Associated Baptist Press
The Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation has pledged $2 million over the next two years to Associated Baptist Press, ABP Executive Director David Wilkinson announced March 26.
“For decades the generosity of the late John and Eula Mae Baugh and then their daughter and granddaughters has benefited dozens of Baptist causes that are rooted in the core convictions of our Baptist heritage,” Wilkinson said. “We are profoundly grateful and deeply humbled by the Baugh family’s vote of confidence in ABP and its unique mission in Baptist life.”
The award will come as a $1 million gift for each of the years 2012 and 2013. At least 85 percent of the fund will be directed to endowment.
“This transformational, generative gift is a game-changer for us,” Wilkinson said of the non-profit news service founded in 1990. “It provides a tremendous boost toward the long-term financial and organizational sustainability that ABP requires to thrive as a free and autonomous source of news and opinion for Baptist Christians worldwide.”
Established in 1995 by Sysco Corporation founder and Baptist layman John Baugh, the Baugh Foundation has aided numerous Baptist causes, including previous gifts to Associated Baptist Press. Recent major gifts include $2.5 million to endow a new Eula Mae and John Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership at Mercer University, $2 million for the Baugh-Marshall Chapel at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and a matching-gift challenge in 2007 that helped the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty raise nearly $1.2 million of a $5 million capital campaign.
Baugh Foundation funds helped make possible the new Celebrating Grace hymnal unveiled in March 2010. The foundation also sponsored an April 2010 retreat for leaders of more than 20 CBF-affiliated organizations that led to formation of a 2012 Task Force that is bringing recommendations to this year’s General Assembly charting the organization’s future.
Jackie Moore, a member of the Baugh Foundation board, is a current member of ABP’s board of directors.