GCFA’s Chief Financial Officer Rick King presented highlights of giving to the general Church apportioned funds. He reported that apportionment giving for 2020 ended on a high note. The collections in December of $39 million was a single month record and accounted for 34% of the total receipts for 2020. The December collections, King reported, were $9 million higher than what historical collection trends would have projected.
GCFA reports that eighteen jurisdictional annual conferences paid 100% of their apportionments for 2020: Alaska Missionary, Baltimore-Washington, California-Nevada, Desert Southwest, East Ohio, Illinois Great Rivers, New England, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma Indian Missionary, Oregon-Idaho, Pacific Northwest, Peninsula-Delaware, Red Bird Missionary, Susquehanna, Tennessee, Upper New York, and West Virginia. This is the same number of jurisdictional annual conferences that paid 100% in 2019. In addition, eight central conference episcopal areas paid 100% or more in 2020: Central and Southern Europe, Davao, East Congo, Eurasia, Germany, Liberia, Mozambique, and Nordic-Baltic. That is a slight decrease from the ten that paid 100% in 2019.
“One of our responsibilities is to collect and report to the United Methodist connection the collection of general Church apportionments. We are grateful for the hard work and mindful of the stewardship of conference leadership who pay their apportionments. It is a blessing to the Church in a particularly difficult year for many reasons. Their commitment to connectional giving and our ministries together is duly recognized and appreciated,” said Bishop Michael McKee, president of the GCFA Board of Directors.
The GCFA Board, based on its responsibilities as outlined in Paragraph 807.6 of the Book of Discipline, approved a request from Discipleship Ministries and the General Board of Higher and Education and Ministry to sell two pieces of real estate in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Board elected Andrew Vorbrich as a member of the Committee on Legal Responsibilities and Corporate Governance. Mr. Vorbrich serves as the Chancellor for the Michigan Annual Conference and is active in his home church, First United Methodist Church of Kalamazoo. He fills the unexpired term of Wilson Hayman, who suddenly passed away late last year.
At the request of the organizers of the February 13 meeting of Jurisdictional and General Conference delegates, Bishop David Graves, Chair of the Finance Committee of the Council of Bishops, and Rick King made presentations which highlighted the better-than-anticipated collection rate for the Episcopal Fund, and the state of reserves of the Episcopal Fund. The presentations made by Bishop Graves and Rick King can be found on the GCFA website.
The Board heard a report from staff about the Annual Conference Leadership Training sponsored by GCFA held January 26-28, 2021 via Zoom. Over 400 leaders attending the training sessions designed for Treasurers, Trustees, Conference Secretaries, Statisticians, and chairs and members of the following conference committees: Episcopacy, Equitable Compensation, Personnel, and Finance.
Sharon Dean serves as communications director for the General Board of Finance and Administration.