cornerstone spring 13 hr

©2013 A publication of the Presbyterian Foundation www.PresbyterianFoundation.org

Caring Relationship Centered Around Jesus Christ

P r e s b y t e r i a n F o u n d a t i o n ’ s

God’s Hidden Treasures is serving the needs of the disabled and orphaned in the country of Ukraine. Since its beginning in 1997, the ministry has expanded to include a wheelchair ministry, outreach ministry, and medical ministry.

i n s i d e :

Presbyterian Church of astoria reinvented

Make Giving More Convenient

Change to investment strategy Marks First year

Partnering to increase Funding for your Mission

God’s Hidden Treasures is one of those gems of a ministry

which grew from the heart of one faithful Christian and

now serves thousands. Its budget is small. Its staff is

small. But its impact is huge. And dozens of Presbyterian

congregations are now engaged in its ministry to the “least

of these” in Ukraine.

The ministry was started by a Presbyterian woman from

California, Nita Hanson, who by all accounts seems quite

ordinary. Yet, because of her compassion, passion and

faithfulness, God has clearly used her in extraordinary ways.

s p R i n g 2 0 1 3

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Cornerstone Spring 13.indd 1 5/15/13 8:10 AM

The Presbyterian

Foundation was

established in 1799

to raise, steward, and distribute funds for mission. We

work with congregations, councils, agencies and other

entities to ensure that they have resources for mission

today, tomorrow, and two hundred years from now.

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From Our presidentI’ve heard from pastors again and again – raising funds

for their churches is one of the most daunting parts of

their job. We are well trained to proclaim the Word and

lead congregations in worship, to care for families in birth,

sickness, and death. Many also have particular gifts for

leadership, teaching, evangelism, and administration. But

talking about money? Asking people to give? That’s not

been at the center of our traditional seminary training.

That’s why the Presbyterian Foundation devotes so

much energy to this very real need in the life of every

pastor and congregation. We’re committed to partnering

with pastors, walking alongside them as they share with

their congregations all that the Bible has to say about

generosity and its role in faithful Christian life.

We have a team of Ministry Relations Officers across

the nation to serve those in ministry. These talented

women and men have served as pastors and ruling elders

and hold advanced degrees that have informed them

as to how best to approach the topics of stewardship,

fundraising and generosity. They know the church – and

they know how to build a culture of generosity within

it. They lead seminars and workshops in congregations

and presbyteries. They coach and counsel pastors,

stewardship teams, and finance and endowment

committees on how to maximize the impact of their

work. With individual donors, they help to develop gifts

for the ministries that those donors are most passionate

about – from their local congregations to work in

international missions (where the need is often

desperate) and everything in between.

The Ministry Relations Officers are based in

regional offices around the country, where they

come to know particular regions of the country, and

where they can be easily accessed when needed.

How do you keep giving strong throughout the

year? How do you start or grow an endowment

fund? What does a pastor do when members want

to give gifts online? And how can a pastor establish

the largest kinds of gift possible through bequests

or estates, all while maintaining dignified and

strong relationships with their parishioners?

These are just a few of the questions your Ministry

Relations Officer can help with. Want to know

more? Give them a call (see the regional locator on

page 7).

Learn now what talented and capable servants

these men and women are. If I were to return

to the pastorate today, they would be one of the

first resources I’d turn to, in order to establish the

strongest giving patterns in my church. I hope

you’ll invite them to help your church.

In Christ,

Rev. Tom Taylor, J.D., Ph.D.

President and CEO


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www.PresbyterianFoundation.org

continued from cover story

Caring Relationship Centered Around Jesus Christ

God’s Hidden Treasures operates orphanages,

provides wheelchairs, and has begun a strong

program in diabetes prevention and treatment

recognized by the Ukrainian government, to some

of this former Soviet-bloc country’s most overlooked

and desperately poor people.

In 2012, Foundation President Tom Taylor

accompanied the Ukrainian team that Nita has

assembled to lead the ministry in a small town

called Bila Tserkva. After touring their main offices

and workshop where staff members assemble and

repair the hardy wheelchairs that will be used on

the rugged, and in many cases crumbling, streets of

Bila Tserkva and other surrounding towns, the group

went on a series of wheelchair deliveries to people’s

homes.

“I cannot tell you how meaningful and powerful

it was as we drove to the tiny and severely

impoverished homes of some the wheelchair

recipients,” Taylor said.

Many of them, because of their deteriorating

physical condition, had been otherwise confined

to a bed or chair in their house for months or

even years. The staff of God’s Hidden Treasures

was so sensitive and intentional about making

sure that this was not merely about providing

a free good or service. It was about starting a

lifelong, caring relationship with them centered

around Jesus Christ. They would talk with the

recipients for a long time about their lives,

families, struggles, and joys before presenting

the wheelchair to them.

