 In 1928, he became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Voorhees Normal and Industrial School for Negroes at Denmark, South Carolina.By 1934, all but the two South Carolina dioceses afforded African Americans representation with a vote in diocesan affairs, and Finlay was working hard to change this; though the change was not approved in the 1934 diocesan convention, it was approved in the 1947 diocesan convention.Finlay was one of the church leaders instrumental in the creation of the Kanuga Conference Center in the late 1920s and early 1930s.