Part 6 in the 7-part series, Open a Church Checking Account
Hold a Church Board Meeting
If you’ve been following along, you’ve already incorporated your church and gotten a brand new EIN from the Feds. But now that you’re a corporation, you need to behave as a good corporate citizen of your state. That means: church board meetings. Yay!
You need to have a church board meeting as a step to opening the church checking account for a couple of reasons:
- You need to appoint the Board in the first place
- You may need to appoint corporate officers, too (depending on the structure you’ll lay out in your Bylaws, a subject for another day)
- You need to name which bank you’ve chosen
- You need to spell out exactly who is authorized to open & sign on the bank account
Robert’s Rules?
Do things in an orderly manner and take good notes (meeting minutes). If you need help with structure, follow Robert’s Rules of Order, the classic procedure manual on how to run ‘parliamentary’ meetings. Here’s a basic overview:
- Send notice of the meeting with an agenda
- Call meeting to order
- Take a roll call
- Read minutes from last meeting (skip this at the first meeting, of course)
- Hear reports from the corporate officers & committees (yeah, skip that, too)
- Consider scheduled business (from #1 above); for each decision:
- someone should make a motion
- someone else should second it
- debate it back & forth
- take a vote
- Take care of unfinished business from last meeting (another skipper)
- Consider new business (not on the agenda; follow steps in #6)
- Make any announcements
- Adjourn
- The (newly appointed) Secretary should compile the minutes and sign & date them
Now you have the 3 documents you’ll need to take to the bank: Articles of Incorporation, EIN & meeting minutes.
Steps to Open Church Checking Account
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- Contextualize Your Church
- Name Your Church Plant
- Formally Organize Your Church
- Register with the Feds
- Hold a Board Meeting
- Now Go the the Bank
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