General and Jurisdictional Apportionments: The Black College Fund

Submitted by C. Dennis Shaw
Conference Statistician and a Member of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration (CF&A)
 

This is part of a series of articles for the Mountain Sky Conference to learn about the various funds that are make up the General and Jurisdictional Apportionments. All of the funds are shown in Table 1 along with the requested support.

There are seven General Church funds, including the Episcopal Fund. The eighth fund included in the General and Jurisdictional Apportionments are the Western Jurisdiction.
This article is about the Black College Fund.

In 1972, The United Methodist Church established the Black College Fund to continue a century-long program to support Methodist-related historically Black colleges. Today United Methodists support more historically Black colleges and universities than any other denomination.

The Black College Fund is raising the leaders who impact lives and shape communities. Through the Black College Fund, we are working in community to ensure that these eleven schools that have historically equipped our nation with fine leaders will continue to make an impact.

Watch a video about the Black College Fund here:


Table 1 below shows the percentages of the General and Jurisdictional Apportionments support that goes to each fund. The Black College Fund is a little less than 7% of our General and Jurisdictional Apportionments support. 

An amendment was passed at Annual Conference 2020 that required 100% payment on this General Fund in 2021. If congregations directed their individual support towards this Fund, this action would provide more flexibility by the Conference in supporting all eight General Funds. This Fund was supported at the 100% level in the first year of the new Mountain Sky Conference and it will be a high priority General Fund for 2020. 
 

What's Next?

Responsible Stewardship will host a Webinar on all of General and Jurisdictional Apportionments on August 11, 2020.   We evaluate performance in these eight funds by total payments meeting the total assessed amount:  the mix on the funds as paid are not factors in our recognition process. 

The local church assessment is based on proportional share of the cost of Staff – Clergy and Lay, Operations and Programs.  Capital Expenses, Debt Retirement and those funds sent in for Mission Shares, Special Sundays or other Church contributions locally and to the conference are excluded from the calculation. 

Additional information on this fund is available on the UMC Giving webpage for The Black College Fund and information on all the UMC Budget Apportioned Funds can be found on the UMC General Council on Finance and Administration website. 

Several articles exist on the topic of Apportionments on the Mountain Sky website with an article from Early July here.

Clarifying the strategic shift in General and Jurisdictional Apportionment: Council on Finance and Administration

July 06, 2020

General and Jurisdictional Apportionments: Episcopal Fund

July 28, 2020



Each church in the Mountain Sky Conference may designate, if they desire, where their portion of their General and Jurisdictional Apportionments go. You, the local church, if you desire, are able to choose the funds you value. This was a key element of our new program to allow churches more discretion on how their funds are used. For example, if your church puts $1,000 to a particular fund, that is where your money will go. Each church has the ability to designate the destination of the funds they put into the General and Jurisdictional Apportionments.

This article was written by Dennis Shaw, a retired Elder continuing to serve the Conference on the Conference Council on Finance and Administration.