JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner agencies commenting on an
CBF director of communications Lance Wallace, center, guides Coordinating Council members on a tour of new CBF offices. The staff recently relocated from offices in the McAfee School of Theology building to another Mercer University building that formerly housed offices of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
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anticipated 30 percent cut in CBF funding over the next 19 months took the news in stride.
The CBF Coordinating Council recently announced spending cuts of 20 percent off of their current budget, anticipating reduced income due to the current economic recession. A significant part of the cuts would come from CBF funding for theology schools and CBF partners — independent ministries, including Associated Baptist Press, that receive a portion of their funding through CBF. Their contributions from CBF would be slashed by 30 percent from the current budget.
"We are aware that these cuts will impact our partners," CBF Moderator Jack Glasgow said in a news release. Since CBF by policy will not provide more than 25 percent of any partner's total budget, he said the largest possible impact on any such organization would be 7.5 percent of their total budget. "It is our intent that these reductions will not be an undue burden to their ministries," Glasgow said.
Associated Baptist Press, which published a story about the CBF cuts Feb. 20, sent a bulk e-mail message to heads of most of the entities affected by the cut inviting comment with a deadline for response. Those that replied said they recognize financial realities and expect to weather the storm.
"I commend the Coordinating Council's efforts to be proactive in response to declining receipts in recent months," said David Wilkinson, ABP's executive director. "The impact of the global economic crisis is forcing all of us to make difficult and painful budgetary decisions."
ABP has been included in every CBF budget since 1991. CBF currently provides about one-fifth of ABP's funding, and the contingency plan calls for reducing that amount by $33,000 in the current and following budget years.
Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, said news of the cuts "is not at all surprising."
"We are all confronting financial realities in churches, community agencies, schools and other non-profits nationwide," Leonard said. He noted all the money the seminary receives from CBF goes directly to scholarships, so students will be the ones most directly affected. Leonard said Wake Forest "is grateful for any funding that CBF can provide" and expressed hope "that these realities do not deepen in the next few years."
Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said, "These are challenging times for all charitable organizations."
"We appreciate CBF's faithful support over the years," he continued. "This cut in funding is a reminder of the importance of our partnership with CBF. But the vital work of the Baptist Joint Committee, protecting religious liberty for all, will go on — as will the partnership."
Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, said the decision to cut the agency's CBF funding from $60,000 to $42,000 would not curtail programming related to primary objectives in 2009, including an already launched redesign of the EthicsDaily.com website.
"We think our continued productivity will be good for CBF in general and goodwill Baptists in particular," Parham said. "Now is not the time to retreat from the moral imperative to do justice and the call to advance the common good."
Charles Deweese, executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, applauded the CBF "for taking steps to protect its financial viability," a move he said "reflects common sense and integrity."
"Even though the Baptist History and Heritage Society may sustain a temporary decline in funding because of our CBF-partner relationship, we will attempt to make up that loss by exploring other channels of giving," he said. "We are all in this thing together."
Curtis Freeman, director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School, said the house doesn't receive any direct funding from CBF. "This may affect the number of student scholarships, though we haven't been informed," he said.
Robert Canoy, dean of the Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity, said his school has 11 students classified as CBF Scholars that receive some scholarship money, but he had not heard if their scholarships had been reduced.
Glasgow said the CBF planned to communicate specific amounts being cut in letters to partners and theology schools.
Wilkinson, who attended the Feb. 19-20 Coordinating Council meeting where the contingency plan was announced, said he looks forward to receiving more details.
"I'm not sure I understand the rationale for a 19-month contingency plan that reduces funding for CBF's partners by 30 percent since those allocations are already based on a percentage of CBF's budget," Wilkinson said. "If CBF's receipts were to fall to as much as 70 percent of budgeted income, then each partner would receive only 70 percent of its budgeted CBF allocation. I would have hoped for a more measured response that would have alerted CBF's partners to the year-to-date shortfall in receipts and to the possibility that adjustments in allocations for 2009-2010 may have to be considered. That would have allowed time to factor likely reductions into our budgets for next year while also adjusting as necessary to below-budget receipts for the current year. It's also unclear what the process will be for restoring allocations to partner organizations in the event that receipts for the year end up above the 70 percent level."
In the meantime, Wilkinson said, "I know that ABP's staff and board of directors is committed to working alongside CBF and other Baptist organizations to be faithful stewards of every dollar contributed by churches and individuals."
CBF receives about $16 million a year from individuals and 1,900 churches. Those funds both support CBF ministries — including a global missionary force of 135 and an approximately 60-member staff — and supplement budgets of 15 theology schools and numerous partner ministry organizations.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.