← The Journal Boards · 4 min read

Five questions to ask your board this quarter.

A quick test for whether your church has an endowment or just savings. Most boards answer yes to two or three.

By Emmanuel Iroko · Oct 19, 2026

Bring these five questions to your next board meeting. If you can answer yes to all five, you have an endowment. If not, you have savings or investments.

1. Could the next board find your investment policy in writing?

If the rules only live in the treasurer’s memory, they leave when the treasurer does.

2. Does a share of giving go into long-term savings automatically?

If someone has to remember to move money every month, it won’t happen every month.

3. Would these rules stay in place after the current pastor retires?

Permanence can’t depend on one leader’s priorities.

4. Is it impossible for a future board to spend the principal in one bad year?

A good policy protects the fund from the pressure of a single hard season.

5. Will this fund survive the next leadership transition?

This is the question the other four add up to.

Fewer than five yeses means you have savings, not an endowment.