Potential Venture Projects Approved
Episcopal News Service. February 22, 1979 [79043]
Greenwich, Conn. -- As the Mission Opportunities Committee of the Episcopal Church's Venture in Mission draws near the end of its work, the Executive Council approved a number of additional projects for funding consideration. Council, at its February meeting here, also accepted a report from the Venture leadership that referred back a number of other potential projects.
The Rev. Canon W. Ebert Hobbs, a Council member from Ohio and chairman of the Venture Mission Opportunities Committee who made the report to Council, submitted the recommendations to Council as part of an overall report on the churchwide renewal/capital funds effort.
Hobbs told the Council that a paper was being prepared for the April 19-21 Council meeting that would lay out in detail the process of setting priorities and allocating the funds from Venture and assured the members that: "it is the intention of the Cabinet to include in that document our best learnings about careful management of Venture funds."
The Rt. Rev. Milton L. Wood, administrative executive at the Episcopal Church Center, told the Council that the process would include examination of funds a proposed project has received and careful evaluation of the potential effect of available Venture money.
The Council's treasurer, Matthew Costigan, suggested that the document also include instructions for establishing reversionary procedures for endowed projects which may be dissolved in the future. Such a clause would mean that the endowment would revert to the Council's use.
Hobbs also reminded Council members that the 25-minute color film "Venture" was available and the order forms had been sent to each diocese. One free copy will be set aside for each diocese.
Hobbs then asked for, and received, Council's approval of the Cabinet's recommendations on the nearly 50 projects that had been in hand at the cutoff date of last Dec. 14. About a dozen are to be included in the Mission Opportunities list.
The Mission Opportunities as approved by Council a year ago included $7,000,000 designated as a "Contingency Fund for Unexpected Mission Opportunities." The December, 1978 meeting of Council resolved that the Venture in Mission Cabinet process all the proposals on hand by Dec. 14, and that $4,000,000 of this Contingency Fund be made available for those proposals, while $3,000,000 remain as part of the "Case" for future opportunities in mission.
The recommendations are generally for projects and programs to be charged against that $4,000,000. These recommendations would allocate $2,405,639, which along with the $111,795 approved by Council in September, 1978 for the Shelter for Abused Women project, brings the total against this $4,000,000 to $2,517,434. The balance of $1,482,566, will probably be added to the $3,000,000 held in reserve for a total of $4,482,566 for future unexpected opportunities in mission.
Those projects that were approved include a variety of worldwide Anglican Communion partnership projects, capital support for a proposed new Anglican province in the Andes region of South America, endowment for the Episcopal Colleges, a native American legal assistance program and an evangelism training project, as well as support for an ecumenical center at the United Nations and for the Christian Organization Research and Advisory Trust of Africa.