The Woman's Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has seen its annual revenues drop precipitously in the last eight years, now stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars more from one of the two mission boards it helps support.
The SBC's International Mission Board is phasing out unrestricted funding to WMU beginning this year. WMU records show that the IMB sent between $200,000 and $325,000 a year in such funds over the last 20 years.
IMB spokesperson Wendy Norvelle said the mission board has given WMU $250,000 annually for the past three years. This year, that amount will decrease to $200,000. Next year, it will drop to $100,000 before being eliminated completely in 2009.
WMU, a missions education and promotion agency, raises more than half the IMB's annual budget by promoting an annual missions offering. Considered an auxiliary of the SBC, WMU is governed independently of the SBC and receives no funding from the denomination's budget for its educational and social service ministries.
The Alabama-based WMU's budget comes from sales of missions-education materials to churches and other Baptist organizations, as well as individual and church donations, conference fees and other revenue sources.
The conservatives who wrested control of the SBC leadership in the 1980s have long had tensions with WMU's more moderate leadership. Previous attempts to exert more SBC control over the auxiliary have failed. However, the WMU has suffered declines in its revenue and other forms of support in recent decades, as younger women in many churches increasingly eschew traditional WMU groups in favor of women's ministries that focus more on individual development than missionary support.
Income from WMU's periodical subscriptions has dropped from about $9.2 million in 1999-2000 to about $6.76 million in 2005-2006.
Norvelle said the IMB will continue reimbursing WMU for promoting the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. The IMB has sent national and state WMU organizations about $350,000 a year to cover the costs of producing and shipping offering materials, she said.
Julie Walters, a WMU spokesperson, said the reimbursements cover the costs of printing and mailing the materials but not the salaries of WMU employees who write and design them. WMU has not sought money to cover those costs, she said.
The IMB's Norvelle said stopping the payments is part of a move by the agency to do away with such grants. Similar contributions to other groups are also being eliminated in favor of specific contractual arrangements, she added.
IMB will consider increasing funding to WMU if there are other expenses related to promotion of the offering, Norville said.
“We continue to value our partnership with WMU and intend to continue to work together to promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering,” she said.
WMU owns the trademark to the offering's name, but all funds collected go to IMB. Since the agency first began collecting the offering in 1888, it has provided approximately $2.5 billion to Southern Baptist international missionaries.
WMU leaders said that despite WMU's financial challenges, they are excited about the organization's future and remain committed to engaging Christians in missions.
“It is through missions education that preschoolers, children, youth, and adults develop missions awareness that leads to a lifestyle of commitment and obedience to the Great Commission,” said WMU executive director-treasurer Wanda Lee and WMU president Kaye Miller in a statement. “We firmly believe that this is what God has called us to do since our inception in 1888—to challenge Christian believers to understand and be radically involved in the mission of God. While our purpose had not changed in 118 years, some of the delivery approaches and methods have to ensure relevance for today.”
WMU records show that its expenses have exceeded revenues five out of the past 11 years. In three of those years, WMU had a deficit of more than $2.3 million. Including investment gains and losses, WMU's expenses have exceeded revenues by about $5.08 million since 1995.
“We are doing everything we can proactively to turn that around,” the WMU's Walters said.
WMU has also lost funding from the other SBC missionary agency it promotes, the North American Mission Board, in recent years.
Gifts to WMU from the NAMB and its predecessor, the Home Mission Board, have dropped from more than $450,000 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to $50,000 a year for the last three years. The two biggest one-year decreases were from more than $414,000 in 1995 to about $230,000 in 1996 and from more than $181,000 in 2001 to about $78,000 the next year.
Some of the contributions from NAMB were unrestricted gifts, while others were given to pay for specific projects, Walters said.
NAMB also reimburses WMU for expenses related to the promotion of its offering, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.