On May 31, the program held $43.9 million in investments and had made loans totaling $41 million, with an additional $4 million approved. Its goal is $50 million in both loans and investments by the end of 2004, said president and chief executive officer Jay Hudson.
The review found that, despite concerns that PILP could be seen as competitive with the Church Loan Program and four loan programs offered by synods, the programs work together well. Hudson, who became PILP’s president in September and was confirmed by the General Assembly on Wednesday, managed the Synod of Lincoln Trails’ program during his 20 years there, and that background “seems to have brought a valuable sense of perspective and the opportunity for personal trust among the leaders of these programs,” the report said.
“PILP does achieve something more than just balancing investments and loans, its direct fiscal task,” the report said. “We found that staff and board members alike not only exhibited a clear sense that PILP is, at its best, far more an arm of mission than simply a savings and loan program.”
The program’s employees sometimes talk small churches out of investing in such ambitious building plans that they wouldn’t have money left over to fund other programs, for instance. “If we don’t let you borrow something you can’t pay back, we’re helping you,” Hudson said.
However, at a time when the denomination is trying to increase ethnic diversity, less than one-fourth of PILP loan dollars have gone to multicultural or predominantly minority churches. The committee said PILP should consider publishing information about itself in Korean and Spanish, and advertising more broadly.
The report also said PILP should get dollars into borrowers’ hands more quickly and develop longer-term strategic plans
“This is not a criticism of where they’ve been … but we believe now is the time when they can begin to take a little more creativity and reach out a little further,” said John Bartholomew, who addressed the Assembly on behalf of the review committee. He praised PILP for its cooperation and said the group has already begun implementing some of the suggestions from the report.
