• Financial Resource Counseling and Gift Planning
• Stewardship Services of the Church of the Brethren General Board
• "Helping you invest the gifts of God in continuing the work of Jesus." ~Ken Neher

What do we do?

The Funding staff of the General Board is dedicated to two primary goals:

• To serve Christ and the church by assisting members, friends, and congregations of the Church of the Brethren in becoming better stewards of all they possess, especially their accumulated assets.
• To give counsel and assistance to persons in the area of wills and estate planning and to help individuals and congregations relate their financial and gift planning to the work of the Church of the Brethren General Board.

Funding staff persons are trained professionals and experienced listeners, willing and able to make objective suggestions and recommendations. We count it as our privilege to work with the charitably minded members of the Church of the Brethren. All discussions and activities are kept confidential.

To contact us simply write, call, or e-mail General Board Funding, 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, Illinois 60120, 1-800-323-8039, funding_gb@brethren.org

Estate Planning
Financial Resource Counselors are trained to listen to your needs and wants and then offer suggestions and guidance in estate planning. Discussions may include family needs, retirement, estate and inheritance taxes, trusts, insurance, property ownership and charitable giving. In assisting with estate planning, we help formulate objectives, clarify priorities, manage assets and plan for the orderly allocation of accumulated possessions at death.

Gift Plans
The staff has experience with a variety of gift plans, each offering unique advantages to the individual who is planning charitable giving as part of his or her estate plan or simply has charitable intent. Through training and practice, the staff has acquired the technical know-how required for dealing with gift plans and has the resources easily accessible to help to carry them through. Gifts of cash, stocks, or property given by direct gift, will, life insurance, annuity, or trust agreement are carefully handled by the General Board staff and our trustee, Brethren Foundation, Inc.

Encouraging Wills
To die without a will or with a will that is improperly written is a tragedy that happens all too often. Having an up-to-date will insures that possessions go to the persons or causes according to the donor's wishes rather than where state law dictates. Our staff has information which can assist persons in creating a will and wisely planning the allocation of assets. While an attorney is required to draft a will, our counselors can furnish objective ideas and suggestions so that the person creating a will can be properly prepared to visit the attorney.

A Bequest
The most common form of planned gift is the bequest. The proper wording for including the ministries of the General Board in a will is:

"I give, devise, and bequeath to the Church of the Brethren General Board, its successors or assigns, a corporation of the State of Illinois, with its principle office in Elgin, Kane County, Illinois, _______% of my estate (or residue, or a particular property) for its general purposes."

A will can also name one or all of the six General Board Endowments as recipient of bequest funds. These funds are then invested and the interest income is used to help "continue the work of Jesus" through the General Board in perpetuity.

A Lifetime Income
A Financial Resource Counselor can recommend the most appropriate gift plan to provide income for a lifetime. A variety of charitable annuity and trust agreements are available that can first provide income to a donor, family member, or other designee for a lifetime or designated time period and eventually provide income to the Church and other charitable causes according to the donor's wishes. Even a revocable charitable trust may be called for in some cases to provide additional flexibility for the donor. An additional benefit of many of these agreements is avoidance or lessening of some court and tax complications.

Tax Benefits
As Christian stewards, most donors want to plan their giving to get the maximum benefit from available financial resources. While not motivated to give primarily because of tax benefits, gifts to continue the work of Jesus may result in sizeable estate tax or income tax savings. These benefits will be considered and reported to each donor in our planning and implementation processes.

Creative and Exciting
Many donors are surprised at how much good they can accomplish with what they have been blessed. Stocks that have been held for several years are often now worth more than one might imagine. Giving them away before sale can often save substantial capital gains taxes. A paid up life insurance policy can even be given away, or the purchasing of a policy naming the General Board as owner and beneficiary can multiply by many times the dollar value of a giving opportunity.

Socially Responsible Investing
The investment policies of the Church of the Brethren General Board are in accord with Biblical principles and the decisions of Annual Conference and represent a careful application of socially responsible investing. Direction is given to our investment managers to invest in companies which provide services that benefit society and avoid firms which receive major revenues from tobacco, liquor, gambling, or military contracts.

Professional and Accountable
The General Board takes its accountability to donors very seriously. Our staff in concert with Brethren Foundation, Inc. provides a variety of professional services such as periodic financial reports, regular payments on life income plans, computations for charitable gift income tax deductions, and personal consultations. We are in frequent contact with other professional advisors for legal and financial counsel and often help donors locate trusted professionals in their local areas.

About The Staff
Planned giving has been an important part of the stewardship program of the Church of the Brethren for over 50 years. Persons like Spencer Minnich, Harl Russell, Stewart Kauffman, Don Stern, Dale Minnich and Jim Replogle have been quietly working through the years with individual donors helping them to understand the joys and the complexities of planned giving. The present Funding staff is happy to carry out this long tradition of assisting Brethren in supporting the mission and diverse worldwide ministries of the Church of the Brethren General Board. Today, planned giving arrangements and direct gifts represent a substantial and growing portion of the annual income of the General Board and its ministries thanks to the generosity of many generations of Brethren stewards.