Greetings and Happy New Year to all FCCW members and friends from your finance team. There are a number of items that may be of interest to you as we enter the new year.
First, as you may recall, we made a successful application earlier this year to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), resulting in a forgivable loan of $93,802 to our church from the Small Business Administration (SBA). Having used the funds to maintain our full staffing throughout the course of the year, our recent application for loan forgiveness was approved by the SBA. These funds have provided tremendous financial flexibility as we navigate the uncertain financial tides of both 2020 and 2021.
If you were tuned into Zoom worship this past Sunday, you heard Pastor Will talk about our hope for welcoming Epiphany by lighting our newly renovated steeple. Work is underway to install the lights for both the steeple-mounted and ground-based lighting arrays. In preparation for approaching the congregation to support the new steeple lighting system with a targeted donation campaign, we reached out to a number of faithful FCCW supporters to “kick start” the campaign and were overwhelmed by a response which more than met the entire goal of $50,000. So the steeple lights are paid for! A huge thank you to those generous donors.
More good news! We have exceeded our 2021 pledge campaign target of $615,000 with a total at the end of the year (12/31) of $619,191. For those who have not yet pledged but would like to do so, it’s not too late! We routinely go into January (and often February) receiving late-breaking pledges.
Speaking of pledges, if you suddenly realize that you have not fulfilled your 2020 pledge, but intend to do so, you still can. Any donations against 2020 pledges which are postmarked or received electronically in 2021 are credited toward the 2021 budget as “Back Pledges” and will be credited to the donor(s) as 2021 charitable contributions to the church.
Finally, the proposed 2021 budget is nearing completion and will be presented to the congregation for questions and discussion in late January or early February, followed a week later by a formal vote to adopt the budget. Stay tuned.
On behalf of the Financial Resources and Treasurer’s teams, I want to once again express my deep gratitude for your continued support of our church’s programs and ministries. This has been a challenging, but also a remarkable, year and I look forward with great optimism to 2021.
Bruce Lauterwasser, Treasurer