Financial Updates

March 31, 2023 Financial Update​

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We thank God for the great generosity of Creeksiders and how that has been central to our shared mission together! We wanted to provide this critical update to you as we find ourselves at the halfway point of our fiscal year.

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We are in the second year of a three-year plan that allowed us to hire Tim as our associate pastor.  That plan called for us to absorb deficits totaling $91,000 over three years as we grew our giving through increased sacrificial generosity. Eventually, our plan called for us to achieve a balanced budget in Year 4. [See Chart A. Original Three-Year Budget Plan for a visual representation of the three-year budget.]

 

The first year of that plan we forecast 14% in additional giving. We exceeded that mark last fiscal year with 20% in additional giving, up $68,475 from the previous year!  Those results gave us the confidence to budget 14% growth in giving this fiscal year, up another $58,447.

 

Yet even with an amazing $100,000 in giving this past December, our overall giving has shown no growth over the first six months of the fiscal year.  We suspect this is due mainly to uncertain economic times.  Nevertheless, we have the challenge of now dealing with our budgeted $34,840 deficit and the $58,447 shortfall in giving.  We’ve underspent by $17,888 in the first half of the year, which is a good start in reducing our shortfall, but we’re still left with a Net Ordinary Loss of about $78,000, as it stands right now.  [See Chart B. FY’2022-23 Plan vs. Projected Actuals (6 month checkpoint) for a visual representation of our situation.]  [See Chart C. FY’2022-23 Projected Actuals after First Six Months for just the numbers, thank you.]

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The good news is that projections for this fiscal year through February, show giving almost exactly the same as last year: $408,180 vs $408,475. Our giving is sustained from last year, not down. So now our challenge is the balancing act of trusting God to provide increased funds while also while also significantly cutting back on budgeted expenses.

 

To that end, our current action plan is three-fold:

1. ASK: We are asking congregational members to continue to give what you committed to give this year (or perhaps to start giving regularly)…as well as to prayerfully consider if that generosity can increase this spring.

2. CUT: We are now actively looking at ways to reduce expenses for both the rest of this fiscal year 2022-23, and for the full next fiscal year 2023-24. 

3. EARN: We’re looking at a variety of ways for earning non-giving income (particularly through the use of our building) that will supplement our giving and eventually help us to balance the budget.

 

We’ll have more details over the next three months, culminating with presentation of the proposed FY’2023-24 Budget in June at our Annual Meeting on June 4.

 

If you have any questions, please contact Stew Konzen at stewk777@gmail.com.