Members in attendance: Dave Del Marto,
Brian Fisher, Bob Brundage, Tim Thompton, LaJean
Wenzel.
Also present: Greg Shepherd, our professional gift
planning consultant
Not Present: Sue Ingram and Pastor Erik, Advisor
Our committee continues to meet for our new council approved planned giving program, supported by Greg Shepherd.
In our general discussions we need to consider how our money is invested, how money is distributed, and what our distribution rules are, including unrestricted and designated. Further elements of what should be in our by-laws: committee should not decide investing, committee should have oversight of those investing (ELCA fund), committee should be provided with how the fund pie chart definitions are changed by the fund administrators and we may want to add verbiage for the church to get a loan from our Endowment Fund. Greg provided the UPMIFA (Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act) and an attorney’s brief concerning the act to use as a guideline for these issues.
Greg presented a list of ways to say Thank You to legacy gifts and their importance in the program.
Our next step will be to introduce Greg to the congregation. He will provide an introduction letter that will be included in the Grapevine.
Following that we will want to distribute a survey with a cover letter by Pastor Erik: to determine the number of planned gifts already established by church members and obtain willing witnesses.
Other future considerations: an Endowment website, an endowment e-newsletter with tax and will and charitable gift annuity info, etc., and a planned giving brochure.
We handed in our committee member surveys.
Action item: Tim will review and compare the UPMIFA to our
existing by-laws.
Action item: Greg S. will email his introduction
letter. Done
Action item: Pastor Erik will write a cover letter for the
curvey.
The meeting was adjourned.
Next meeting is Thursday,
Nov. 17 at 7:00.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel, Recorder
Members in attendance: Dave Del Marto, Brian Fisher, Sue Ingram, Tim Thompton, LaJean Wenzel
Not Present: Bob Brundage, Council Liaison and Pastor Erik, Advisor
This meeting was scheduled to decide the final recommendations to be made to the council for fund distributions for this year. Pastor Erik provided a hand-out including the fund trust activity, recommendations, missionaries’ profiles, and 2011 Make Bake distributions.
Brian brought sandwiches and we ate as we reviewed the seven scholarship applications from graduating seniors: Ashley Weed, Brian Churchill, Nicholas Hobbs, Hailey Vieira, Kris Korzan, Victoria Hatfield, Michael Fickenscher.
The income distributed for the applicable 4 quarters totaled $9,018.26. We agreed to distribute $9,000.
We discussed the 3 recommendations, considered past distribution recipients, and verified we wouldn’t be doubling up against Make Bake distributions.
The following breakdown for distributions was approved:
|
Seven College Scholarships ($1,000 each) |
$7,000 |
|
ELCA Missionary |
$1,000 |
|
Pastor
Discretionary Fund |
$1,000 |
|
Total |
$9,000 |
Other discussion items:
Action item: Brian will provide the recommendations to the
Church Council for approval. Done (to Bob B.)
Action item: Bylaws to Sue I. Members, the bylaws are at this link: http://www.mountcross.com/endow.htm
Done.
Action item (determined post-
meeting): LaJean - It needs to be
determined if there are matching programs associated with any scholarships for
the particular schools represented by our applicants. This could result in specific requirements
for the check. It is believed that Brian
Churchill’s school would be the only possibility. Kevin C. has been contacted and will get back
to LaJean. Done (no matching).
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel, Recorder
Members in attendance (all): Bob Brundage (Council liaison), Dave Del Marto, Brian Fisher, Sue Ingram, Tim Thompton, LaJean Wenzel
Advisor: Pastor Erik
This was a special meeting of the committee with Greg Shepherd making a presentation. Greg is with the ELCA and is a Regional Gift Planner.
We were made aware of this service as part of our endowment plan with the ELCA and have pursued the meeting for some months until we were able to find a date suitable for all.
He spoke to us about a ‘Charitable Giving Education Ministry’, which is a guide to churches with an existing endowment fund, working with the congregation to create a more dynamic planned giving culture.
Our congregation can utilize Greg’s services as a professional gift planning consultant to guide us through a planned giving program in a year long process helping the creation of a congregational culture for planned giving and for leaving a legacy.
