JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) – Associated Baptist Press has been given a $125,000 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation for its 2010 operating budget.
The award from the Texas-based charity includes $75,000 earmarked as a “matching challenge gift” to be used to encourage new donations to the nation’s only independent news service for Baptists. ABP, which will mark its 20th anniversary this summer, relies on individual and church contributions for 86 percent of its budget.
Babs Baugh
|
“We get our denominational news in several ways, but one of our favorite ways is through Associated Baptist Press,” said family representative Babs Baugh of San Antonio. “A free and transparent press is our first and sometimes our last line of defense in the protection of the historic Baptist principles we hold dear.”
“We know we can count on ABP to be dependable and honest in its reporting, and that’s something we as Baptists should never take for granted,” she added.
Babs Baugh is the daughter of Eula Mae and John Baugh, who founded the Houston-based Sysco Corporation. Over the years, the Baugh family has been a major benefactor of Baptist causes and institutions such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Baylor University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary.
John and Eula Mae Baugh died a few months apart in 2007 at age 91 and 89, respectively.
“John and Eula Mae Baugh were unwavering champions of the bedrock principles that have defined us as Baptists,” said ABP Executive Director David Wilkinson. “Babs Baugh, her daughters Jackie Moore and Julie Ortiz, and other members of the Baugh family have been faithful inheritors of the vision and values of their parents and grandparents. A free and trustworthy source of news and information is essential to the health and integrity of the Baptist movement. The guardianship of that value has no stronger supporters than the Baugh family.”
The Baugh Foundation’s matching-gift component is an especially welcome boost for the news service’s efforts to attract new donors to offset the declining support in other areas, Wilkinson added.
The challenge portion of the grant will match, dollar-for-dollar, all first-time contributions from individuals and from churches that include ABP in their budgets, up to a total of $75,000 during the 2010 calendar year. The grant will also match 2010 contributions from current donors who sign up for monthly gifts through automatic drafts from their bank accounts, a method of giving that helps address ABP’s need for more consistent cash flow.
The Baugh Foundation also contributed $100,000 to ABP in 2009. The back-to-back gifts will help offset declining revenue from several long-standing funding partners, including CBF. In February 2009 CBF’s Coordinating Council adopted an 18-month “contingency plan” that cut budgeted allocations to ABP and other partner organizations by 30 percent. The 70 percent funding level for partner organizations is solidified in the 2010-2011 budget to be recommended at the Fellowship’s General Assembly, scheduled for Charlotte, N.C., in June.
As its own receipts from churches have dropped, CBF’s allocation to ABP’s budget has declined steadily over the past decade. The Fellowship’s contribution in 2010 is projected to be about $75,000, about half the total of $147,000 eight years ago.
Last year contributions to ABP from state Baptist conventions, churches and individuals also declined dramatically compared to 2008.
Even with the Baugh Foundation grant, ABP’s 2010 operating budget is 10.6 percent less than its 2009 budget. The $125,000 gift accounts for 24 percent of the projected income in a 2010 operating budget of $520,900.
-30-