Giving & stewardship
Gifts that outlast us
An endowment is never spent. It is invested, and what it earns pays for ministry here every year — this year, and in fifty years.
Founder’s Hall carries the names of people who gave, and it still holds classes every week of the year. That is the whole idea: one gift, made once, that the church is still using long after.
The endowments are permanent funds, given by members and held apart from the annual operating and building budgets. The principal is preserved and invested for long-term growth with the Florida United Methodist Foundation. Only the earnings are spent, and they pay for ministry and projects the yearly budget could not reach.
An endowment committee, elected by Charge Conference, decides how those earnings are used and answers to the congregation for it.
Where it goes
Nine funds
A gift can go wherever the need is greatest, or to the one thing you care most about. You choose.
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General
Whatever the church needs that no other fund covers. The most useful gift, and the one the committee can move fastest.
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Capital Expenditures
Land, buildings, equipment, software — the things that last decades and never fit in one year’s budget.
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Education
Classes for every age, training for clergy and staff, and scholarships for St. Lukers.
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Arts
Music, visual art and written composition at St. Luke’s.
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Congregational Care
Support groups, disaster relief, help finding work, and a hand for households in hardship.
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Missions Capital
Capital projects for the mission partners St. Luke’s works alongside. Established in 2008.
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Community Counseling Center
Widens the mental-health care the Center can offer, and pays for scholarships so cost is not the reason somebody goes without.
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McKeefery Seminary Scholarship
Supports Florida Conference seminarians on their way to ordination.
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Sanctuary Choir & Orchestra
Keeps the choral and orchestral ministry going for the next generation of singers and players.
Ways to give
More than a check
Endowment gifts are made in all of these ways. Several cost you nothing today and some carry an immediate tax benefit — your advisor will know which apply to you.
- Cash or check
- A bequest in your will, fixed or a percentage
- Stocks and bonds
- An IRA or retirement-plan designation
- A payable-on-death account
- Life insurance, in whole or in part
- A gift annuity or life-income contract
- A trust
- Real estate
- Personal property
- A memorial or tribute gift
- Any living gift, for the tax benefit this year
Giving today
Online. Choose Endowment Fund. To send it to one of the nine, name the fund in the “leave a note” box.
In person. Use an offering envelope and write the fund on it, or put it in the memo line of your check. The Building C lockbox works too.
If you already have
Have you named St. Luke’s in your estate?
Tell us. We would like to make sure your intent is honored, and to thank you while you are here to hear it. Your gift stays confidential, and anonymous if that is what you would prefer.
Last year
What the endowments did
The committee publishes what each fund earned and where it went.
Questions?
Scooter can walk you through it
Planned giving has more moving parts than a Sunday offering, and nobody expects you to work it out alone. Scooter will talk it through with you and your advisor. Reach him on 407-876-4991 x223.
Scooter Leonard Executive Director of Administration