The program would include meeting with our committee on a monthly basis, giving a temple talk, conducting a legacy seminar, and other tools and strategies. There are some objectives that would continue into a second year.
A commitment and a contract would be required, and the Council would have to initially approve it. He would meet briefly with the Council on our recommendation for our congregation to become involved in the program. At this point, there is no cost, but the ELCA is in discussions to start charging for the service.
We were given a copy of his guidebook to review.
Greg left after his presentation and the committee discussed the program, benefits, pros and cons, if we could each commit to the process (including monthly meetings and probably individual meetings with him on planned giving through wills, trusts, etc.).
Because we have had a goal for some time of trying to further the knowledge of and participation in the Endowment Fund, the overall consensus was to recommend this to the Council, and on their approval, move forward to start this collaboration with Greg.
We are hoping to get into the program before a charge is applied.
We feel that this will be of benefit for the congregation and its members beyond just Endowment Fund education.
Action Item for Bob B.: contact the Council President, Randy Churchill, to see if they could allocate some time at the beginning of a meeting for Greg to briefly summarize the program. Bob B. and Pastor Erik would be able to address additional questions during the meeting after Greg has left.
Action Item for Pastor Erik: contact Greg to verify the meeting date and his availability to attend.
[The action items have been
completed and Greg is set to attend the April meeting.]
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel, Recorder
Members in attendance: Susan Prosser, Bob Brundage, Brian Fisher, Dave Del Marto, LaJean Wenzel
Members unable to attend: Tim Thompton
Pastor Erik came at end for a summary after attending another meeting
We started reading the 5 scholarship applications from high school graduates as we arrived – from Kimberly Avery, Ian Carr, Whitney Carver, Ross Crockett, and Hannah Tasker.
We discussed and agreed on a total of $6,680.00 to distribute from the fund interest over the last four quarters. The discussion then continued with how to distribute the total. Included in our deliberations were the scholarship applications, distributions lists from other years, and Make Bake Celebrate 2010 distribution recipient amounts.
By consensus, the following distribution was agreed upon by members present:
|
COLLEGE
SCHOLARSHIPS - 5 |
$
5,000 |
|
SEMINARY
SUPPORT (PLTS) |
$
480 |
|
ELCA MISSIONARY
SUPPORT |
$
900 |
|
LUTHERAN
RETREATS (LRCC) |
$
300 |
|
TOTAL |
$ 6,680 |
[A Plan B was defined in case all parts of one application were not met by 6-8-10 (not needed).]
Brian volunteered to set up a file with previous years’ distributions and email to each of us (ACTION ITEM for Brian).
We then marked up the existing draft brochure for the endowment fund, discussing and incorporating the agreed upon changes and modifications we each had marked prior to the meeting. LaJean will meet with Marilyn to produce our updated brochure (ACTION ITEM for LaJean). The updated draft will be sent to members for proof review and any additional comments (ACTION ITEM for LaJean).
We want to send a ‘Thank You’ note to the family of Adda Lukehart for their generous donation to the fund. Brian had already composed a draft note. We reviewed and modified it. Brian will email the updated note to Pastor Erik who will determine with Marilyn the best way to send it to the family and will also email the note to members (ACTION ITEM for Brian and Pastor Erik).
Pastor Erik joined us after his other meeting and we gave him a summary of the meeting to that point.
The minutes of the last meeting were approved with no changes.
We will put an article in the July Newsletter about our distribution (ACTION ITEM for Brian).
We would like to have a representative from the ELCA fund meet with us and interested council members to give us additional information and ideas. Brian and Pastor Erik will work on a possible date and contact a representative (ACTION ITEM for Brian and Pastor Erik).
Brian, Susan, and LaJean signed the Endowment Fund Withdrawal form.
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel, Recorder
Members in attendance: Susan Prosser, Bob Brundage, Brian Fisher, Tim Thomton, LaJean Wenzel
Members unable to attend: Dave Del Marto
Advisor: Pastor Erik
Pastor Erik opened with prayer and handed out an agenda.
The last meeting’s minutes were reviewed with Bob moving for their acceptance as written and approved by Pastor Erik
Brian F. has agreed to serve as chair of the committee and LaJean W. will serve as recorder.
