Giving Machines

[Amulek]

59 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

It would be interesting to find out how many goats could have been purchased by what it costs to manufacture and maintain each machine.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be enough to satisfy a determined critic. 

 

[Amulek]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I think it is healthy and important for people to be honestly self critical of the groups that they are a part of, and to try and understand and envision the ways in which things can be better.

Well, let's take an honest look at what the church as done then.

The church has, of its own volition, created and paid for a mechanism to facilitate donations to various charities which we have partnered with - charities like CARE and UNICEF which have proven track records for doing good.

And, in addition to creating and maintaining these vending machines, the church has agreed to essentially match somewhere between 10 - 20 % of all donations given (i.e., by covering the portion of your donation that normally would have been allocated to overhead costs by the receiving charity) so that 100% of the money donated through the kiosks will be spent on helping people in need.

In any normal world, people would look at such a venture and think, 'Hey, that's awesome!'

But that isn't the world we live in.

No, instead, we live in a world where "honest[] self criticism" leads critics to complain about a program designed expressly to help the poor and needy. 

Give it a rest HFT. Otherwise you might find it hard to get any sleep come Monday night - what with all of those ghosts of Christmas who will be showing up. 

 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Amulek

[HappyJackWagon]

51 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But I asked what you personally would like the charity to do when the goat has already been purchased but the need no longer exists.  That's the question you haven't answered.  

But who said anything about an extra 20,000 goats?  What if the church accidentally sold 5 or 2 extra goats?  With so many people donating constantly, that would be really easy to do.  What would personally like the church to do with the donated money in a case like that? 

I would be very surprised that the goat need was full met. So I don’t really believe there would be an “extra” or unnecessary goat. I would be shocked to learn that the charity had no way to put that goat to a good, charitable purpose. So small scale, I believe the goats can bless someone’s life even if they exceeded the goal for goat collection. But keep in mind, these goats (cards in vending machines) are finite and they are managed and tracked. If you need 1000 goats, stock the machines with 1000 goat cards. Pretty easy. If an error of 1-2 goats happens , no big deal. I’m quite confident there are 2 other people who could use a goat. 

 

On on a large scale it would be more problematic. IF somehow they collected an extra 20,000 goats that truly weren’t needed then I would question the charity’s process as that would show a massive level of ineptitude

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I would be very surprised that the goat need was full met. So I don’t really believe there would be an “extra” or unnecessary goat. I would be shocked to learn that the charity had no way to put that goat to a good, charitable purpose. So small scale, I believe the goats can bless someone’s life even if they exceeded the goal for goat collection. But keep in mind, these goats (cards in vending machines) are finite and they are managed and tracked. If you need 1000 goats, stock the machines with 1000 goat cards. Pretty easy. If an error of 1-2 goats happens , no big deal. I’m quite confident there are 2 other people who could use a goat. 

 

On on a large scale it would be more problematic. IF somehow they collected an extra 20,000 goats that truly weren’t needed then I would question the charity’s process as that would show a massive level of ineptitude

Could you answer my question though?  If a goat was bought that ended up not being needed, what would you like the charity to do with that money?

Edited December 20, 2018 by bluebell

[hope_for_things]

44 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Well, let's take an honest look at what the church as done then.

The church has, of its own volition, created and paid for a mechanism to facilitate donations to various charities which we have partnered with - charities like CARE and UNICEF which have proven track records for doing good.

And, in addition to creating and maintaining these vending machines, the church has agreed to essentially match somewhere between 10 - 20 % of all donations given (i.e., by covering the portion of your donation that normally would have been allocated to overhead costs by the receiving charity) so that 100% of the money donated through the kiosks will be spent on helping people in need.

In any normal world, people would look at such a venture and think, 'Hey, that's awesome!'

But that isn't the world we live in.

No, instead, we live in a world where "honest[] self criticism" leads critics to complain about a program designed expressly to help the poor and needy. 

Give it a rest HFT. Otherwise you might find it hard to get any sleep come Monday night - what with all of those ghosts of Christmas who will be showing up. 

