Burl Wyckoff and Aloha Maw met when they were teenagers at the United Methodist Church in Nyssa, Oregon. Burl was three years older, and four years ahead in school, on track to graduate at age 17. Most of the other young men from their small town went straight from high school to military service in World War II. But Burl’s dad wouldn’t let any of his boys join up until they turned 21, so Burl headed to college in Caldwell, Idaho, while Aloha started high school. They reconnected at Wallowa Lake Methodist Camp over the summer. The next fall, Aloha took a job as a nighttime telephone operator. One of its perks was the ability to make long distance phone calls to Caldwell in the middle of the night.

Doug McKay’s life runs parallel to Wesley UMC. His parents were founding members. When he was a teen, the church met in a schoolhouse. As he started his own family, Wesley UMC grew with them, building its own sanctuary and filling it with children’s laughter.

Dear Foundation,

Our church just received an undesignated bequest. We’re thrilled, but we don’t have a policy in place about what to do with it! It will probably take us a while to decide, and we don’t want to miss out on interest that we could have earned during our discernment process. But if we put it in our endowment, does that prevent us from spending the principal in the future once a decision has been reached?

Congratulations on receiving a bequest-- your ministry obviously had a big influence in the donor’s life. Undesignated funds can be a huge blessing. As you described, they also force your church leadership to do some discernment together. You’re wise to want to understand all your options at the beginning of this process.

Irv Marr wanted to see continued growth take place at Sand Point Community UMC. When setting up the endowment he wrote a letter to the Memorial & Endowment committee stating, “To be blunt and to the point, I would like to issue a ‘wake up’ call to create some new life in the church.” In face of competition for young families’ attention by nearby churches and little league teams, Irv wrtoe: “As they say on TV, ‘Let’s kick it up a notch’… Instead of waiting for them to come to us, we go after them.”

Since 2005, the Northwest United Methodist Foundation has been managing this endowment that was set up to benefit ministry to children and youth. Irv stated, “The funds generated from this endowment are intended to enhance the ministry of the Church, but not become a substitute for the financial responsibility of our members. It is our wish that the earning from this fund be used freely but effectively for youth work.”

“If we were in town and we weren’t sick in bed, we were in church on Sunday morning,” says Betsey Ullom as she remembers her parents, Bill and Maggie Webber. “Between the two of them they were probably on every church committee.” In addition to an active social life, a high-power career, and a multitude of other volunteer roles and interests, the Webbers were an institution at Tigard United Methodist Church.

“My dad liked to invest in things that were permanent,” says Betsey. So when he began to plan for a major gift to the church, “he wanted the money to be used in perpetuity, to be there forever.”