Bern, Switzerland [Dowell Chow, AWR president; CD EUDNews]. Institutions and ministries of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (GC) are each given one worldwide offering day per year on the official offering calendar of the church. AWR’s 2013 Annual Offering will take place on March 9. This is an opportunity for church members throughout the world church to support the AWR ministry with a one-time offering.
AWR has two main sources of income:
1) funds from tithe, which comes through the General Conference and accounts for 25% of the AWR total budget for 2013
2) non-tithe income, which consists of the annual offering, a percentage of world mission offerings given throughout the year, direct gifts, and life-estate legacies by donors.
The one-time annual offering is approximately 8% percent of the budget, and thus a vital source of funding for AWR. Typically, the highest-giving world divisions have been North, South, and Inter-America; Inter-European and the South Pacific.
Donations from supporters go straight into AWR’s production and transmission (airtime) costs. Other costs, such as staffing and administrative functions, are covered by appropriations that come through the church system.A big priority for AWR is developing new languages. In India, programs for shortwave in Gujarati and Oriya are being developed in this period. AWR has recently started airing programs in Tibetan.
AWR has also a rare opportunity in India to begin broadcasts on FM stations. India has never opened that possibility before, and this will allow AWR to reach many of the large cities in that populous country. Programs have started airing in the city of Hyderabad. In Nepal – formerly a Hindu, closed country – in addition to programs broadcast by shortwave, AWR now produces programs that are aired on 26 local FM stations throughout the country. New stations are being added as they become available, and the response from listeners has been very good.
AWR has already funded a number of local FM stations in Africa; the newest ones are in Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New stations are being planned for Angola and Mozambique. AWR already co-sponsors (with the Spanish Union and the Inter-European Division) powerful stations in the Canary Islands and Ceuta — a Spanish enclave in Northern Africa.
Adventist World Radio
Adventist World Radio is the international broadcast ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, bringing the gospel to people in the hardest-to-reach places on earth, in their own languages. AWR currently transmits programs in nearly 70 languages; its shortwave, AM/FM, and satellite broadcasts reach two-thirds of the world, and programs are also available through the Internet. For more information, visit www.awr.org