Virginia Baptists’ gifts to disaster relief totalled more than $2.5 million in fiscal 2005, but the generous outpouring contributed in part to a budget shortfall of almost $665,000 last year, according to the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s treasurer’s office.
BGAV churches gave $13,735,553 during fiscal 2005, which ended Nov. 30, said treasurer Eddie Stratton. That is a 5.22 percent decrease from the $14,492,014 given during fiscal 2004 and $664,447 short of 2005’s $14.4 million budget goal.
In contrast, designated gifts in 2005 were up a whopping 207 percent, to $3,018,987, from the $984,460 in designated gifts in 2004.
Most of 2005’s designated gifts were for disaster relief ministries in the wake of the South Asia tsunami and the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
At the annual BGAV meeting last November, budget committee chair Darrell Foster anticipated the budget shortfall and attributed it to Virginia Baptists’ generous gifts to victims of the disasters.
“The good news is that Virginia Baptists have opened their hearts to give to disaster relief,” he said at the time. “But on the other hand, our gifts to cooperative missions are significantly behind.”
“Total giving through the treasurer’s office this year [for both cooperative missions and designated gifts] exceeds the best year the BGAV has ever had,” Stratton said in November. “We need to celebrate that.”
Contributions to the BGAV’s four statewide offerings also were down in 2005. At the end of November, the Alma Hunt Offering for Virginia Missions was down 15.75 percent, to $927,625; the Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions was down, 7.07 percent, to $2,984,979; the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American Missions was down 2.06 percent, to $1,408,236; and the Global Missions Offering was down 1.59 percent, to $491,498.
Special to the Herald