Giving & stewardship
Gifts that outlast us
An endowment is never spent. It is invested, and what it earns pays for ministry here every year — this year, and in fifty years.
Fellowship Hall was built by people who gave, and it still hosts dinner every Wednesday of the year. That is the whole idea: one gift, made once, that the church is still using long after.
The endowments are permanent funds, given by members and held apart from the annual operating and building budgets. The principal is preserved and invested for long-term growth with a regional church foundation. Only the earnings are spent, and they pay for ministry and projects the yearly budget could not reach.
An endowment committee, elected by the congregation, decides how those earnings are used and answers to the congregation for it.
Where it goes
Six funds
A gift can go wherever the need is greatest, or to the one thing you care most about. You choose.
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General
Whatever the church needs that no other fund covers. The most useful gift, and the one the committee can move fastest.
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Buildings and Grounds
Roofs, organs, accessible doors and the prayer garden: the things that last decades and never fit in one year’s budget.
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Education
Classes for every age, training for staff and volunteers, and camp scholarships for kids and youth.
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Music and Arts
Choirs, instruments and concerts that are free to the whole town.
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Care
Support groups, emergency help with rent and utilities, and a hand for households in hardship.
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Missions
The pantry, the summer house build and the partners we serve with beyond Alder Bay.
Ways to give
More than a check
Endowment gifts are made in all of these ways. Several cost you nothing today and some carry an immediate tax benefit — your advisor will know which apply to you.
- Cash or check
- A bequest in your will, fixed or a percentage
- Stocks and bonds
- An IRA or retirement-plan designation
- A payable-on-death account
- Life insurance, in whole or in part
- A gift annuity or life-income contract
- A trust
- Real estate
- Personal property
- A memorial or tribute gift
- Any living gift, for the tax benefit this year
Giving today
Online. Choose Endowment Fund. To send it to one of the six, name the fund in the “leave a note” box.
In person. Use an offering envelope and write the fund on it, or put it in the memo line of your check. The church office lockbox works too.
If you already have
Have you named Hearthstone in your estate?
Tell us. We would like to make sure your intent is honored, and to thank you while you are here to hear it. Your gift stays confidential, and anonymous if that is what you would prefer.
Last year
What the endowments did
Each spring the endowment committee reports to the congregation on what every fund earned and where it went. Ask the church office for a copy.
Questions?
Felix can walk you through it
Planned giving has more moving parts than a Sunday offering, and nobody expects you to work it out alone. Felix will talk it through with you and your advisor. Call (555) 014-2200.
Felix Amundsen Director of Operations