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Back to School Time
Fall is not only “back to school” time, but also it is the time
we start new programming for the church year. As you are planning educational
programming for your church, charge, parish, or district, consider having
representatives of the United Methodist Foundation lead a workshop or seminar on
planned giving, endowment building, or stewardship in general. “Back to school”
time can offer opportunities to reconsider the fundamentals and the foundation
of our ministries of stewardship.
As United Methodists, we naturally connect faith and financial
stewardship. God has blessed us abundantly; all that we have is
a gift from God. We respond by giving back to God. When we joined the United
Methodist Church, we pledged to support the
church with our gifts. Founder John Wesley famously advised to “earn all you
can, save all you can, so you can give all you can.” The United Methodist
Foundation of West Virginia can help your church enhance the connection between
faith and money, and perhaps extend it beyond your lifetime.
The mission of the Foundation is to serve United Methodist
individuals and families, as well as the churches, agencies, missions,
and ministries of the West Virginia Annual Conference, by raising, managing, and
distributing funds. We help to deepen and
enhance the natural connection between faith and financial stewardship.
We serve individuals and families primarily through a ministry of
planned giving. As donors consider how to respond to God’s
call to giving of accumulated resources, we help connect their circumstances
with the needs of the church or ministry they want
to support. For example, some people may want to make a bequest from their
estate to the Foundation to benefit one or more Christian ministries. Many
people are surprised to learn that they can support their local church as well
as other ministries and charities by making a single bequest to the Foundation
with direction to the Foundation as to how to make distributions. Other
people are pleased to learn that they can make a gift that will benefit their
favorite ministry upon their death, while at the same
time increasing their lifetime income with a charitable gift annuity or
charitable remainder trust. Still others discover that
nonproductive assets such as non-dividend paying securities with a low basis,
can be given to the Foundation with the proceeds going wherever they direct.
These are just a few of the creative ways the Foundation staff can work with
individuals and families
to help them make the gift that makes the most sense for them—our goal is to
help them do good for the church and at the same
time do well for themselves.
The Foundation serves the churches, agencies, and institutions of
the Annual Conference by helping them fund ministries of the future through
permanent endowments and custodial accounts.
We can help churches create permanent endowment funds that
provide a perpetual income stream for future ministries. We not
only help with the establishment of the fund that can be the vehicle to receive
future endowment gifts, but also work with churches
to help make endowment building and planned giving a part of the church’s
environment.
The Foundation offers custodial accounts as an investment choice
for churches and Conference-related institutions looking for trustworthy
management of funds in socially responsible investments with reasonable rates of
return.
Are you interested in learning more about the Foundation and how
we can assist you or your ministry? Call us toll-free; we will
meet with individuals and families, church or agency boards or committees, or
congregations.
Consider the possibilities.
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