Matching Grant for Shipping

GHM is excited to annouce a challenge match grant totaling $96,415. The grant will match one dollar for every two dollars contributed to the GHM shipping program (#99-S0001) or shipping to any particular country of the donor’s choice. Consider a generous donation today in support of GHM shipping!

Sioux Falls native Phyllis Berkland sought the advice of Global Health Ministries a few years ago in making a charitable gift. She knew that GHM offered the professional services of Gift Planner Bill Elmstrom, who soon made a visit to her Sioux Falls home. A family farm was to be sold, and Bill was able to arrange the sale for a price significantly above its appraised value. In the plan subsequently developed with Phyllis and her seven children as a family gift, the proceeds of the sale funded a Charitable Unitrust giving her income for life, and upon her death, annual funding for GHM shipments of medical supplies and equipment to OSEELC, the health department of the Lutheran Church in Cameroon.

This gift was welcome news at a time when the Church health programs in Cameroon are undergoing significant positive developments in governance, financial management and patient care. These changes follow three years of GHM-sponsored management assistance through GHAP (Global Health Administration Partners), and major facility and program developments underwritten by CHDP (Cameroon Health Development Program) in Duluth. OSEELC’s continuing growth will call for comparable enhance- ments in GHM’s support. We cur- rently average two sea container shipments per year for its three hospitals and 15 health centers, together with a dental and eye clinic and palliative care services for the terminally ill.

Berkland’s gift will help enable GHM to sustain this needed support in the future, but her gift did not stop there. A year later, Phyllis found that the trust fund that Elmstrom established had grown surprisingly well. She asked Bill to help in developing a second gift plan. This time, Elmstrom sug- gested that Phyllis put her funds into a Charitable Gift Annuity that would provide her with a higher rate of return than she would realize with the Charitable trust. The increase in income convinced her to dedicate a portion of her available funds to the current needs of the shipping program, whether for Cameroon or any country where Lutheran health care programs need such support. Phyllis has now established a Donor Advised Fund totaling $96,415 with the ELCA Foundation as a challenge fund that will match one dollar for every two dollars contributed to the GHM shipping program (#99-S0001) or shipping to any particular country of the donor’s choice. There is no deadline for this program, though upon Phyllis’ death the matching program will end and all funds will be consolidated in the trust fund for Cameroon shipping.

We offer our heartfelt thanks to Phyllis Berkland and her family for this outstanding support. She is helping GHM prepare for the future needs of Cameroon shipping, and now is giving an exciting boost to the shipping campaign now underway.