I am looking forward to Christmas, for sure.  I would like to just trust the marketing for what this program is supposedly contributing and trust that its being managed properly.  But rather than just blind faith alone, I would prefer to have verification and controls in place to keep large institutions honest.  Human nature still exists last time I checked. 

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

I've got a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be enough to satisfy a determined critic. 

 

I suppose that depends on whether or not the 'critic' was being critical of an institution or just the methods it was using to raise funds. If I am being critical at all here, which I don't think I am, it is merely to ask if more money is being spent than is being raised. I suppose I do have a bit of a hang up when it comes to fund raising since I have been through hundreds of them on a personal level. As the kids were growing up it was not uncommon to have all of them involved in multiple fund raising events at the same time. School fund raiser, sports team fund raisers, scout camp & eagle project fund raisers and so on. Add to that the fact we would also get requests from many others to donate or participate in their fund raisers and it quickly got overwhelming at times. So one question I quickly learned to ask was did the organizers have any idea of how much they were spending and how much they thought they would raise.

 

So while I realize that the church is covering all the expenses, given the quality of these vending type machines, I don't think it is unfair to ask if they are spending more on the costs of the machines then they are raising.

 

Side note: To me the most irritating and worthless fundraises were the ones the elementary schools use to do where they would get the kids all excited about the prizes they could win by just selling magazine subscriptions, or wrapping paper, or some other product which had to be delivered later on to their friends, families and neighbors. The prizes were worthless junk toys and it took a lot of time and effort to go around with your kid collecting money and turning in the money for the magazine subscriptions that no one really wanted anyways. Or worse, having to go back to those same people later on to deliver the product. Huge time investment for very little reward.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I hadn't heard about the latest Trump controversy with the IRS, that does sound unfortunate.  However, I'm not personally familiar enough with the current IRS rules and governance of those rules to know whether those rules would even address all the potential concerns about how much of the money goes to people in need.  

The fact that churches are exempt from reporting in the same way as other charitable organizations is what makes this so difficult.  I have made many comments about how I think this should change in the future, and how I would like to see the USA follow the lead of other developed countries that require more financial transparency from religions.  

I agree.  Transparency is good, and some countries force the LDS Church to make detailed reports.

[HappyJackWagon]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Could you answer my question though?  If a goat was bought that ended up not being needed, what would you like the charity to do with that money?

I’ve answered multiple times. Your hypothetical question requires that a charity that specializes in giving goats to needy people can’t find anyone who needs a goat. It’s ridiculous. 

If that charity is so inept that it can’t perform its mission in placing 1 additional goat it should shut down and return the money to the donor so that he can donate elsewhere. 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, CA Steve said:

It would be interesting to find out how many goats could have been purchased by what it costs to manufacture and maintain each machine.

 

 

This would be part of the overhead that comes out of church funding, not donations. 

---

the Church does not have to cover overhead costs so that every humanitarian dollar donated goes eventually to a charitable need.  It would be much easier for them to just claim those as necessary costs than legal shuffling of money around or even juggling the books.  To then make an assumption of possible guilt without evidence seems far fetched to me. (Not saying Steve is doing that, soeakingvof yhose who go there)

Edited December 20, 2018 by Calm

[bluebell]

31 minutes ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I’ve answered multiple times. Your hypothetical question requires that a charity that specializes in giving goats to needy people can’t find anyone who needs a goat. It’s ridiculous. 

If that charity is so inept that it can’t perform its mission in placing 1 additional goat it should shut down and return the money to the donor so that he can donate elsewhere. 

I don't find the question any more ridiculous than your criticisms (i think the question actually exposes the ridiculousness of your criticisms actually) but if you don't want to answer that's fine. 

[CA Steve]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

This would be part of the overhead that comes out of church funding, not donations. 

---

the Church does not have to cover overhead costs so that every humanitarian dollar donated goes eventually to a charitable need.  It would be much easier for them to just claim those as necessary costs than legal shuffling of money around or even juggling the books.  To then make an assumption of possible guilt without evidence seems far fetched to me. 

What assumptions of what guilt are you talking about? There is a whole lot of "defend the church" going on here without considering that my question may have nothing to do with the church acting badly and everything to do with setting up an inefficient system of fund raising.

