Board Meeting Minutes: December 11, 2022

Location: Journey of Faith Church

Attendees: Jo Ella Coles, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Matt Hoostal, Melanie Odom-Groh, Anna Wysocki


Start time: 1:07pm

A Servant's Heart - Jo Ella Coles

  • In about 2018 the church started talking about creating a separate non-profit to house some of its work in the community, in part inspired by some church members participating in a social entrepreneurship program from the Disciples of Christ denomination.

  • Shortly thereafter, the church hired a homelessness ministry coordinator. This was first Grace, then she was later replaced by Rose. The A Servant's Heart (ASH) organization started working to help people beyond the daily crises handled by Rose and Peace House, but using Journey of Faith as its fiscal agent. A Servant's Heart was talking to other churches in the area and coordinating work and resources among the churches.

  • ASH is now working on applying for a new Human Services grant, a 5-year grant at up to $300,000 per year. Jo Ella would like to hire 3 "consultants" to gather information about the work being done in the county to support the unsheltered and housing-insecure, with the goal of using that information in the grant application, as well as generally gaining a better understanding of the needs of this community. Jo Ella asked for Journey of Faith to provide $3,500 from its Generations Fund to pay these consultants.

  • Adam Goforth raised the concern that the board had earmarked $12,000 of the $13,150 in the fund in July of 2022 for supporting the West Willow Farmer's market over the next 2 years, so the desired $3,500 might not be available. Jo Ella informed the board that the grant recently awarded to ASH from the Ann Arbor Community Foundation will be used to cover that farmer's market support, so Journey of Faith no longer needs to provide those funds. With that, the earmark is dissolved and the entire sum in the Generations Fund is available for other purposes.

  • Melanie made a motion for the board to approve $3,500 in funding to hire 3 people to do the research for A Servant's Heart. A verbal vote was taken and the board approved the motion unanimously.

  • ASH is in the process of negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with the New West Willow Neighborhood Association.

  • ASH is now incorporated as a non-profit in the State of Michigan. Their bylaws have been adopted by their board. They are still submitting the IRS paperwork to receive their federal tax-exempt status.

DEI

  • Jo Ella reminded the board that the church committed to doing DEI work this year as part of one of the grants awarded to the church, and Jo Ella needs to report back to the grantor with the work that has been done. She will send the grant rubric to the board and the board needs to tell her what to report back to the grantor.

2023 Budget

  • The church currently has $31,511 in its bank accounts, which is the most cash it has had on hand since last summer. This is due to 3 large donations received in recent weeks.

  • Matt handed out a paper copy of the spreadsheet that he had distributed to the board members electronically.

  • Adam reported that Journey of Faith was approved for the Microsoft Nonprofits Program, so church employees can install and use Microsoft Office free of charge. Timothy (the recently-hired office administrator) has had MS Office installed on his work computer through this program, with no cost to the church. Previously, the church was paying a yearly subscription fee for Microsoft 365 licenses, but those subscriptions were canceled by Alex before she left.

  • Matt presented a proposed 2023 budget and described how it was created.

    • Matt expects that the amount of both income and outlays related to A Servant's Heart work will decrease next year (since it has now been incorporated as a separate legal entity) and that expectation is included in the proposed budget. There was some discussion about the extent to which that will be true, since it will take some time for ASH to receive its federal tax-exempt status. It was unclear to the board when ASH funds will stop flowing through Journey of Faith's bank accounts. For the purposes of the budget, it doesn't really matter what the size of the ASH funds is, since the income will always be equal to the outlays, and none of the money will be available to the general church budget.

    • The previous financial reporting for 2022 the church received from Jitasa did not list the building loan payments as expenses. The 2023 budget now includes those payments.

    • The "fees and subscriptions" in the 2022 expenses were largely Stripe and PayPal fees charged for online donations. Those have been projected as continuing at a similar level in 2023.

    • The budget projects that the church will receive $40,000 in new grants for the Journey of Faith Homeless Ministries. Matt has identified 5 upcoming grants that could potentially be part of that funding.

    • The board intends to do a capital fundraising campaign next year, and also increase rental income, but neither of those things are included in the budget, since they are both uncertain. The idea of focusing the capital fundraising campaign on hiring a new administrator/manager/coordinator for the on-site homelessness program (in addition to continuing to employ Rose) was discussed, though no final decision was made.

    • Adam asked if the 2023 budget is binding in some way, or what its purpose is. The board discussed a few different goals:

      • communicating future plans with the rest of the church

      • giving other congregants a chance to push back on those plans

      • showing the rest of the congregation that the board has engaged with the finances of the church and made some financial decisions.

    • Melanie made a motion to present Matt's suggested budget to the congregation for a vote. The board approved the proposal unanimously with no opposition voiced.

    • The board discussed having a congregational meeting in January to have the congregation approve the 2023 budget, but no date was set.

Interim Pastor - Melanie

  • Melanie gave the board a proposed job description and compensation package for a part-time interim pastor, to be hired in 2023.

  • Adam raised the concern that the job description included the responsibility "Supervise staff: the building administrator and New Beginnings coordinator", and that this might take up too many hours for the role to be part time, based on what Alex said about the role at the last board meeting. He suggested striking that responsibility from the job description and the board supported that suggestion.

  • With the given $30,000 salary and housing proposal, Melanie estimates that the total cost of the part-time pastor would be about $37,000 per year.

  • Greg moved that the board approve the proposed job description and compensation details, with point #4 of the job description ("Supervise staff: the building administrator and New Beginnings coordinator") removed. The board unanimously approved the motion, with no opposition voiced.


Building and Operations - Greg

  • Greg handed out a paper copy of his written report.

  • The car camper and gathering space program has been shut down for now, due to difficulties enforcing the rules. Rose intends to cut her hours back to 2 days per week, which brings her hours in line with the original expectations of the church. The Soap & Suds program is currently only available by appointment. One of the car campers, James, is being allowed to stay in the parking lot, due to his cancer. Gordie would like to stay as well, but has not received approval to do so. Greg will talk to him and figure out his situation.

  • Melanie raised a heating issue in the church building that Michael has mentioned. Greg will reach out to Michael and figure out what needs to be done.

Debrief and Closing - Melanie

End time: 4:03pm