Endowment Fund History

Endowment Fund History

By Cathy Chambless

While the annual Pledge Drive raises funds to pay Church staff salaries and maintain the buildings, a lesser known financial resource to the Church is the Endowment Fund. The legal structure for an endowment fund was created 24 February 1977 to commemorate the eighty-sixth anniversary of the Church’s founding.  The original trustees included Justin Stewart, Florien Wineriter and Joan May, with Richard Aaron recognized as making the first donation of $20 (Larson & Miller, 1991, p. 151). Within one year the amount had risen to $1,820. Donations to the endowment fund over the years have come from small memorial donations and larger bequests. 

The original Trust agreement specified the funds were to be held in “perpetual Trust” and be used “for such charitable, religious and educational purposes as the governing body of the church may designate.” The Trust agreement allowed for “income” distributions to be made for the Church to use for the above purposes. In addition, the Trust allowed trustees “to invade the corpus in an emergency.” The document did not define emergency but allowed the congregation to define emergency by two-thirds vote of its members.

In ensuing years there were differing opinions among Church officials about the definitions of “income” and “emergency.” Did income include the principal or only the interest? What kind of circumstance constituted an emergency? To provide better guidance about the use of the funds, in 2004 the Board of Trustees consulting a law firm of draw up a new Endowment Agreement with the intent of clarifying language in the original Trust.  A new Endowment Agreement was approved at a congregational meeting on May 5, 2005. 

The new Agreement created an Endowment Committee that would oversee investments of the funds to “earn a reasonable rate of return…taking into account the importance of the Fund’s safety… and general economic conditions, among other relevant considerations.” The successor Agreement articulated the primary purpose of the Fund was to provide “annual distributions to support the mission of the Church beyond what would otherwise be possible, and secondarily, to provide a reserve for the Church to be used in times of emergency.” The Committee was authorized to determine and make an annual distribution from the Fund (either principal or income) to the Church in an amount not to exceed five percent (5%) of the average fair market value of the Fund over the previous thirteen quarters.  It is intended that none of the Annual Distribution shall be used to balance the Church’s annual operating budget…unless approved by the Congregation.” (Church Annual Report, May 5, 2006, p.2).

The newly created Endowment Committee in 2005 included Carol Blackwell, Ron Mildenhall and Henry Whiteside, and was expanded in December of 2005 with addition of John LaMalfa, and June Orme. The annual distribution made in May 2006 was $10,000. The new Endowment Committee saw its role as overseeing investment options to achieve higher returns than had been previously obtained, and also promoting greater awareness of opportunities for bequests and memorial gifts from Church members and friends. This new Committee proposed to solicit written proposals from the Congregation as to how the Annual Distribution should be used, and such uses were to be approved by the Congregation. This idea was never implemented using Endowment Funds, but is similar to “What’s On Our Plate (WOOP) <link> program. WOOP was funded using donations from the Sunday offering plate, not Endowment Funds.

The growth of the Endowment Fund between 1977 and 2019 is shown in the following chart. The 1978 year-end balance was reported in the Larson/Miller church history, and those beginning in 1987 were obtained from annual congregational meeting reports. No Endowment Fund year-end balances were found for the years 1992, 1995, 1999-2005, 2007 and 2008, thus explaining the missing data.

NOTE: Excel chart will need modification by a person who has better skills with creating charts. It needs improvement in the display of missing data. I will provide the Excel spreadsheet for the person who can do this! 

NOTE: Excel chart will need modification by a person who has better skills with creating charts. It needs improvement in the display of missing data. I will provide the Excel spreadsheet for the person who can do this!

1977 1978 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009