Financial Picture
Last Year’s Distribution Update
Distributions for 2010
Additional discussion issues:
We will not solicit for requests at this time considering
our known list and priorities, but hope to finalize a brochure containing
purpose of the fund, estate/tax benefits, categories of disbursements,
etc. [ACTION
ITEM: Pastor Erik will email a sample
brochure to committee members for review/comments.]
Noted during the meeting: Any gift size is fine, but small donations have to accumulate to $2,000 before they can be added to the fund. We are not limited to one withdrawal per year. We are also considering the option of having an ELCA representative come out to talk to our committee and council.
Several signed the authorization form for the trust to remit
funds to
Because the scholarship application deadline is June 6th and council approval is needed at their June 8th meeting, we will meet June 7th at 7:00 to make our final disbursement decisions.
Pastor Erik closed the meeting with prayer.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel
Members in attendance: Susan Prosser, Bob Brundage, Brian Fisher, LaJean Wenzel
This meeting was scheduled to decide the final
recommendations to be made to the council for fund distributions for this
year. In the previous May 17th
meeting, it was unanimously voted to use $4,700 from the fund. The two top priorities were scholarships for
graduating seniors and a scholarship for a
We had two scholarship applications from graduating seniors which we all reviewed.
Following a discussion of past distributions, and the amount and priorities agreed upon previously in this year of economic turndown, the committee decided on the following breakdown for distributions:
|
Two College Scholarships ($1,000 each) |
$2,000 |
|
One PLTS
Scholarship for the 1st year at seminary |
$1,500 |
|
LRCC (El Camino Pines camp) |
$ 600 |
|
ELCA Missionary |
$ 600 |
|
Total |
$4,700 |
Susan Prosser will write up the recommendations and provide them to the Church Council for their upcoming meeting.
After Susan informs LaJean Wenzel of the acceptance by the Council of our recommendations, LaJean will call Bob Winters to find out the process for the checks (since Pastor Erik usually took care of this part).
LaJean will also talk to a parent of each scholarship recipient to find out if there are matching programs associated with any scholarships for the particular schools represented. This could result in specific requirements for the check.
We are happy to be distributing, for the first time to our knowledge, monies to a member of our church going to seminary. We brought up the issue of continuing support, not necessarily at the same level, for subsequent years at the seminary. No application was required for the scholarship this year; we took the acceptance at PLTS as sufficient. But we want to consider, at a future meeting, what type of accountability we might want from seminary students for subsequent support.
It was suggested that our next meeting would be after Pastor Erik’s return from sabbatical.
Respectfully submitted,
LaJean Wenzel
Those in attendance:
Dave Del Marto, Tim Thomton, Brian Fisher,
Bob Brundage, Pastor Erik
-Pastor Erik welcomed the new members to the committee and gave a history of how the endowment fund came to be, and what causes it has supported. He then walked the committee through the financial history and current statement. Several of the members had good input and questions.
-There was also discussion on the two main functions of the committee which are to oversee the fund distributions and help promote increasing the fund.
-The main task at hand, however, was whether or not to distribute funds this year because of the economic downturn. After some discussion there was a clear consensus that we wanted to distribute some of the funds to keep momentum going with the endowment since its purpose is to be used. This continues the good publicity and hopefully increases awareness as well the chances that people might choose to give to the fund. At the same time the committee had consensus that we wanted to show that we were being more conservative in a tough year for the market and not spend the full $6,600 that we earned in interest.
-It was suggested that we take the percentage loss from the market and subtract that same percentage from the interest to come up with a number to recommend to council.
A member with a business background figured the loss from our market value was 29% for calendar year ‘08. 29% of $6,600 is $1914. Subtracting the $1914 from $6,600 we got $4686. We rounded up to $4,700 to make it an even number. It was moved, seconded and voted on unanimously with those present that $4700 was the number we should recommend to council.
-We also discussed where we wanted to distribute the money and decided that our top two priorities would be scholarships for graduating seniors and a Mount Cross member who is going to seminary at PLTS next year. We hope to give $800 to scholarship applicants and maybe $1,000 if we only have a couple apply. Any extra funds would go to our next priorities of ELCA missionary support and Mount Cross youth ministry.
-Pastor Erik said he would send out a letter and put an announcement in the bulletin for graduating seniors.
