Directors of the North Carolina Baptist Retirement Home are seeking to “adjust certain aspects of their relationship” with the North Carolina Baptist State Convention “while reaffirming other traditional ties.”
The move comes after a convention nominating committee chose not to approve several nominees requested by a number of the agencies the convention supports for slots on their boards of directors.
Retirement home president Bill Stillerman met with the convention's executive committee Aug. 16 and asked approval of a proposal by which convention funding to the home would be phased out over four years. Under the agreement, the organization would begin appointing its own board members during the same period.
Though direct, budgeted funding from the convention would cease after four years, the home would continue to relate in a voluntary way, make annual reports to convention messengers and promote the annual “North Carolina Offering for Older Adults” in local churches.
The current NCBSC budget calls for the home to receive $938,500 per year. The proposal calls for it to receive $703,875 in 2006, $469,250 in 2007, and $234,625 in 2008, then no budget funds in 2009 and afterward.
Both budgeted state convention funds and the annual offering funds sent to the agency are used exclusively to provide benevolent care, Stillerman said.
The executive committee approved the proposal with a strongly affirmative voice vote, with a few of the 21 members present voting against it.
Stillerman said the proposal “does not in any way terminate our relationship with the convention,” but is “an attempt to adjust our relationship to move forward with confidence into the future together.”
Stillerman said banks and financial institutions are increasingly unwilling to invest in organizations that do not have independent boards that ensure future stability.
“We want to remain very much a Baptist organization,” Stillerman said. But, he said, the directors recognize that if they seek that measure of autonomy, they should willingly give up convention funding. By stepping the money down over four years, he said, the directors believe an equal amount can be raised from private sources, so the total funding for benevolent care will not decrease.
Associated Baptist Press