BJC supporters rise to Baugh’s challenge

WASHINGTON — A Texas Baptist family’s spontaneous challenge to jump-start the Baptist Joint Committee’s capital campaign to build the Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill netted the organization nearly $1.2 million dollars in just a couple of weeks.

BJC Executive Director J. Brent Walker, executive director announced in a July 24 e-mail to supporters that a matching funds challenge from the Baugh family of San Antonio was wildly successful. In little more than two weeks, donors gave or pledged a total of $688,372.73 in response. An unnamed donor who gave a $200,000 gift requested it not be matched, meaning the challenge raised $1,176,745.46.

“The Baugh family has always supported the Baptist Joint Committee’s fight for religious liberty. Now Babs has taken that support to a new level,” Walker said.

A half-million dollar gift and matching challenge has energized our capital campaign and put us closer to making the Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill a reality.”

All told, Walker said, the capital campaign total to date stands at slightly over $2.5 million of the $5 million goal.

The matching funds challenge kicked off during the BJC’s annual luncheon, held June 29 in conjunction with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly and American Baptist Churches USA Biennial in Washington, D.C. There, Walker awarded the Baugh Family the J.M. Dawson Religious Liberty Award.

Babs Baugh, then, in a surprise announcement, said her family would match any new pledges or gifts made to the campaign between June 29 and July 15.

The center is part of a capital campaign to help purchase, renovate and endow a home on Capitol Hill to house the organization’s permanent offices. The facility will also contain working space for BJC partner organizations and visiting scholars.

BJC leaders said they hope such a building will establish a highly visible presence for the Baptist conception of religious freedom near the Capitol. For most of its existence, the organization has rented space in the Washington offices of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“I am so moved by the incredible generosity of Babs, the Baugh family and all of you who took up the challenge,” Walker wrote. “The BJC is now closer to having the funds required to build the center … a little over halfway there. Thank you! With the continued support of friends like you, we will surely [succeed.]”

— ABP and staff