Human Resources

Managing a ministry's finances, staff, and volunteers is a BIG job. We want to help guide you through some of the more time consuming and challenging tasks associated with ministry administration so you can spend more time focusing on your mission. Check out these tools and resources available to your ministry.

Working Together: A Guide to Employment Practices for Ministries

Employment practices liability can be a costly concern for churches and related ministries. Many find themselves defending against claims of wrongdoing in such areas as sexual harassment, discrimination, or wrongful dismissal. One way to prevent such claims or defend against them is to develop an employee handbook. To help you in this area, Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company® has published Working Together: A Guide to Employment Practices for Ministries

Employee Handbook Review: Have specific questions about your ministry's employee handbook? Send questions to Brotherhood Mutual's Legal Assist team for risk management guidance


Payroll & Tax Filing Services

As a ministry-focused payroll provider, MinistryWorks® by Brotherhood Mutual understands church payroll. In addition to working to save your ministry time and money, you can have peace of mind, knowing that your personal payroll specialist has your back, and they’ll be triple-checking everything to help you reduce the likelihood of making costly payroll errors. So, what could you do with more?

Check out the MinistryWorks pricing calculator to see how much your ministry could save. 


Employee Health Benefits

Traditional group plans can be expensive and have limited choices. Coordinating your own individual health benefits offers more choice and lower cost, but the options are complicated and difficult to manage. Christian organizations shouldn’t be burdened by the time and expertise required to coordinate their own plans. That’s where Brotherhood Mutual can help.

By partnering with trusted, knowledgeable, faith-focused health benefits advisors, you will have access to customized health benefit plans. These partners simplify complex options and help your employees understand their choices. Your employees get to choose a plan that works best for them, and your organization can steward the cost savings back into its core mission. Learn More


Resources for Your Administrative Team

Be sure that your ministry is managing its staff and volunteers appropriately by learning more about the law and avoiding common errors. Develop policies, procedures, and controls that ensure accountability and protect your ministry's staff, volunteers, and financial assets. Here are some additional resources to help you along the way.

Employee & Volunteer Management

Employment claims against churches are on the rise. Preparing for the unpleasant possibility in advance can prevent some employment conflicts and better equip your church to deal with those that arise.

Article: Avoid Church Employment Liability - Be aware of the legal risk your church or ministry faces as an employer.

Article: Selecting and Screening Volunteers - With careful planning, your church or school can develop a robust volunteer program. Learn these key steps to protecting people and furthering the work of your ministry. 

Article: Good Employment Practices Protect Ministries - Good employment practices are vital for ministries because they can protect against employee lawsuits.

Article: Use Caution When Classifying Workers - For tax purposes, all U.S. employers are required to categorize their workers into one of the following four categories: independent contractor; common law employee; statutory employee; or statutory non-employee. Learn the importance of correctly categorizing workers in accordance with the IRS and tax laws. 

Article: Letting Staff Go - Best Practices for Ministry Employees - Employee termination should be viewed as a process, not a point-in-time event.

Article: Distinguishing Employees from Volunteers - As an employer, ministries are required to properly pay employees for all time spent performing their job functions, so distinguishing between volunteer hours and employee hours is important.

Checklist: Employee Training Checklist - This checklist can help you clearly communicate expectations, boundaries, and regulations to help reduce the risk of disputes between employees and employers.

Checklist: Employment Practices Checklist - Use this checklist to help your church, school, or ministry develop safe employment practices, which can protect against employee lawsuits.

Publication: FLSA Risk Assessment Chart - Chart to help manage the risk of wrongly classifying employees within your ministry.

Article: Understanding Fringe Benefits - As ministries search for ways to enhance employee compensation packages, ministry leaders and employees should understand the tax repercussions of fringe benefits. 

Articles: Overtime: Does Your Ministry Comply? - Some ministries miscalculate overtime wages, misclassify employees, or fail to pay overtime at all. It can happen to the most careful of administrators. So, what wage and overtime rules can apply to ministries? 

Checklist: Payroll Checklist - Payroll can be problematic for churches. Use this checklist to help make sure your church or ministry stays compliant. 


Finances

It doesn’t take a hardened criminal to steal money from a church. In fact, those who embezzle are often well-known, well-liked, and completely trusted by fellow church members. They don’t set out to steal hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. But ample opportunity and a lack of financial controls enable them to do just that.

Article: Evaluating Your Next Vendor - It's important to take the time to do research and check references before entering into a vendor relationship, especially a long-term one.

Article: Online Tithing: Balancing Convenience with Security - Learn the importance of balancing the convenience of electronic donations with the importance of data security.

Article: Disaster Proof Your Finances - Learn how specialized insurance coverages can protect your finances from taking an unexpected hit.

Article: Protect Your Finances with Internal Cash Controls - Learn how to strengthen control of your church's cash receipts and disbursements to protect your finances.

Article: Watch for Financial Irregularities - Learn how to spot the financial irregularities that may show that your ministry's money is being stolen.

Article: What Pay Records Should Ministries Keep? - Most ministries employ at least one person whose hours and wages are regulated by federal law. This means there are likely some records you're required to keep for three years.

Article: Protect Ministry Finances from Embezzlement - Embezzlement affects all ministries, regardless of their size, denomination, or location. Learn how to establish controls without hurting the feelings of long-time workers.

Checklist: Ministry Finances Checklist - Sadly, financial crimes against ministries are common. Strengthen accountability within your ministry with an annual review. 

Checklist: Offerings and Disbursements Checklist - Insisting on safety controls for your offering plate is critical to maintaining the trust and confidence of your membership.

Webinar: Church Fraud: Keeping Thieves and Embezzlers Out of Church Finances - Whether overseeing credit card transactions or safeguarding the offering from fraud, stay on top of theft issues with help from this free webinar.


Sexual Harassment and Misconduct

Webinar: The Empowered Ministry: Preventing Sexual Harassment - An allegation of sexual misconduct or harassment can devastate a ministry. Join us as Kathleen Turpin, JD, CPCU, discusses how churches can prevent sexual harassment, and how to address instances of misconduct.

Article: Good Employment Practices Protect Ministries - Discrimination, wrongful dismissal, sexual harassment, and other employee-related matters challenge ministry leaders now more than ever before. Having policies in place can help prevent employment conflicts.


Make Sure You’re Covered

Even in a tight-knit ministry where employees worship and celebrate together, there’s potential for conflict and bad judgment that result in lawsuits. For allegations that are proven false, your ministry still can spend thousands defending itself. 

Brotherhood Mutual's Employment Practices Liability Coverage can protect your ministry’s finances against emotional injury, personal injury, and financial damage claims related to employment decisions made by past or present leadership and employees. The coverage is also designed to provide legal defense funds that don’t affect policy limits available to pay damages.

This coverage can pay legal costs and damages related to:

  • Hiring, training, promoting, supervising, discipline, and termination of an employee or job applicant.
  • Wrongful employment acts, such as discrimination or sexual harassment.
  • A breach of an employment contract.
  • Failure to protect employees’ personal information.

Talk to an American Church Group of Kentucky agent to learn more about this coverage designed specifically for ministries.

Contact us

 

© 2021 Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. All rights reserved. This coverage description is intended to help ministry leaders better understand Brotherhood Mutual’s MinistryFirst® insurance program. It does not provide insurance coverage of any kind, nor does it modify the terms of any Brotherhood Mutual policy. For complete insurance coverage details, please refer to actual policy documents. Coverage for actual claims will be based on applicable policy documents applied to the individual facts of an actual claim event.