How to Handle Designated Funds
Gary Fenton
The unified budget will still dominate most churches' financial structures, but we are wise to recognize this new financial reality: the rise of designated giving.
—Gary Fenton One man, whose father was a church treasurer, told me how his father's responsibility changed rapidly during the late 1940s and early '50s. His father had been treasurer for about ten years in a small church. During the ten-year tenure, his task had been primarily to pay the preacher, the custodian, the utility bills, and send money to the denominational office. He kept the church records in a small notebook, with a big rubber band around it, and he stored these records under the bed. But when the church started to grow, his responsibilities as treasurer changed dramatically. People gave money to furnish the growing nursery, to buy a new organ, and some members began giving to some of the emerging parachurch groups. His father took an accounting class at the local college so he could keep up with the greater complexity. Gradually, he led the church to put as many of these projects into the central budget as possible. Later he taught treasurers in other local churches how to keep their books. This, in microcosm, is how the unified budget came into being all across America. It's an accounting system that influenced church giving patterns for many years. From Unified to Designated Giving
If this chapter had been written twenty years ago, more than likely the content would have been significantly different. The way church leaders and congregations view and use designated gifts has changed radically in the recent past. Following World War II, many church and other charitable organizations discouraged designated giving and encouraged giving to a unified budget: ...
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