-It was decided that we would wait and see what scholarships come in before making the final recommendation to council.
Next meeting: Sunday July 12 at 12:00pm in the church office.
Endowment
Minutes June
9, 2008
In
attendance: Bob Brundage (council liaison),
Luanne Crockett, LaJean Wenzel,
Susan Prosser Absent: Jesus Duran,
Martin Nehring
(action
items in bold)
-As
we gathered each member read through the three scholarship applications we
received
-Pastor
Erik opened with prayer at 12:15pm
-reviewed
the change in our by-laws for the endowment that was passed at the annual
meeting, cleaned up language to say each
member who joins does so for a 3 year commitment and added language about a
liaison being appointed from the council for a one year term, LaJean made a
comment about changing a couple words to make it sound smoother
Pastor Erik to check on annual meeting
minutes to confirm the final phrasing
-We
reviewed the current financial statements.
There was a lengthy discussion trying to re-confirm since last year the
cycle we are on in terms of what quarterly distributions are included in our total
so we would know how much we can withdraw and have accurate numbers. It was finally concluded that the committee
would use four quarterly statements to determine the total amount available for
distributions. Because of our emphasis on scholarships for graduating seniors
the committee decided the cycle would include statements from June of the
previous year to March of the current year.
Using this guideline the committee decided that $6,600 would be
available to distribute for this year. (June ’07-March ’08)
-In
addition to the scholarship applications, Pastor Erik handed out several appeal
letters from different organizations we have supported in the past. After discussing how we could divide up the
total amount available the committee came up with the following decision:
Scholarships
for Graduating Seniors from Mount Cross…………$3,000
LRCC
(El Camino Pines)…………………………………………$ 800
ELCA
Missionary…………………………………………………$1,000
PLTS
(Lutheran Seminary in Berkley…………………………….$
400
Mount
Cross Youth (for National Gathering)…………………….$ 1,200
New
City Parish…………………………………………………..$ 100
Teen
Challenge……………………………………………………$ 100
-members
signed the withdrawal form
Pastor Erik to mail in the withdrawal form to the ELCA and once the
check comes in he will direct the Mount Cross treasurer to distribute it
accordingly
-meeting
was adjourned at 1:55pm
Meeting called to order at 12:15 with prayer.
Members in attendance:
Luanne Crockett, Jodell Johnson,
Gene Myers,
LaJean Wenzel, Pastor Erik
Since the majority of our members were present we decided to proceed with the meeting and the decision-making process of how much money to distribute this year from the endowment fund and to whom it should go.
Our current book value for the endowment is $134, 921.96. Our current market value is $157,347.21. We have received approximately $7,300 in distributions this year off the interest of the fund. The committee decided to add $500.00 to make the amount an even $8,000 to distribute. This will affect our book value slightly, but the committee thought that the market value had risen so much we could afford to do this.
Next there was discussion about where the $8,000 should go. After looking at the requests we had and the scholarship applications we had the committee decided on the following breakdown for distributions:
Two College Scholarships……………………..$2,000.00
CLU Music Dept. for Instrument Repair……….$500.00
Youth Summer Trip……………………………..$1,000.00
Tijuana House………………………………… $1,000.00
LRCC (camp El Camino Pines)………………… $600.00
LSS (Lutheran Social Services)…………………$600.00
Missions:
ELCA missionaries……………………………..$1,000.00
Lutheran
Bible Translators……………………….$500.00
ELCA College student on short-term misson…….$300.00
We will look to have another meeting in the Fall. The meeting was adjourned at 1:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Pastor Erik
Members in attendance: LaJean Wenzel, Gene Myers, Jodell Johnson, Luanne Crockett, Stephanie Nylund, Pastor Erik
Members not in attendance: Martin Nehring, Jesus Duran
-Meeting began with a welcome of new members (LaJean and Gene), the group brought them up to speed on the history of the endowment
-everyone reviewed financial statement from the last two years, there was discussion on how we should receive our distributions,
-the first year we rolled over our quarterly distribution back into the pooled trust of the ELCA in order to continue receiving interest until we made our one withdrawal for the year,
- in ’05 we changed in order to receive each distribution on the quarter, the
reasoning was that we would have money on hand if we needed it and we would avoid some of the risk of the market going down
