Texas Tidbits: CLC approves hunger offering allocations

At its Sept. 28 meeting in Dallas, Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission approved about $800,000 in allocations for the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering in 2016. It includes $321,090—40 percent—for hunger ministries in Texas and $171,120 for international hunger ministry projects involving Texas Baptist churches, associations or missions partners. The remaining $307,800 for international hunger and development ministry projects includes $109,200 through Baptist World Aid—the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance—and $112,500 through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, as well as $22,200 to the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development to help Baptists in Lebanon provide hunger relief to refugees. It also includes up to $36,300 for Southern Baptist International Mission Board projects, based on requests received for 2015. The IMB—which in recent weeks announced plans to cut 600 to 800 jobs over the next six months—did not submit specific project requests for 2016 in time to be considered at the commission meeting.

BGCT CFO recognized. Jill Larsen, treasurer and chief financial officer of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has been named a finalist for the Dallas Business Journal’s CFO of the Year Award. Jill LarsenLarsen was selected and named a finalist by a panel of independent judges. She will join 28 other financial executives Oct. 26 at the CFO of the Year Awards program in Dallas, where category winners will be announced. In the past year, Larsen managed two substantial projects for Texas Baptists—restructuring the 2015 budget after a reorganization and steering the BGCT Executive Board staff office relocation—in addition to ongoing responsibilities including financial presentations for each of the three Executive Board meetings, preparing for annual audits, managing endowments and legal matters. “Jill is knowledgeable, hard-working and fully committed to the organization,” Executive Director David Hardage said. “She has earned the respect of those inside and outside the office. She is a CFO who can truly be trusted.”