NASHVILLE (BP) — With gifts received from 40 of 41 cooperating state Baptist conventions, contributions to Southern Baptist Convention national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee in January were 0.18 percent below the projected budget for the first four months of the current fiscal year. And they were 3.03 percent below the amount received during the same period last year, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee Interim President and Executive Vice President D. August Boto.
As of Jan. 31, gifts received by the Executive Committee for distribution through the CP Allocation Budget totaled $64,548,667.08, or $2,019,068.78, below the $66,567,735.86 received through the first four months of the 2017–2018 fiscal year. The fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. The January year-to-date total is $117,999.59 below the $64,666,666.67 year-to-date allocation budget projection to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America.
The Cooperative Program is Southern Baptists channel of giving, begun in 1925, through which a local church can contribute to the ministries of its state convention and the missions and ministries of the SBC through a unified giving plan to support both sets of ministries. Monies include receipts from individuals, churches and state conventions for distribution according to the 2018-2019 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget.
Meanwhile, year-to-date designated giving of $32,780,006.83 was 10.66 percent, or $3,913,138.34, below gifts of $36,693,145.17 received in the first four months of last year’s fiscal year. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee and does not reflect designated gifts contributed directly to SBC entities. Designated contributions include the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, Southern Baptist Global Hunger Relief, Disaster Relief and other special gifts.
CP allocation receipts for SBC work for the month of January totaled $18,233,412.37. Designated gifts received last month amounted to $22,547,898.38.
State and regional conventions retain a portion of church contributions to Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program to support work in their respective areas and forward a percentage to SBC national and international causes. The percentage of distribution is at the discretion of each state or regional convention.
The convention-adopted budget for 2018-2019 is $194 million and is disbursed as follows: 50.41 percent to international missions through the International Mission Board, 22.79 percent to North American missions through the North American Mission Board, 22.16 percent to theological education through the six SBC seminaries and the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget and 1.65 percent to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The SBC Executive Committee distributes all CP and designated gifts it receives on a weekly basis to the SBC ministry entities.
Month-to-month swings reflect a number of factors, including the timing of when the cooperating state Baptist conventions forward the national portion of Cooperative Program contributions to the Executive Committee, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, the number of Sundays in a given month, and the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted.
CP allocation budget gifts received by the Executive Committee are reported monthly to the executives of the entities of the convention, to the state convention offices, to the state Baptist papers and are posted online at cpmissions.net/CPReports.
