BRIDGETON – Missouri Baptist Children’s Home (MBCH) trustees heard a clean audit report during their meeting April 26 at the main campus here.
Mary Jane Pieroni, of the auditing firm Huber, Ring, Helm and Co., specifically praised MBCH for keeping its ratio of administrative expense to ministry so low.
“Compared to other non-profits, you are doing very, very well spending money on your mission,” she said.
Pieroni said anything over 66.6 percent dedicated to “program expenses” is considered good, and MBCH spends just over 75 percent on its program expenses/ministry.
Speaking of ministry, MBCH Children and Family ministries has fielded 341 requests for foster, adoptive and kinship services in the first quarter of 2011. They have ministered to 58 women with pregnancy services and have 37 adoptive homes in processing through March 31 of this year. And the most important statistic of the first three months: Eight children have accepted Christ though MBCH ministries.
MBCH President Bob Kenison referenced the findings of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Organizational Study Group report and recommendations.
“The good news is the same as the bad news, except you just add God to it,” he told the trustees. “Eighty percent of MBC churches are in rural areas, but 75 percent of the population is in the urban areas. Well, guess what? Those rural churches are the ones that have always been the best supporters of MBCH. That’s where the money is, and that’s who have been and will continue to support us. Those are the people that want to help children, and I’m the guy who knows where the children are.”
Although the MBCH’s main campus is just blocks away from homes destroyed by the April 22 tornadoes that struck the St. Louis area, it only suffered a few missing shingles and downed tree limbs.
The trustees’ next meeting is July 26.
BRIAN KOONCE/staff writer
bkoonce@mobaptist.org