Financial Advisory Board Process
for Deploying Faith Promise Donations
The Financial Advisory Board (“FAB”) is responsible for reviewing applications from mission organizations and partners and recommending the disbursement of Faith Promise funds to those organizations and partners who submit an application that is approved by the board. All of the recommendations from FAB then go to Vestry for final review and approval. There are two application cycles throughout the year as follows:
| Application Cycle | Cycle 1 Target Date | Cycle 2 Target Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application Deadline | April 30 | October 31 | |
| Preliminary Review by Captains | May 31 | November 30 | |
| Initial Review by FAB | June 30 | December 31 | |
| Final Review and Decision | July 31 | January 31 | |
The Financial Advisory Board has developed funding guidelines that provide guidance and criteria for evaluating the applications. In general, we are seeking applications from mission partners who are connected (or in the process of connecting) to the congregation, staff, and mission values of St. Michaels Church. The board is currently in the process of revising these guidelines and we intend to post the final revision, once approved by Vestry, on the church website. The guidelines provide some general criteria for funding applications, such as:
- Applications must demonstrate a direct and measurable goal of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
- Funding requests must not include the administrative overhead of a mission organization (e.g., paying office expenses, utilities, etc.).
- Funding requests may include construction costs of a building that serves as a mission center for an important project that the church already supports, but these requests are approved more on an exception basis than as a general rule.
- Funding requests should focus either on direct evangelical gospel-spreading projects, or projects that demonstrate or show the love of Jesus Christ to His people through the meeting of felt needs of a population (as long as these projects have an evangelical foundation and objective).
In 2015 the FAB was expanded to include the captains of our three mission regions: Holy City, Hurting Coast, and Hungering World. This was a strategic and important decision to include these captains in the full vetting and decision-making process. These applications often come from mission partners that our Captains work diligently to support, guide, and assist through the application process.