-after discussing this issue again the group decided that the potential gains of letting the quarterly distributions be rolled back into the Pooled Trust to earn interest were greater than the potential risk, and since we really only do one withdrawal a year anyway, the group decide to go back to how we received distributions the first year, signatures were given
Action: Pastor Erik to mail in the form to change our distributions
-discussed how we would solicit requests this year and what would be the timeline
decided to do a bulletin insert on April 9 to be followed up by a time on the patio with an information table on April 30, the deadline for requests will be June 30 to allow students time to get in scholarship applications
Action: Pastor Erik to mail out scholarship applications to Senior students, prepare a bulletin insert with help of church secretary and prepare an endowment brochure with the help of the church secretary
Action: Luanne to write newsletter article on the endowment reminding people what it is and that groups can make requests, to be written by
Action: Stephanie said she would work on creating another eye-catching bulletin board for the patio time
Action: Gene and Luanne said they would be at
the patio table from 9:30-10:45
LaJean said she would sit at the
patio table after late service (12:00)
-discussed the process of getting approval for emergency situations via e-mail, the group decided that next year we might set aside a certain amount of funds to be used to help Lutheran Social Services when they have specific emergency requests to help people with things like rent, the group thought giving Pastor Erik authorization over e-mail was fine but that we should decide on a common way of stating such approval
Action: Our statement for approving special requests via e-mail will be:
I, __(your full name)_______ , as a member of the Mount Cross Lutheran Church Endowment Committee give my approval to allow Pastor Erik Goehner to authorize our church treasurer to send ____(the amount of money__ to ___(name of Organization like Lutheran Social Services)___out of the Endowment Designated Fund.
-discussed how people could give money in memory or in honor of someone and how we would list it in the newsletter and some kind of memorial book
Action: Pastor Erik to have this option listed in the new brochure
-Pastor Erik made group aware of grants that Thrivent was making available to educate people on charitable giving options, the group discussed how this could be used to help promote giving to the Endowment fund
Action: Gene Myers said he would follow-up with the local Thrivent office on how we could best utilize these grants
-meeting adjourned at 1:20pm
submitted by: Pastor Erik Goehner
The Mount Cross Endowment
Committee Meeting Minutes
July 24, 2005
The meeting was called to order with
a prayer by Pastor Erik at 12:15 pm.
Members in attendance were Pastor Erik, Luanne Crockett, Jesus Duran, Jodell Johnson, and Martin Nehring.
Last year the committee
distributed $11,400. The award was
larger last year due to better returns in the stock markets were the funds are
invested. For 2005, the Endowment Fund had smaller stock market gains, so the
committee elected to leave those gains in the Endowment Fund.
We went over the amount of money
the Endowment Fund has to distribute. Bob
Winters provided a spreadsheet of the account values which showed we have
$6,323 in cash in the account. The Fund
has a principle amount of $136,908.90 and an account value of $144,669.63 on
June 1, 2005. The committee approved
distributing $10,000 this year, which includes selling $3,677 of Fund
shares. The committee has an unofficial
benchmark of not drawing the Fund below $140,000. Pastor Erik provided the distribution form
which was signed by Luanne, Jodell, and Jesus to
withdraw the additional $3,677.
The committee received three
scholarship applications, and they were reviewed by each member. One potential student is not a member of Mt
Cross but has worked at the church for three years. Aleyssa Calvelli was awarded $500 and is attending Ventura College
in the fall. Justin Rhodes was awarded
$1,000 and will attend CLU. Jeremy Graziani was awarded $1,000 and will attend
San Diego State. The committee awarded
unequal amounts because of the cost of attending a four year university versus
a junior college.
The
following awards were made:
Pacific
Lutheran Theological Seminary $2,000
(same as last year)
Teen
Challenge $500 (new request)
Lutheran
Retreats Camps and Conferences $500 ($1,000 last year)
Mt
Cross Youth Trip for 2006 $2,000 (same as last year)
College
Scholarships $2,500
($2,400 last year)
Support
of ELCA Missionary $1,000
(same as last year)
Tijuana
Trip $1,000**
($1,500 last year)
Lutheran
Social Services (LSS) $500****
(new request)
** The committee is holding $1,000 for a
potential Mt Cross Trip to Tijuana.