I am merely asking if the amount of money being spent to set up and maintain this system to collect donations exceeds what its potential to collect might be? If the answer is that it collects far more than it costs, then that is a good thing and they should continue to do it. If the answer is it cost more to set up and maintain than it collects, regardless of who covers what costs, then it would a poor way of collecting donations and should be abandoned or revised. And If the answer is we don't know, then the question is a legitimate one to ask until we do.

Edited December 20, 2018 by CA Steve

[Calm]

12 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I would be very surprised that the goat need was full met. So I don’t really believe there would be an “extra” or unnecessary goat. I would be shocked to learn that the charity had no way to put that goat to a good, charitable purpose. So small scale, I believe the goats can bless someone’s life even if they exceeded the goal for goat collection. But keep in mind, these goats (cards in vending machines) are finite and they are managed and tracked. If you need 1000 goats, stock the machines with 1000 goat cards. Pretty easy. If an error of 1-2 goats happens , no big deal. I’m quite confident there are 2 other people who could use a goat. 

 

On on a large scale it would be more problematic. IF somehow they collected an extra 20,000 goats that truly weren’t needed then I would question the charity’s process as that would show a massive level of ineptitude

I highly doubt the price of a goat is consistent over location and time.  They aren't likely to be buying from one place and shipping goats all over the world.  They can't control for deaths among the goats either.  Needs go up and down depending on movements of the population, births and deaths, etc.  This may amount to a significant difference between actual prices depending on where they intend to give them (donation is likely an average, but there is no reason to assume in a specific time period it will average out).

Also There is a big difference in tracking money available to purchase goats and tracking the goats themselves, plus it is not the Church that is tracking goats but the organization the Church is working through, so having the Church take the info and then have that kept track of in the vending machines would likely be several extra steps, each costing time and money that could be spent on actually material goods for those in need.

The vendors of the goats themselves may be local villagers who don't have computer programs tracking their goats.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Calm

[HappyJackWagon]

14 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't find the question any more ridiculous than your criticisms (i think the question actually exposes the ridiculousness of your criticisms actually) but if you don't want to answer that's fine. 

Bluebell, 

I’ve now answered you 3 times. I don’t know what you want. I’m starting to think you’re trolling me here 😂

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

It might be an exercise into the tribal mindset as well.  

An intellectually lazy response, lacking in any self-awareness. And these are the people who keep labelling faithful Saints as blindly obedient dullards, as evidenced, apparently, by our unwillingness to get our knickers in a wad over their neverending and thoroughly sophomoric ‘criticisms‘. 

Keep it up, mate! This thread has been the perfect opportunity for any lurkers or fencesitters to gauge the quality and integrity of the critical agenda. 

[Calm]

11 hours ago, CA Steve said:

I suppose that depends on whether or not the 'critic' was being critical of an institution or just the methods it was using to raise funds. If I am being critical at all here, which I don't think I am, it is merely to ask if more money is being spent than is being raised. I suppose I do have a bit of a hang up when it comes to fund raising since I have been through hundreds of them on a personal level. As the kids were growing up it was not uncommon to have all of them involved in multiple fund raising events at the same time. School fund raiser, sports team fund raisers, scout camp & eagle project fund raisers and so on. Add to that the fact we would also get requests from many others to donate or participate in their fund raisers and it quickly got overwhelming at times. So one question I quickly learned to ask was did the organizers have any idea of how much they were spending and how much they thought they would raise.

 

So while I realize that the church is covering all the expenses, given the quality of these vending type machines, I don't think it is unfair to ask if they are spending more on the costs of the machines then they are raising.

 

S

I had friends who went to vending machines rather than a brick store because just three or four gave them more profit. So my impression is not a lot of cost compared to what they raise, and they likely can be used for years or even decades with just a basic repaint  However, that is just a guess on my part and can’t do research right now. 

Add-on:  Looks like Amulek did a great job below, so I don't have to in order to support my opinion...

Edited December 21, 2018 by Calm

[Amulek]

38 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

So while I realize that the church is covering all the expenses, given the quality of these vending type machines, I don't think it is unfair to ask if they are spending more on the costs of the machines then they are raising.

