brown on green, A Regular column about finances

100 Issues, $100 Million

ONE Magazine and Free Will Baptist Foundation have been good for each other. You might say the first grant was issued to the magazine in early 2005, when the Foundation gave the magazine $20,000 as “seed money” to get started and purchase new equipment.

If you consider this a grant, it has paid enormous dividends back to the Foundation over the last 16 years. When ONE Magazine was conceived, it proved a huge win for the Foundation because, unlike the other national ministries, the Foundation did not have its own publication. It did not even have a mailing list to use for promoting the work.

When Contact magazine was published, every department was granted a page in each issue. Since the Foundation was then supported by the Board of Retirement, the two ministries split the pages, and each had six pages per year. Today, the Foundation has at least four pages in every issue of ONE. Though the magazine is bimonthly rather than a monthly publication, the Foundation still receives at least 24 pages a year.

When the first issue of ONE Magazine was published in April-May 2005, the Foundation was not an independent department with its own board. The Board of Retirement board, along with the national directors, served as the Foundation board. In July 2005, that changed when the first independently elected board was affirmed by delegates to the National Convention and added to the national directors, who also continue to serve on the board.

The total assets of the Foundation in April 2005 hovered around $30 million. Today, those funds have tripled to over $100 million. Endowment Funds were at $5.7 million, and today they, too, have almost tripled to $15 million. The denomination had no estate planning program or grant program. Today, we have both, with future gifts to Free Will Baptist ministries from the estate plan totaling in the $30 million range. Since 2016, $2.6 million has been issued to ministries through the grant program, with more to come (from both programs).

ONE Magazine gave the Foundation a platform to advertise our programs and educate the denomination about the importance of providing for the denomination’s future. Free Will Baptists responded, and we have enjoyed phenomenal growth.

It’s clear the Foundation’s success is covered with many “fingerprints,” from employees to individual supporters and ministries. ONE Magazine is such a ministry. The Foundation has been good to ONE, but ONE also has been very good to the Foundation.

Thank you, ONE Magazine!

About the Columnist: David Brown, CPA, is director of Free Will Baptist Foundation. To learn more about the grants program, visit www.fwbgifts.org.