Church treasurer charged with stealing more than $70,000 from her church

Honestly asking Pastors

Does your church have in place?

• True separation of the receipts function (say a church financial secretary) and disbursement functions (church treasurer)
  
• An annual budget
  
• Monthly financial statements:
  • Income and expense statement
    
  • Budget vs expenses statement
    
  • Balance sheet
    
  
  
• Regular (say quarterly) financial meetings where the membership is provided financial statements (mentioned above) and an opportunity to ask questions about the same
  
• Double signing required for checks (unless an online bill pay service is used)
  
• Annual independent audit of the financial statements
  

How about these:

• Offsite backup of financial files (disasters happen!)
  
• Privacy of giving records (or can just about anyone see who gives what?)
  

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generally_Accepted_Accounting_Principles] Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
  
• http://www.ecfa.org/HomePage.aspx] The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)
  
• http://www.ecfa.org/PDF/BestPractices-Churches.pdf] The EFCA Best Practices for Churches (PDF)
  

My observation is that often church leaders chide members for being poor stewards but often our own churches are (speaking at a corporate level) poor stewards of funds received

If someone wanted to give to your church 500 shares of stock through a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor_advised_fund] Donor Advised Fund , are you able to find a copy of your church’s 501(c)(3) documentation so that your church can receive that gift?

Comments:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donor_advised_fund#Tax_Efficiency_Example] Advantage of this to the donor / recipient
  
• Most foundations that offer donor advised funds will only make grants from these funds to other public charities, and will usually perform due diligence to verify the grantee’s tax-exempt status.