UNTIL JESUS COMES:
$34,000,000 CAPITAL CAMPAIGN
This campaign provides a comprehensive vision for the future of the college and communicates that vision to our supportive constituents. This campaign is a 10-year, three-phase, $34,000,000 campaign. As the college’s leadership sought the Lord’s direction for the college’s second decade, they engaged students, faculty, staff, trustees, prayer partners, mission team leaders, and donors to give input for the development, scope, and vision for this capital campaign.
Until JESUS Comes reflects the greatest priorities for ensuring NEBC’s continued impact in the Northeast, the United States, and the World until Jesus Comes! Here is the vision…
Phase Two: Ensuring the Facilities
$14,000,000
Presidential Partners Scholarship Fund | Goal: $4,500,000
This fund will provide much-needed scholarship funding to assist students who have answered God’s call to ministry and mission.
Complete Gray Allison Village | Goal: $2,500,000
Giving to this fund will provide much needed housing for students who are training to be laborers for the Northeast harvest fields.
Purchase and Renovate Downtown Campus | Goal: $7,000,000
Giving to this fund will support the rapid growth NEBC is currently experiencing. Additionally, this move will place all our properties within walking distance, thus providing a permanent downtown campus that will allow us to reach our 2030 goal of 350 students.
Presidential Partners Scholarship Fund
Goal: $4,500,000
To educate a student at NEBC costs $50,000 a year plus an additional $3,000 a year for housing. However, most students cannot afford this without going into significant debt. If a four-year bachelor’s degree student funds their education through student loans, they will graduate with up to $120,000 in debt.
Considering the high interest rate of student loans, the student will be indebted for many years after graduation. While this scenario is common these days, we believe it is not healthy. In addition, ministry students will be strongly hindered from entering the field the Lord has called them to, considering the low salaries of ministers.
This problem is compounded in the Northeast where most churches average less than 50 in attendance and cannot afford a full-time pastor. Therefore, NEBC has sought to enable our students to graduate debt free. This effort begins with the Presidential Partners Scholarship Fund.
By giving to this fund, donors can help us reduce the cost of tuition from $50,000 a year to $6,800, making it possible for more families to send their students to NEBC without incurring exorbitant student debt.
One of the most impactful ways to support NEBC is by providing scholarships to worthy students. Since its inception, the college has been committed to staying debt-free. We want students to receive a world class education without the encumbrance of student debt that hampers students once they graduate. Students that graduate with no debt can follow God’s call wherever He leads them without the financial burden of student debt. We have scholarships and programs available at NEBC which make getting an excellent education financially possible. Support of this important fund is crucial to our mission.
Complete Gray Allison Village Fund
Goal: $2,500,000
God is at work at Northeastern Baptist College. While the past years were difficult for everyone, the Lord continued to work at NEBC. The college received its largest incoming classes two years in a row. For the college to continue to grow and train more laborers for the Lord’s glory, NEBC must secure additional student housing. The great news is, that through the generous gift of one of our donors, the Lord has provided a property on which we can build additional housing. Our generous donors have also provided the funds to excavate the property, add utilities, a road into the property, parking areas, grass areas, and a walkway. The master plan includes nine duplexes, giving us eighteen new housing units. The duplexes allow us flexible housing options. Each unit could house a married couple or four single students. Completion of this project will more than triple our student housing capacity, allowing us to train more laborers for the Northeast harvest fields.
Overall, the Father has provided $2,379,229 through the generous donations of our faithful partners. $1,000,000 allowed us to complete the initial site work, which included property design, master plan development, building design, permitting, utilities, roadway, parking area, and walkways. The remaining $1,379,229 received to date, provided support for the material costs of six duplexes, including one building that will house a community laundry room and a small prayer chapel. There remains a need to fund three additional duplexes.
While inflation has been experienced on every front in recent months, building materials have increased dramatically. Our first three duplexes were adopted at $100,000 which provided the projected materials costs with a modest contingency buffer. Between January and March of 2021, the construction materials increased significantly causing the building expenses to climb to $150,000 per building. The next three buildings were adopted at this rate. In March of 2022 we experienced the most dramatic cost increase to date. Inflation has continued to slowly climb since that dramatic increase. In April of 2023 we ran a new cost analysis, and each of the remaining three buildings will cost $400,000 to complete.
We have one completed two buildings which are currently housing students, and two more buildings scheduled for occupancy by the beginning January to house incoming spring students. While we were able to pre-purchase some of the materials for the houses being finished, we will need $1,800,000 to make up the cost difference for the first six buildings adopted at the lower rates, prior to when the inflation of material costs rapidly grew.
Purchase and Renovate Downtown Campus $7,000,000
The downtown corridor of Bennington, Vermont has always been our goal for expansion as timing and available property presented opportunities for our future mission. Currently, Northeastern Baptist College owns three properties within a quarter of a mile of one another. Jehovah Jireh Hall is on Main Street and provides dormitory housing for freshmen and single students. Just around the corner on Ed Wright Way, our new Gray Allison apartment Village provides housing for upperclassmen and married students. Right in the middle of both housing venues exists The Hogue Center which contains our library, cafe, and classrooms. The Lord is opening a door for us to purchase a property with over 50,000 square feet of educational space within walking distance of our other downtown properties. This property acquisition, along with another potential property for more student housing will allow NEBC to make a move to a permanent downtown campus that will support the rapid growth we are experiencing and support our goal of 350 students by 2030.
As Northeastern Baptist College looks forward to the future and the many changes that are before us, we do so with confidence that our mission has not changed. The mission of NEBC is more crucial today than ever before. The opportunities are challenging and unlimited. Our commitment is to train and encourage students for kingdom service. The next few years will be crucial to the future of Northeastern Baptist College.
NEBC has been able to maintain a strong base during the current climate of uncertainty on the heels of a national and worldwide pandemic. Our campus remains vibrant and robust. Because of academic growth, new challenges with virtual learning and technology and the need to support students financially, we have a great need to secure a strong financial base.
A message from Dr. Mark H. Ballard Northeastern Baptist College’s founding president.
As Northeastern Baptist College looks forward to the future and the many changes that are before us, we do so with confidence that our mission as a Christian institution of higher education has not changed. The mission of NEBC is more crucial today than ever before. The opportunities are challenging and unlimited.
Our commitment is to train and encourage students for kingdom service. The next few years will be crucial to the future of Northeastern Baptist College. NEBC has been able to maintain a strong base during the current climate of uncertainty on the heels of a national and worldwide pandemic. Our College community remains vibrant and robust. Because of academic growth, new challenges with virtual learning and technology and the need to support students financially, we have a need to secure a strong financial base. We have carefully and prayerfully determined that we must raise $14,000,000 in support during phase two
of the campaign, which will be used in the following ways:
- Reduce tuition costs through the Presidential Partners Scholarship Fund
- Completing the Gray Allison Village to meet the crucial housing needs of a growing college
- Purchasing and renovating a downtown campus
Thank you for taking the time to pray and consider how God would have you invest in Northeastern Baptist College’s future. Do you share our commitment to the Until Jesus Comes…Capital Campaign? We trust that you will partner with us in this strategic initiative. Now is the time for you to join with us in providing the necessary resources to fulfill our mission Until Jesus Comes.
In Him,
Dr. Mark Ballard
President, NEBC