LOUISVILLE – Presbyterian Women has voted to incorporate as a separate non-profit corporation, which would have a “covenant relationship” with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) but would be a separate organization with control over its own finances and affairs.

            Voting delegates approved the measure with relatively little dissent, by a show of hands, during the business meeting July 12 at the 2009 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women.

            “It is important that we establish Presbyterian Women as a clear and separate organization with separate accounting processes,” said Catrelia Steele Hunter, moderator of Presbyterian Women. The organization nationally has discussed incorporation for at least a decade and studied it formally since 2007, she said. The study committee also has looked at the models used in other denominations, finding that Lutheran Women and Methodist Women, for example, already are separately incorporated.

            One woman asked what impact the change might have on undesignated giving that Presbyterian Women provides for mission work to the PC(USA). “Will we still be able to say we give this as undesignated money, or will we say `We want to keep our fingers on this as tight as we can?’” she asked.

            Hunter responded that Presbyterian Women intends to continue giving undesignated funding to the denomination’s mission work “at the highest possible levels.”

            In an interview, Hunter said of the change: “It will not affect what Presbyterian Women gives to the mission of the church.  Our goal is to increase mission giving,” in part by putting an emphasis on funds development. Currently, undesignated giving from Presbyterian Women to the PC(USA) is about $1 million a year; another $1.8 million goes to mission projects, with money raised in part through the annual Birthday Offering and Thank Offering, she said.

            Presbyterian Women also pays the salaries and other costs for its national staff members, although Presbyterian Women purchases human relations services for those workers through the General Assembly Mission Council.

            A report from the organization’s Churchwide Coordinating Team states, “incorporation gives Presbyterian Women the flexibility to operate as a business. In order to ensure good stewardship of PW (Presbyterian Women) funds in the current economic environment, it is important that PW establish clear and separate accounting practices.”

Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council, said in an interview that she doesn’t see the incorporation resulting in much change in how Presbyterian Women and the PC(USA) relate to one another. “I’m comfortable with it, and their stated intention is that there continue to be a close programmatic relationship,” Valentine said. Presbyterian Women considered the issue carefully, and “our folks were involved in helping them think through it.”

            According to Susan Jackson-Dowd, communications coordinator for Presbyterian Women, the biggest changes incorporation will bring are that Presbyterian Women will have control of its own bank accounts and accounting systems. And Presbyterian Women would be allowed to receive stocks or buy property without approval from the General Assembly Mission Council.

            During the business meeting, some delegates asked about the impact incorporation might have on Presbyterian Women groups in presbyteries or congregations. For example, if a local Presbyterian Women group is accustomed to using its congregation’s nonprofit tax identification number, can that continue – or will it have to start using the number assigned to the national Presbyterian Women nonprofit corporation? Will local or presbytery groups have to incorporate as nonprofit entities themselves?

            Ruth Madrigal, a lawyer from Washington D.C. assisting with the incorporation process, said the action taken in this meeting was “a first step in establishing Presbyterian Women as its own separate organization.” Decisions are still forthcoming, she said, about how that will roll down the presbytery and local level – there are a number of options.

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