Story
The Kingdom Missions Fund started over 20 years ago as a dream of Paul Barber (permanent board member.) Recently returned from the mission field in the Philippines, Paul recalled the struggle of raising funds--especially while his family was in the mission field. Now in a corporate career, he began considering ways to make a big impact.
Original efforts to start the fund involved charter board member John Craft, an experi-enced CPA (charter board member.) Together, they sought to start a non profit organization. However, the tax and legal hurdles were too large for the fledgling organization. Unable to get the fund started, Paul held onto the dream, accumulating seed money for the day the fund could begin.
In 2002, Darrell Amy, a local entrepreneur (permanent board member) and Paul were having lunch to talk about one of Darrell’s business ideas. In a footnote to the plan, Darrell had an idea that the business would give a percentage of its profits to a fund that would sponsor Christian missions. Immediately Paul grabbed onto the idea. That day, they made a commitment that they would work to start a fund.
The following week, Chad Carlson, a local investment advisor, (charter board member) invited Darrell to an investment forecast luncheon. Darrell ended up sitting next to David Moore (charter board member), the President of the Arkansas Baptist Foundation (ABF). Learning that the ABF was an investment manager for Christian organizations, Darrell asked about the feasibility of starting the Kingdom Missions Fund. David said it would not be a problem. In fact, the ABF had recently considered starting a division called Christian Ministry Services (CMS) to manage investments for general Christian organizations.
Within weeks, Paul, Darrell, Chad, John and David met to draft the Charter of the King-dom Missions Fund. The fund was set up as a donor-advised fund. This allows us to leverage the expertise of CMS without starting and managing our own non-profit organization. As a donor-advised fund, the charter specifies that the funds can only be distributed at the direction of the board of directors. Special attention was given to make sure that the fund was configured to meet its long term objective of providing support to Christian missions organizations. With seed money from the board members, the fund began.
2003 was the first full year of the fund’s operations. At the end of the first year, the fund had roughly $15,000 and donated $3,000 to several organizations. Today, the fund has a net asset value of over $100,000. This year, we anticipate donating over $30,000 to Christian missions projects. To date, the fund has provided support for organizations on every continent except Antarctica.
Our short-term goal is to reach a fund value of over $1 million that spins off more than $100,000 in donations a year. Our long-term goal is to create a network of Kingdom Missions Funds with assets of over $100 million and annual donations of over $10 million.
It is amazing to see the story of how God brought together the right people at the right time to make this happen. He continues to bring people into this story.
We hope that you will consider being a part of the next chapter that God is writing. To learn more about how you can be a part of the Kingdom Missions Fund story, contact us today.
