People aren’t exactly holding their breath, waiting for Denver businessman Stanley Anderson to come up with the $150 million he promised in June to give to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
But the denomination is close to realizing more than $9 million in unrestricted funding — the result of a bequest made by a Colorado family more than 40 years ago, which has been held in trust since then and is just now becoming available.
Basically, church officials have heard little since Anderson stood up before the General Assembly in Birmingham and promised a massive unrestricted gift — the day before the news broke that Anderson had financial difficulties.
He said then he’d give the money by November 2006, but so far nothing has materialized. “He’s given several different dates,” said Joey Bailey, the PC(USA)’s chief financial officer. “If it comes in by the end of the year, we’re going to be really happy.”
Bob Leech, president and chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Foundation, said he’s had no communication with Anderson at all. “We’ve had no indication that there’s anything forthcoming,” Leech said in an interview. “My own personal opinion is that I don’t see it as likely” Anderson will produce the money. “But I hope I’m wrong.”
Barry Creech, a PC(USA) spokesman, said in an e-mail statement that the denomination has not received any funds to fulfill Anderson’s pledge. “Mr. Anderson has affirmed his intent to make a gift, but we are not taking any steps to implement a program to allocate those funds until the gift arrives,” Creech said.
What is much clearer: money will soon be forthcoming from a different source — a bequest made by the Heiserman estate in Yuma, Colorado. The money, all unrestricted funding, derives from a donation made in 1966 by Geraldine Heiserman, who was the widow of a landowner from Yuma named Lemont Heiserman.
Lemont Heiserman died in 1961, his wife about five years later. The bulk of their estate, some of it in property holdings, was left in trust to the Presbyterian church — with the trust to terminate after 40 years and the balance reverting to what is now the PC(USA). The initial gift was $900,000.
The General Assembly Council voted in September to set up a task force to consider how to use the bequest, the value of which today is estimated at $9.6 million. Here’s how the funding breaks down:
- The Presbyterian Foundation will receive 5 percent of that in administrative fees, leaving $9.12 million for the General Assembly Council to spend.
- The council’s executive committee decided last spring to use some funds from the bequest to spare budget cuts for 15 overseas missionaries. Because the bequest funds were not yet in hand, the PC(USA) used reserves to cover about $1.5 million in funding for overseas missionaries for 2007 and 2008, but will eventually draw money from the bequest to cover those costs.
- The council is recommending that $900,000, or a 10 percent tithe, be given to First Church in Yuma. That money would be available for mission expenses, not operating costs, over a 10-year period, and would be administered by the Synod of the Rocky Mountains.
- That would leave roughly $5.7 million for the council still to allocate. The task force considering the bequest is to report back to the council in March 2007.
Harold Armstrong is pastor of the Yuma church, a congregation of about 250 members in the flatlands of eastern Colorado. He has been pastor there for less than six months — so he has no personal knowledge of the Heisermans, and said the long-time members of the congregation he’s spoken with have only sketchy memories of the family.
Jane Westfall, a former General Assembly Council member whose late husband, Thomas, became pastor of the Yuma church in 1965, said she doesn’t remember the Heisermans either, but has spoken to people in town who described them as some of the “the old-timers, the homesteaders” — and indeed, some of the land they left is still being farmed on leases.
Robert W. Tull, a retired minister now living in Virginia, preceded Thomas Westfall as the pastor in Yuma — he served the church from 1961 to 1965, as a 26-year-old pastor in only his second call. Tull said he remembers visiting the Heisermans, and “they were just fine, average people,” older by then, apparently without children, and not particularly active in the church.
Tull said he’d heard that the Heisermans had some money, but “I never heard of them giving large contributions.” He was surprised to learn of a gift now worth more than $9 million.
So far, the Yuma congregation has not received any money from the bequest. But Daniel Saperstein, executive presbyter of Plains and Peaks presbytery, is recommending a handful of ways that the session might consider using it. Among those suggestions: a regionally-based youth ministry; a regional ministry to support smaller congregations in rural areas; an expanded ministry with Hispanics.
“All of those areas are significant areas of our ministry here,” Armstrong said. The Yuma church, for example, has been providing space for a Latino Assemblies of God congregation to worship in, and is initiating a partner relationship with a Presbyterian church in Malawi in Africa.
While many at the church no longer remember the Heisermans, their gift is appreciated. Armstrong said it serves as a reminder that “we don’t take anything with us” — that what we have can be used, long after we are gone, to give back.
