Advisory Services for Small Religious Institutions
Our Expertise Can Help You Achieve Your Financial Goals
Small religious institutions -- churches, schools, service organizations -- play an important and unique role in our society. They strive to do much good with limited resources and must use their resources very carefully.
A common attribute of these institutions is the absence of in-house expertise in the areas of business and finance. Leadership typically has a passion and expertise commensurate with the mission of the organization, not financial matters. Financial staff is usually “thin” and called upon to accomplish many tasks with only limited experience and expertise in some of them. Volunteer boards and committees can be of some help, but it is unreasonable to expect too much from volunteers. Because boards and committees comprised of volunteers often have term limits, achieving continuity of expert advice is a challenge.
Alvin Clay and his associates have decades of experience serving these institutions in many and varied capacities. Our service model for providing financial direction for churches, schools and service organizations is very similar to how we work with individuals and families. Key steps include:
- Interviewing leadership and staff to fully understand the history and mission of the institution.
- Identifying specific goals.
- Identifying sources of income and expense.
- Preparing a long-term forecast of cash inflows and outflows.
- Identifying funding gaps and assisting in the modification of goals or plans for fundraising.
- Analyzing existing investment portfolio.
- Assessing the organization's tolerance for risk.
- Making and implementing investment policy recommendations.[1]
- Monitoring ongoing financial activities and offering advice as needed.
Our services can help your organization meet its specific financial goals.
[1] For those institutions that wish to follow the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines, we have specific solutions to accomplish this task.