our churches give through the Cooperative Program. Those monies contribute to Great Commission work regionally, across your own state, our nation, and all the nations around the world. Let me show you what has been happening with our Cooperative Program giving over the past twenty years. The image above shows something I believe is very important. The box in red shows the years of the Great Recession of 2008–2009. Do you see the decline after this and its lagging effect? Since this decline began, total Cooperative Program giving has not recovered to its pre-recession levels. In fact, it has not recovered as fast as other areas of philanthropy in the secular world. We typically trail the growth of the GDP, philanthropic giving, individual giving, and religious giving. While we are grateful God has provided, we are not at the level of the others since 2008–2009. Since this is true, we have a glimpse of good news. If we can begin to realize the capacity we have to grow and catch up with the overall gains in giving already occurring, we have a future with great possibilities. We must discipline ourselves
in sharpening our focus on our eternal mission of sharing Good News with the whole world and stay consistent with our message of reaching every person for Jesus Christ in every town, every city, every state, and every nation. This is our greater cause. In the fiscal year ending in September 2020, we were impacted by the pandemic for the six months of April through September. This present fiscal year of 2020–2021, we project a revised budget with a three percent decrease in comparison to last year. After the first four months, it appears we have budgeted correctly. We can see in the next graphic that our 2020 fiscal year ended ahead of the year before; but with 2021, we may reach all the way down to $452.5 million due to the full effects of the pandemic. Yet as we move forward, we project our fiscal year of 2022 will begin moving us up in total Cooperative Program giving. Please note 2023. In order to recover from the pandemic and move forward in funding all of our Great Commission work along with the needs of Vision 2025, we must work diligently to start
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