Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Educate and Encourage

By:Richard Carnes

The Kentucky Baptist Foundation (KBF) helps educate a church’s staff and lay leadership on effective ways to implement intentional legacy planning programs for church members. It is imperative that churches educate and encourage their members to see their financial stewardship more broadly than just the donation they place into the offering plate. This stewardship training extends to planning the utilization of all the financial resources entrusted to church members for the benefit of their family, their church, and Kingdom causes.

Church leaders can make great strides in impacting the financial well-being of church member’s families and the well-being of the church’s ministries by scheduling teaching opportunities for their church members on how to become “Kingdom-minded” stewards. The great news for church leaders is they are not alone in providing this type of Christian estate stewardship training for their members. The KBF helps facilitate this training of church members to become more “Kingdom-minded” by conducting educational seminars on financial and estate planning topics at your church. This educational resource is provided by the KBF at no cost to Kentucky Baptist churches.

Some examples of frequently requested seminars are:

Estate Planning Mistakes and Solutions- Discover what the ten biggest estate planning mistakes are and how to avoid them to assure you manage your finances wisely.

Who Will Be In Charge If …? – Explores incapacity planning tools – powers of attorney, health care advanced directives, Living Trusts and what happens if no prior planning has been done.

Ways To Make Gifts To Your Church– Estate stewardship giving ideas to encourage church members to take stewardship to a deeper level – what to give, how to give, and why we as Christians should give.

As your church begins to plan its Fall series of education and training for Wednesday evenings, Sunday evenings or the Sunday morning Sunday School hour, please consider inviting KBF staff to conduct a seminar session at your church. To learn more, please contact the KBF’s trust counsel, Austin Wilkerson, or me at our toll-free number (866) 489-3533 for the KBF’s full list of legacy planning seminar topics and to schedule a seminar date.

Richard Carnes is president of the Kentucky Baptist Foundation, PO Box 436389, Louisville, KY 40253; toll-free (866) 489-3533; KYBaptistFoundation.org.

The information in this article is provided as general information and is not intended as legal or tax advice. For advice and assistance in specific cases, you should seek the advice of an attorney or other professional adviser.




Wednesday, August 1, 2018

KBF 2nd Quarter 2018 Performance Update

KBF – 2nd Quarter Performance Update – The Equity Fund had a positive 3.0% return vs. the equity blended benchmark’s return of positive 2.6% for the 2nd Quarter 2018. The trailing 12 months’ return of the Equity Fund was a positive 14.2% vs. the equity blended benchmark’s return of positive 12.3%.

The Fixed Income Fund declined -0.6% for the 2nd Quarter 2018 vs. the Fixed Income benchmark’s decline of -0.1% for the same period. The trailing 12 months’ return for the Fixed Fund was a positive 0.1% vs. the Fixed Income benchmark’s return of 0.0%.

Accounts with a 50/50 allocation between the Equity Fund and Fixed Income Fund had the following returns: 7.2% for the trailing 12 months; and annualized returns as follows: 5.4% the past 3 years; 6.3% the past 5 years; and 5.2% the past 10 years.

Accounts with a 60/40 allocation between the Equity Fund and Fixed Income Fund had the following returns: 8.6% for the trailing 12 months; and the annualized returns as follows: 6.3% the past 3 years; 7.2% the past 5 years; and 5.5% the past 10 years.

Discover how your church or faith-based not-for-profit organization can invest endowment and similar funds through the Kentucky Baptist Foundation by calling Richard Carnes.