Serving With A Great Board

By: Richard Carnes

As CEO of the Kentucky Baptist Foundation (KBF) I am honored and blessed to be supported and guided by an excellent board of directors. The sixteen men and women who serve as directors of the KBF are elected by the Kentucky Baptist Convention messengers during the KBC’s annual meeting. All of these individuals are active members in their local Kentucky Baptist church and they each bring unique professional experiences to the financial stewardship ministry of the KBF.

A nonprofit board member plays a vital role in the ongoing success of an organization’s ministry. While each organization has unique characteristics, nonprofit boards usually have decision-making responsibility on strategy, direction, policy and governance. A board’s scope of responsibility normally includes:

· Defining the organization’s mission and goals, and making decisions on strategy.

· Monitoring organizational performance to confirm the organization is being managed capably and there is accountability for the organization’s operations and results.

· Providing effective stewardship of the organization’s resources.

· Overseeing the stability of the organization in critical areas, including financial statement integrity and internal risk systems and controls.

· Recruiting, selecting, supporting and assessing the organization’s chief executive.

· Evaluating and strengthening the board’s effectiveness.

· Enhancing the organization’s public image and generating support for its activities.

Directors of a nonprofit organization such as the KBF have fiduciary duties and thus have the responsibility to protect and preserve the organization’s resources for the ministry and charitable purposes for which the organization was established. This means that the directors accept a stewardship role over the KBF’s assets to confirm that resources are utilized in a reasonable and appropriate way. As persons of trust, board members have the authority and obligation to act prudently, honestly and in good faith on behalf of their nonprofit entity.

Kentucky Baptists can be assured that the KBF’s board of directors and staff work diligently to fulfill its stewardship duty in all facets of its work. The Kentucky Baptist Foundation is honored to work with Kentucky Baptist families that are seeking how best to organize their estate planning goals to achieve their personal and charitable objectives in support of their church and other Baptist causes. To learn more, you may contact the Foundation’s trust counsel, Laurie Valentine, or me at our toll-free number (866) 489-3533.

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.

Our Time Has Arrived!

By: Barry G. Allen- President & CEO

The Kentucky Baptist Foundation was formally conceived by a motion from the floor of the 1943 annual meeting of the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky, now the Kentucky Baptist Convention, meeting in Bowling Green. It was created in 1944 when the GABK approved its charter. It was incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky on March 8, 1945, almost seventy years ago. The first meeting of its board of directors was held June 19, 1945. Dr. J. W. Black, the General Secretary of the GABK, convened the meeting and agreed to serve as the Secretary-Treasurer of the KBF until other staff arrangements could be made. The late A. M. Vollmer was elected the first full-time executive leader of the KBF effective July 1, 1946. Previously he had served as the superintendent of the Louisville Orphan’s Home. Dr. Vollmer retired August 31, 1964. In his final report to the KBF board of directors, Dr. Vollmer said, “the Foundation has been in the past and will continue to be in the future my first love among all of our Kentucky Baptist projects. This is true because it lives to strengthen all the rest.”

No one has said it any better than Dr. Vollmer. Today, the KBF still exists not for itself but for the rest of our larger and extended Kentucky Baptist family of churches, associations, educational institutions, children’s homes, hospitals, camps and conference centers, mission boards and missions support organizations.

Although the KBF has been serving Kentucky Baptists for almost seventy years, its time has just arrived! Given the significant challenges of financing in the future the missions and ministries of every component of our Kentucky Baptist family, and given the demographic, economic, social, cultural, technological and denominational trends, and their collective impact on charitable giving, the role of the KBF in the future of Kentucky Baptist life will be ever more critical.

Please give Laurie Valentine and me the privilege of facilitating your desire to make a lasting difference in the world for the cause of Christ through your estate plan.

For more information, please call us at (502) 489-3533 or toll free in KY at 1(866) 489-3533.

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.

Your Own Foundation

By: Barry G. Allen- President & CEO

The Kentucky Baptist Foundation was established in 1945 and exists today for you and your church.

It exists for you as an individual or family so you do not have to incur the initial and on-going administrative costs and responsibilities inherent in having your own private family foundation. As a result you and your family, now and into the future, regardless of your level of wealth, can accomplish your philanthropic goals through an arrangement with the Kentucky Baptist Foundation.

In addition to avoiding the administrative costs and responsibilities of a family foundation, there are three other benefits of an arrangement with the KBF. First, there is a privacy benefit. A private family foundation must file detailed and public tax returns on grants, investment fees, trustees’ names and staff salaries. Through an arrangement with the KBF the names of donors can be kept confidential and distributions can be made anonymously. Second, a private family foundation must distribute 5% of its net assets annually; through an arrangement with the KBF there is no annual distribution requirement. Third, there is a tax advantage. The tax deduction limit for gifts of cash to a family foundation is 30% of one’s adjusted gross income; it’s 50% through an arrangement with the KBF. The deduction limit for gifts of securities or real property to a family foundation is 20% of one’s adjusted gross income; its 30% through an arrangement with the KBF.

The KBF also exists for your church for the same reasons in terms of not having to incur the initial and on-going administrative costs and responsibilities associated with having its own church foundation. In addition, through an arrangement with the KBF your church can facilitate the estate stewardship interests of its members in sustaining and enhancing the financial future ministry of the church and other charitable causes near and dear to the members’ hearts.

Call us toll free for information about how the KBF can become your foundation and your church’s foundation for charitable giving.

For more information, please call us at (502) 489-3533 or toll free in KY at 1-(866) 489-3533

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.