FAQs About Giving

Absolutely. We’d be honored if you’d direct your Choice Dollars toward the support of our 100 missionaries at work among the least-reached in 20 countries around the world.

How it Works

Thrivent Choice is a program designed to give Thrivent members the ability to direct Thrivent’s charitable outreach funds to their favorite charities. (In order to participate in Thrivent Choice you must own a Thrivent product e.g., insurance, annuity, etc. which meets certain requirements.) Thrivent calls these funds ‘Choice Dollars.’ The amount of Choice Dollars which eligible members can direct to charities like WMPL is directly related to the contracts held with Thrivent. As such, Thrivent Choice is not a “matching-gift” program; it is not in any way dependent upon donations which you may or may not make to WMPL.

How to Participate

Eligible members may allocate their Choice Dollars to WMPL in one of two different ways:

1. A quick phone call to Thrivent will do the trick (1-800-THRIVENT). You will first need to say “Thrivent Choice” to the automated answering service and then you should be able to speak with a live operator.
2. Alternatively, you may visit Thrivent’s website to make your selection online.

All Choice Dollars for a given calendar year must be allocated before March 31 of the following year. Thrivent deposits Choice Dollars directly into WMPL’s account on a monthly basis. We are thankful that Thrivent Financial has supported WMPL through the years via this and other charitable giving programs.

We’ll be happy to answer more questions about Thrivent Choice when you contact us by email at business@wmpl.org or by phone at 1.612.871.6843. You may also contact Thrivent directly at 1.800.847.4836

Our Business Manger has written about this topic over the years and you may peruse those posts here.

Make your check payable to WMPL.

Indicate the person or project you wish to support in the memo. If you are giving to more than one person/project you do not need to write separate checks — simply enclose a note indicating the breakdown of the amounts.

Mail to our regular address:

WMPL
232 Clifton Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55403
USA

Cheques drawn from a Canadian bank account may be directed to:

WMPL
5408 49th Ave.
Camrose, AB T4V 0N7
Canada

Congress recently extended the IRA Charitable Rollover provision for 2014.

The IRA Charitable Rollover allows individuals over age 70½ to directly transfer up to $100,000 per year from an IRA account to one or more charities. This transfer counts toward the minimum required distribution rule for IRA accounts, and such distributions are free of both income and estate taxes.

If you are considering making a gift from your IRA for 2014, contact your plan administrator to see if an IRA Charitable Rollover is right for you. To complete the transaction you will need the WMPL Minnesota Tax ID number which is 41-0786986.

Many of these gifts arrive from the broker without any mention of the donor’s name so if you make a gift this fashion please give us a heads up at 1.612.871.6843 or business@wmpl.org as this will allow us to receipt the gift in the best possible way.

On behalf of all of us at WMPL, we wish you a Happy Christmas and a Blessed New Year.

Jeff Dahl, Business Manager

We are proud to report that we are. You may view our profile at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability’s website here. You may wish to read some some fine articles written by our business manager on this topic here.

WMPL has been a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) since 1987 and undergoes an external audit every year. All gifts will be promptly receipted and are tax-deductible, as allowed by law.

Many donors are able to multiply their gift via a matching program. Since requirements vary, please contact the friendly folks in our Minneapolis Business Office during regular office hours at 1.612.871.6843 or at business@wmpl.org right now.

In order to cancel automated giving, you should contact our business office by filling out our contact form, emailing business@wmpl.org, or calling +1-612-871-6843

No. If you have designated your donation for a specific missionary or project, 100% of your gift will be applied toward that missionary or project. Nothing is deducted for administration expenses. Administrative expenses are covered by the General Fund and we are quite thankful for the donors who have the vision to recognize that need and give in that capacity.

Administrative expenditures are funded entirely by donations designated for administration, or by gifts to the Mission’s General Fund. Donations designated for worker or project support are applied entirely as designated.

Our governing board establishes annually a target allowance for worker support. Increments are made for the size of worker families, but not for education levels or years of service.

That’s right. It is our aim to provide, as the Lord himself provides, a “living allowance” that permits our people to serve anywhere the Lord may lead them. It is not our aim, however, to differentiate the value of one kind of service or another.

We believe in sharing our resources equally across our fellowship — without regard for “status” or years of service. Each missionary unit is eligible for an allowance based on family size so a CEO — in our case called a General Director — receives exactly the same amount as a first-term missionary with the same-sized family.

Our Public Auditors estimate that fund raising expenses in 2010 amounted to six tenths of one percent of overall expenses. This figure and our practices have remained substantially unchanged in the intervening years.

Certainly. Click here to make your donation at any time.

Yes, you can.

You may contribute to our General Missionary Support Fund. This fund, when solvent, is available to missionaries who do not have sufficient specifically designated donations, month-by-month. We share the General Missionary Support Fund as equitably as possible among all of our “shorted” missionaries.

WMPL has a different way of talking about money than other ‘faith-based’ missions. One answer is, ‘no,’ in the sense that we go out of our way to emphasize that we look to the Lord to provide the support — of course, the Lord usually does this through people and so another answer is, ‘yes,’ in so far as our workers will do well to faithfully interpret the Mission of God for folks back home. We should not be surprised when this results in a robust network of mission partners.

What does this look like in practice? To begin with, we don’t fixate on a specific level of monetary support before mobilizing to the field. We don’t promise a formal ‘salary’ either. Instead, we speak in terms of a modest missionary ‘allowance.’ It is our policy to share what we have by God’s good provision, in order to do what he has given us to do.

We encourage you to read more about our financial policies in the Mission Handbook. Furthermore, a conversation with any of our missionaries in the field or staff in the home office will certainly give you a realistic picture of how our financial policies play out in real time.

Mission policy regulates the distribution of Mission resources among designated funds, designed to facilitate the ministries of the Prayer League around the world. A governing board holds final authority for these distributions.

The Mission is supported by unsolicited financial contributions from individuals, congregations, and occasionally foundations. Careful stewardship of each dollar allows us to field our missionary force on these sacred offerings — $2.6 million in 2013!

If you don’t find an answer to your question here we invite you to contact us and ask a new one.