May 23, 2000, WASHINGTON, D.C. - In and of itself,
decentralizing financial management within an organization is hardly news. But approval today of a plan for separating
financial management for Church World Service and Witness from that for the rest of the
National Council of Churches is noteworthy for its effect and its context.
According to the plan, voted by the NCC Executive Board,
CWSW will begin immediately to set up its own administration and finance offices, to reach
full autonomy by fall. At the same time,
CWSW has reaffirmed a common ministry with the NCC's other ministries and a common
accountability to the NCC General Assembly, whose 250 delegates from the Council's 35
Protestant and Orthodox member communions meet each November.
Communications and public policy work will continue to
be joint functions, and the NCC General Secretary continues to serve as the chief
ecumenical spokesperson. And the whole
Council will initiate "a process of reflecting on the ecumenical mission in the
United States," inviting others to join in discussing "a new vision in the new
millennium."
Church World Service and Witness is the National
Council of Churches' humanitarian response ministry.
CWSW raises and spends about 80 percent of the ecumenical body's total
annual budget of around $70 million.
Up to now, the NCC has assessed CWSW a percentage of
its income for administration and financial management - a point of tension over the cost
and efficiency of the services provided that should now ease.
"For far too long the council has expended
energy and goodwill in addressing the kinds of contentious issues that are inevitable when
one part of a structure so overwhelmingly dominates the budget," commented Episcopal
Church Canon Patrick Mauney, Chair of Church World Service and Witness.
He expressed his belief that the plan approved today
"will remove the principal contentious issues and allow the NCC to place itself at
the service of a larger calling - a truly inclusive ecumenical entity in the United
States" and will strengthen the entire NCC as clearer and tighter financial reports
make funding sources and uses more transparent. A
six-member Financial Transition Task Force will carry forward implementation.
This separation of financial management takes place
in the context of an intensive effort to bring overall expenditures under control and to
begin to rebuild the Council's badly eroded financial reserves. A cash flow crisis - expected to continue through
the summer - is being addressed through staff travel restrictions and request for early
payment of fiscal commitments from communions, governmental agencies and other donors that
ordinarily would come in later in the year.
"We are monitoring cash flow on a daily,
sometimes hourly basis," reported Barbara Ellen Black, the NCC's Interim General
Manager. "We've renegotiated contracts
for equipment, maintenance and delivery services and for property insurance, at
substantial savings. We are consolidating
space to reduce occupancy costs."
The 1999 audit is expected to be completed within
the next few days. The NCC is moving to a
July 1-June 30 fiscal year, effective this July 1, with an audit of the first six months
of 2000 to be completed by October.
$3.8 million has been pledged for reduction of 1999
year-end debt, leaving an accumulated deficit of about $2.7 million - none of it owed to
external creditors, said the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, NCC General Secretary. Research is beginning to determine what reserves
will need to be replenished as the Council rebuilds financially.
As a special committee and staffed worked over the
past several months on these immediate financial and structural issues, attention also
turned to a larger issue - longer-term questions of basic mission and purpose.
Today, the NCC Executive Board took the first step
toward a new vision in the new millennium for ecumenical ministry in the United States,
and asked an eight-member "Vision Team" to bring a "protocol" on how
to proceed to the Board's next meeting, in October.
The NCC and its member communions will invite others to be part of the
process from the start.
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