I took this course in seminary. Unfortunately, it was about the Old Testament book. What I really needed was an accounting course!!

Ever since becoming your Executive Minister, I have wanted The American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts to "run a tight ship" fiscally, with integrity and transparency and solvency; basically good stewardship practices. In 2009, we took significant major steps in this direction to establish a solid, financially-based operation. We stemmed the tide of red ink in the Core Services to Congregations and in the Camps. It was difficult letting devoted servants of our organization go, but we understood our responsibility. We now have the following procedures and activities in place to enable us to move forward to provide services that are central to our churches. These include:

•Administration & Finance Committee (A&F) has appointed a task force to research all previous endowments in order to provide detailed information on their current balances and restrictions. Although, we do not expect this to reveal any major surprises, we desire to produce a document that will enable us to be clear about who gave what, under what terms and for what purposes. This is done so that we can maintain complete integrity with our past donors. For those funds that are not restricted, we realize that they offer more flexibility in how they can support TABCOM.

•A new endowment vehicle, the TransFORMation Fund has been established with a $5,000 initial endowment, and another 6-digit gift in the pipeline! We are very grateful for the generosity of these donors. Their terms—and all future intentions—will be complied with to the letter. This fund will be administered in a parallel fashion with the Friends of Regional Ministries (FORM) annual appeal. Ed Guerard has finalized the brochure and we are promoting this fund currently.

•Income and Expense reports are readied before the 10th for the previous month by Finance Director Richard Wolf and his staff. These reports include seasonally adjusted projections to year’s end. This consistent delivery of financial reports will enable the A&F to review in depth on a monthly basis the details of our organization and the commitments we have made.

•Ken Swenson and Ed Guerard meet monthly with A&F to report on progress in the United Mission offerings and FORM donations respectively.

•A Finance team has been meeting regularly to analyze the operating reports and giving patterns as described above. This will enable TABCOM to react quickly to any issues that are found to need immediate attention.

•Good news and Bad news! We have six-digit-plus donations in the pipeline (separate from the one mentioned above)! That is the good news. These new donations will be used to ensure that all restricted invested funds are whole. (Restricted investment funds may legally grow or shrink depending upon market fluctuations, but expenditures from them must be in accord with the terms specified by the donor and/or Attorney General.) We have discovered that some of these restricted funds were expended. We are correcting this situation as rapidly as possible, and with the above controls in place, we will not make this mistake again. Additionally, some of these donations will be used to replenish our reserve accounts to meet our commitments to our TABCOM family of churches and individuals. (Reserve accounts are "pockets" in which we hold overages for specific programs from previous fiscal years.)

Thank you for your ongoing confidence and trust in the TABCOM staff and volunteers and, for your generosity in support of our collective mission. We currently are operating with minimal staff in the front office and we are focused on mobilizing the volunteers of TABCOM to implement all the programs that our churches have asked for. I always look forward to all members of the TABCOM family of churches connecting with me as often as they have questions on how we feel God is leading us to fulfill our mission. Steadily, by God’s grace and a good bit of hard work, we continue to improve our operations. I look forward to your involvement in the collective positive motion that the TABCOM family of churches are making.