By Robert Dilday
The Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation has pledged $1.5 million to be distributed over four years to the Religious Herald, the news organization’s executive editor announced Jan. 28.
“The generosity of the Baugh Foundation decision-makers enables the Religious Herald to make strategic improvements in our news-gathering capabilities through additional contract writers and design enhancements,” said executive editor Jim White. “More than anything, it enables us to implement improvements we had planned, but had no funds to implement, while adding to an endowment which will continue to provide an income stream for the future.”
In 2013, $250,000 of the total gift will be distributed to the Herald, followed by $500,000 in both 2014 and 2015 and a final $250,000 in 2016.
The San Antonio, Texas-based Baugh Foundation, founded by Sysco Corporation founder and Baptist layman John Baugh, has supported a number of Baptist causes, including two gifts to the Herald last year. Other significant gifts include $2 million to Associated Baptist Press, $1 million to Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, $2.5 million to endow a Baptist leadership center at Mercer University and $2 million for a chapel at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Other recipients include the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Celebrating Grace hymnal.
“We feel affirmed by the confidence the Baugh Foundation has demonstrated in the Herald and are thrilled by what we envision for the future,” said White. “The gift is a true answer to prayer and an indication that the Lord has much more for the Herald to accomplish as we adjust to new circumstances and current realities.”
Last November, the Herald’s board of trustees adopted a comprehensive fundraising plan which calls for, among other things, the development of an annual fund and creation of a major gifts task force. The board also endorsed closer collaboration with Associated Baptist Press — for 20 years one of the Herald’s key partners. An ad hoc committee of trustees is exploring ways to enhance the partnership.
Several years ago the Herald initiated a regionalization of its coverage in the Mid-Atlantic region, which it defines as Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Last fall the Baptist General Association of Virginia reduced financial support for the Herald by half — $107,000, or 22 percent of the newspaper’s annual budget — in a 2013 spending plan that shifted funding for BGAV partners toward the association’s own ministries.