At the June 30 close of the EPC’s fiscal year, Per Member Asking (PMA) contributions to the EPC totaled $2,402,378. The amount is $348,166 (16.9 percent) more than the PMA support projection to fund the EPC’s Collaborative Ministries, Connectional Support, and Custodial Operations.

Fiscal year 2021 (FY21) PMA support was $12,507 more than the $2,389,871 contributed over the same period in FY20. The EPC’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. In addition, June PMA support of $213,296 brought the 12-month rolling average for monthly PMA contributions to $201,198. The rolling average is 0.4 percent above the 12-month rolling average as of June 2020.

“God is so good,” said Stated Clerk Dean Weaver. “We ended the fiscal year in a strong financial position, which can only be attributed to His faithfulness to our churches. I am grateful that our leaders understand the value in contributing to the global movement of Evangelical Presbyterian churches that is the EPC. I want to especially recognize the five churches with the highest PMA contributions last year: Hope Church (Memphis, Tenn.); Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis; Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville (Tenn.); Lake Forest Church (Huntersville, N.C.); and Colonial Presbyterian Church in Kansas City.”

Of the $2,402,378 received, $480,548 (20 percent) was contributed to EPC World Outreach.

In addition to PMA contributions, the Office of the General Assembly received $5,579,940 in designated gifts in FY21. This total was $226,233 (4 percent) less than the $5,806,173 in designated gifts received in FY20. Designated gifts include support for World Outreach global workers and projects, and contributions to EPC Special Projects such as Emergency Relief, church planting and revitalization initiatives, and the EPC’s holiday offerings.

Of the total, $5,426,889 was designated for World Outreach workers and projects, and $153,051 was designated for EPC projects. These amounts only reflect gifts received and distributed by the Office of the General Assembly, and do not reflect donations given directly to WO global workers or other projects.

As noted in previous monthly reports, the decline in the total from FY20 is largely attributed to an anonymous $250,000 gift for church planting in December 2019 and more than $375,000 donated to the Emergency Relief Fund in 2019-2020 in response to Hurricane Dorian and the spring 2020 tornado outbreak.

“If we don’t consider any donations to church planting or emergency relief, giving to our global workers and designated funds is up more than $400,000 over last (fiscal) year,” Weaver said. “More than $360,000 of that was to support our World Outreach global workers. Who would have imagined when we closed the books on 2020 a year ago in the midst of the pandemic shutdown that a year later we would report this level of giving? God is so good!”