The recipients were broken people whose lives had

been extremely mentally and physically difficult under

the former Soviet system. The system under which

they live now is in great flux, and as it develops, has few

safety nets for those at the bottom of society.

As they received their chairs, boys who had been

raised in the orphanages that Nita started were given

the job of setting up the chair, then explaining how

everything worked. Those boys who Nita called ‘life’s

otherwise forgotten boys’ were so obviously proud and

conscientious to do this meaningful work.

The Foundation is working to assist and link ministries

like God’s Hidden Treasures with our new online giving

and back office administration systems – ministries

that typically are strapped financially and have few staff

members to otherwise handle such things.

If you would like to learn more about God’s Hidden

Treasures, or contribute to their work, please visit www.

PresbyterianFoundation.org/treasures. In doing so, you

join the efforts of Nita and her team, reaching out to

people in word and deed, with the love and compassion

of Jesus Christ.


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sale of building sparks reinvention of astoria Congregation

The story of the Presbyterian Church of Astoria, New York is

one of sacrifice, faithfulness, and new life. Their story begins

like so many other Presbyterian congregations – a neighborhood

church, built up over generations, with beautiful facilities.

Then something shifts, members move further away from the

church. Attendance declines. The sanctuary that used to hold

hundreds now sees just a couple dozen on a Sunday morning.

The remaining members of the Presbyterian Church of Astoria

looked at the neighborhood around them – considered its

population and its needs – and decided that the most faithful

way forward would mean a radical change.

Their decision to sell their property addressed two needs in the

community. First, a need for affordable housing for seniors – the

old church was sold to a developer to build just such housing.

Funds from the sale, now stewarded by the Presbyterian

Foundation, provide for the second need – an English-speaking

Presbyterian congregation for a growing population of young

artists and performers – in an area where worship in almost all

the other churches takes place in another language.

“With that move, the congregation reestablished a new

identity for itself,” said Tony De La Rosa, interim executive

presbyter for the Presbytery of New York City. “The

congregation began really taking on emergent Christianity as

part of their worship experience. They began experiencing new

life, new energy, certainly incredible creativity in worship and

are really establishing what I think is going to be a landmark

emergent style of Christianity in one of the most creative parts

of New York City.”

Today, the Presbyterian Church of Astoria looks very different.

The young, growing congregation worships in rented space,

and makes an intentional effort to get out in the community.

“We went out Sunday into our neighborhood garden,”

said Astoria’s new pastor, Thia Reggio. “We sometimes go

out on the street or under the awning and have worship

there. We can go out into the sculpture park or the

Make Giving More ConvenientFor St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Purcellville, Virginia,

what began as a discussion quickly became a decision – a

hearty ‘yes’ to implementing a system of online giving

through the Presbyterian Foundation.

Stewardship chair Scott Ziegler explained the rationale

behind the decision. His first exposure to the idea of

online giving, or e-giving, was at a stewardship conference

he attended which, for Ziegler, raised some important

questions. This inspired Ziegler to take the issue to the entire

Stewardship Committee and then the Finance Committee to

get approvals to proceed.

“An article I read from the conference talked about how old

fashioned churches were when it came to taking money,”

Ziegler recalled. In today’s economic climate it is almost

project: re-generation



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sale of building sparks reinvention of astoria Congregation

farmer’s market or any number of places to bring the gospel

message of love and justice.”

Freed from a building that had become burdensome, the church

is engaging its neighbors in new and exciting ways. And the

seeds of something new and exciting are beginning to take root

- the fruit of faithful generations of Presbyterians.

Micah Burgess, a professional musician and an elder says, “We

really hope that the church will reach out to the community

more. I think the fact that we have this space that’s not a

traditional church building will help us do that. We’d like to see

the church become more active in social programs and social

outreach. We’re already active in supporting the arts and so

we’re going to continue to do that.”

“I think the thing that’s difficult is people get so used to the

structure of the church and the comfort of what they feel the

church is. That becomes a difficult thing to let go of. But I think

once we get past that, we look at what the original church was

intended to be – which was just a small gathering – then I think

there’s a lot of hope to be seen in that. I think if we look at what

we’re actually trying to accomplish as a church, then through

that loss, there’s a lot to be gained.”

Is something like this possible for your church? The Presbyterian

Foundation works with congregations around the country who

sense God leading them to sell their buildings and step out

in faith in new directions. Some reinvent like Astoria. Some

merge and sell a property to help fund the newly combined

ministry. Others decide to close, and commit the proceeds of

their property to endowing a legacy of mission, ministry, or new

church planting.

Contact Paul Grier at 800-843-9547 to discuss how we can help

your church or another congregation in your presbytery.

Photos: Members of Presbyterian Church of Astoria embrace the culture and mission of their church.

Make Giving More Convenient unheard of to be restricted to cash or check. Plus, Ziegler

noted, many of a younger generation do not even own a

checkbook and are already accustomed to and proficient at

paying their regular bills online.

