Endowment donation

by W. Bramble
(Baltimore, Md)

We received an endowment from a former member. The check reads endowment. Does this mean the church cannot touch the principal of the donation and can only benefit from whatever interest it generates? Or can the full amount be used at the discretion of the church?

Comments for Endowment donation

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Some Info, more Questions
by: Karen

We have had an Endowment fund for over 50 years, and an Endowment committee to oversee its investment and use. 20 yrs ago, we borrowed from it to repair our bell tower, and drew up an agreement to pay it back at $50 per month and 3% interest. We just finished paying ourselves back.

Questions: This year with funds low, we moved $13,000 from the fund to our everyday checking acct. For operating expenses, I don't like the idea but the current pastor insisted.
Administration here has changed drastically, and as treasurer I'm afraid the powers that be may want to use all the monies and erase any oversight.
Recording and dispersing cash gifts
by: Paul Sykes

We are using Quickbooks desktop pro. We have established budgets for all church departments. Let me provide a hypothetical case to explain our problem. Say our Youth department has a $1,000 approved budget. Then a church member donates a $1,000 gift to the Youth program. We set up a sub bank account under our church general fund to track the balance of the gift. We write a check for $400. The sub-account now has a balance of $600. However,their budget also gets hit for $400 as soon as a check is written. There must be some way to track these gift sub-account without affecting their budgetsPlease help.

Paul Sykes

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