Pastor Erik said there is a potential donor for this project which would
free up this $1,000 for another project.
**** The committee wishes to support LSS with $500,
but there is concern that sending the check to LSS corporate in Los Angeles may
not filter the funds down to the office in Thousand Oaks. The Thousand Oaks office is in need of basic
supplies. The suggestion was made to have LSS buy their supplies and we would
reimburse them for each expenditure.
Pastor Erik will look into this.
The committee will look to have
another meeting in September. The
meeting was adjourned with a prayer at 1 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Martin
Nehring
Mount
Cross Lutheran Church
Endowment
Fund Committee
MINUTES
FOR:
Pastor Erik Goehner 482-3847 PastorGoehner@cs.com
Jesus Duran jduran@oxnardsd.org
Jodell Johnson 482-9541 taxbaby@adelphia.net
jjohnson@catalyticsolutions.com
Luanne Crockett 388-5220 lcrockett@ez2.net
Stephanie Golnik 987-5027 nylun100@hotmail.com
The congregation voted and
passed the Endowment Fund’s Congregational Bylaws, and the committee’s next
step is to present the Endowments Fund’s ‘Statement of Investment Strategy and
Policy’ to the church council.
ELCA vs. Calvert Funds
Pros of the ELCA:
The ELCA has no middle person
and therefore the committee would deal with ELCA directly. In the long run, the Endowment Fund can have
the option of making more money. The
ELCA has been in business since 1986.
They also have socially conscience funds.
Cons of the ELCA:
The ELCA is limited in
family of funds and also has fixed percentages:
70%-equities and 30%-fixed income funds.
Calvert:
Calvert has socially
conscience funds and the committee would be able to place more percentage of
the fund into the fixed income option.
The cons of Calvert are using a middle person to maintain the investment
and the company has not been established as long as the ELCA.
The committee’s final
decision was to use the ELCA as the investment group. The decision was made on the items listed under
the pros of the ELCA. The decision was
also based on the committee wanting to keep the money in a fixed percentage,
and not having to worry about switching percentages from fixed income to or
from equities. Rather, the committee’s
main focus wants to be marketing to receive more donations and more
importantly, how and when to disperse the Endowment Fund.
Pastor Eric provided an example of a statement of investment strategy
and policy. The purpose of this
statement is to outline our investment goals, define where the money will go
and also provide a clear and straight forward strategy to present to the church
council. The first draft of this
statement is enclosed.
-Complete the ‘Statement of Investment Strategy and Policy’.
-Jesus Duran and Pastor Eric
to present the ‘Statement of Investment Strategy and Policy’ at the next church
council meeting: June 10, 2003.
-The committee will review the ELCA information at
the church office. Pastor Eric to call
or e-mail the other members when the information has arrived.
-Next meeting: August 2003. The next meeting will be how to market the
congregation for more donations. Also,
discussing when the deadline will be for the applications (disbursement of the
funds) and how to rate each application.
Created by Stephanie Golnik
(5/21/03)
Mount
Cross Lutheran Church Endowment Fund Committee
MINUTES FOR:
March 11, 2003 at 7:30pm
1. Attendance:
Pastor Erik Goehner Paul
Jodell LuAnn
Stephanie Golnik
2. Committee membership positions decided:
Chairperson: Jesus
Financial
Secretary: Jodell
Recording
Secretary: Stephanie
Pastor Advisor: Pastor
Eric Goehner
Other members: Paul and
LuAnn
Committee membership terms
decided:
One‑Year Term: Paul
Two‑Year Term: LuAnn
and Stephanie Golnik
Three‑Year Term: Jesus and Jodell
Amendment to the
congregational bylaws:
The committee has updated and made the first draft
of the to the Congregational Bylaws for the endowment fund. The recording
secretary will be typing the first draft and providing it to the members of the
committee prior to the next meeting date via e‑mail.
Management of endowment
funds:
The committee has voted and decided to use
the ELCA Foundation investing group.
Next meeting:
‑Next meeting date:
March 25, 2003 at 7:30pm.
‑At the next meeting:
making the final draft of the Bylaws for presentation at the
-April 6 congregational
meeting and reasons for choosing the ELCA Foundation.