Ziegler hopes the new system will provide more consistency

in giving – with the ‘recurring’ option allowing for weekly,

monthly, or quarterly gifts whether the giver is actually at

worship on a given Sunday morning or not.

St. Andrew has been using online giving – via a ‘give now’

button on their website’s homepage. Since December, when

the online feature was added, through April, online donations

have steadily increased with more than $6,000 given online.

Six individuals or couples are now giving a total of $3,160 on

a monthly recurring basis. By March close to ten percent of

the congregation’s total giving was via e-giving. Ziegler hopes

this percentage will continue to increase.


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One year ago, the Presbyterian Foundation partnered

with Cambridge Associates as Investment Advisor to the

endowment funds we steward for PC (USA) churches and

ministries. Cambridge was selected based on their history of

managing endowments, access to world class investment

management resources and success with socially responsible

investment mandates. The changes that have occurred this

past year have been significant and very positive. We are

happy to report these changes and the impact to the Fund.

transition and Current Positioning

The fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, saw meaningful

changes in the composition and investment strategy of

the endowment fund portfolio (called the Balanced Growth

Spending Formula Fund or BGSF). The Investment Committee

of the Presbyterian Foundation defined a set of financial and

investment objectives for the BGSF Fund.

• Financial Objective: to provide a stream of relatively

stable and constant earnings in support of annual

spending; and preserve and enhance the real (inflation-

adjusted) purchasing power of the Fund.

• Investment Objective: To attain a real total annualized

return of at least 5.5%1, net of investment expenses,

on average, over a five-to-seven-year period. Secondary

objectives are to (1) outperform the Fund’s long-term

investment policy benchmark; and (2) outperform the

median return of a pool of endowment funds with

broadly similar investment objectives and policies.

In order to provide the greatest likelihood of achieving these

objectives, a long-term investment policy was established.

The BGSF Fund was transitioned from a traditional stock/

bond asset allocation toward a diversified asset allocation that

is oriented around four key types of market exposure. These

strategies include capital appreciation, diversification, inflation

and deflation sensitive strategies.

Several philosophical tenets for constructing the BGSF

portfolio and adding value above the long-term investment

policy have been employed. The goal was to position the Fund

portfolio to provide a stream of relatively stable and constant

earnings in support of annual spending, and to preserve and

enhance the real (inflation-adjusted) purchasing power of the

portfolio.

Performance for year ending March 31, 2013

BGSF participated in the global market rally. For the

trailing one year ending March 31, 2013, BGSF returned

+7.4%. This is in-line with the Policy Benchmark return of

+7.4%. Quarterly performance is available online at www.

PresbyterianFoundation.org.

Looking forward, we have a high level of conviction in BGSF’s

long-term asset allocation and the portfolio’s underlying

investment managers. We continue to rigorously monitor the

portfolio and will make adjustments where necessary.

The performance data shown is past performance. Past

performance is no guarantee of future results. The investment

return and prinicpal value of an investment will fluctuate and

current market performance may be lower or higher than the

performance quoted.

1 The calculation of real total return includes all realized and unrealized capital changes plus all interest, rent, dividend, and other income earned by the portfolio, adjusted for inflation, during a year.

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new investment strategy: one year Later


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partnering to increase Funding for Your MissionAt the Presbyterian Foundation, stewardship, finance and

investment are our expertise. And our passions are the

same as yours – your church, your mission and the ministry

of Jesus Christ.

Through our Ministry Relations Program, the Foundation

partners with your congregation to raise the funds you

need for the mission Christ calls you to do. Your Ministry

Relations Officer can help access the strengths and

weaknesses of your congregation’s finances and develop

a personalized, strategic fundraising plan tailored to

your church. They will work together with you and your

congregation to develop gifts that support your ministry far

into the future.

Lisa LongoCentral Region866-710-5094lisa.longo@ presbyterian

foundation.org

Olanda CarrEast Region888-711-1318olanda.carr@ presbyterian

foundation.org

Eric ChavisNorthwest Region888-211-7030eric.chavis@ presbyterian

foundation.org

John TurnerSouthwest Region866-860-3383john.turner@ presbyterian

foundation.org

Robert HaySoutheast Region855-514-3152robert.hay@ presbyterian

foundation.org

stephen Keizer Mid America Region866-317-0751stephen.keizer@ presbyterian

foundation.org

Mary “Minner” serovyNortheast Region855-514-3077mary.serovy@ presbyterian

foundation.org

Ministry Relations Officers


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HealthEducation

Social Services& Senior Living

LeadershipDevelopment

Church Planting& Growth

Children, Youth& Young Adults

Global Mission Discipleship

$63,386,918Distributed to

Missions in 2012

Gifts entrusted to the Foundation to steward are distributed to local and global missions and ministries as directed by the donors. These gifts represent the foresight of generous Presbyterians today and from generations past.


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