From the article, here's a sampling of what has been collected this year:

        • Livestock/animals (goats, cows, chickens): $517,023
        • Meals: $207,974
        • Sewing machines: $75,465
        • Water bottles: $53,150
        • Polio vaccines: $35,986
 

So that comes out to $889,598. And those are just the most popular categories.

There are only 5 vending machine locations, so you're looking at around 5 - 8 of the charity vending machines (since, from the pictures, some places appear to have more than one machine) plus maybe a couple more regular machines added in for good measure to account for locations where they have staged a taking machine next to a giving machine. 

So you're probably talking about a dozen machines max. 

A quick google search reveals that a new snack machine goes for around three grand - assuming, of course, that the church is actually buying them new instead of (what is much more likely the case, at least in my view) recycling machines already owned from any number of church properties (e.g., BYU).

Then it's just a matter of painting and modding them to look and function how you like.

Assume that they then spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 modifying all of the giving machines; and for the sake of argument assume that none of the labor / parts / etc. were donated. In that scenario, your looking at roughly a $150K investment generating about $900 in aid so far this year. And the ROI is even greater if you remember that they didn't just build them this year - most of the giving machines were built last year, so practically everything they are collecting this year is pure "profit."

I don't know about you, but that seems like an obviously successful program.

 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, CA Steve said:

What assumptions of what guilt are you talking about? There is a whole lot of "defend the church" going on here without considering that my question may have nothing to do with the church acting badly and everything to do with setting up an inefficient system of fund raising.

I am merely asking if the amount of money being spent to set up and maintain this system to collect donations exceeds what its potential to collect might be? If the answer is that it collects far more than it costs, then that is a good thing and they should continue to do it. If the answer is it cost more to set up and maintain than it collects, regardless of who covers what costs, then it would a poor way of collecting donations and should be abandoned or revised. And If the answer is we don't know, then the question is a legitimate one to ask until we do.

Sorry, I thought the line was sufficient to separate that thought from responding to you. Edited it to be clearer not talking about you. 

And it is potential guilt by which I mean those who focus primarily on how it can go wrong

Edited December 21, 2018 by Calm

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

Bluebell, 

I’ve now answered you 3 times. I don’t know what you want. I’m starting to think you’re trolling me here 😂

Maybe I missed it. Can you point to the post where you said what you would want the church to do with the money?

The only answer I’ve seen is “it’s a ridiculous question” which doesn’t actually answer the question.

[cdowis]

On 12/19/2018 at 12:54 AM, cinepro said:

If there's fine print that let's the Church use that money for other charitable purposes instead of actually buying a goat (say, shampooing the carpet in the Houston Temple after it's flooded), then we should just go back to calling ourselves "Mormons" because I'm not sure Jesus would want his name on a church that did that.

Not to worry.  The HUGE profits from the mall will easily pay for carpet shampoo.

If you have any doubts at all, just remember those famous words, "Let's go shopping."  That village is going to get its goat.

Edited December 25, 2018 by cdowis

[cdowis]

The main reason for the disclaimer is to avoid legal harassment  -- demanding detailed audits.

Trust the church leaders, and their lawyers.  👀

Edited December 25, 2018 by cdowis

[HappyJackWagon]

On ‎12‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:31 PM, bluebell said:

Maybe I missed it. Can you point to the post where you said what you would want the church to do with the money?

The only answer I’ve seen is “it’s a ridiculous question” which doesn’t actually answer the question.

I've said this in a few different ways, but here's one...

On ‎12‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 2:30 PM, HappyJackWagon said:

I’ve answered multiple times. Your hypothetical question requires that a charity that specializes in giving goats to needy people can’t find anyone who needs a goat. It’s ridiculous. 

If that charity is so inept that it can’t perform its mission in placing 1 additional goat it should shut down and return the money to the donor so that he can donate elsewhere. 

BTW- you've been asking the question about what the charity should do, and then you changed your question to what should the church do. That switcheroo doesn't bother me because the church is functioning as the charity, even if they are only the middle man (organization) that funnels money to the actual charity doing the work. So in this kind of case I view the church and the charity as synonymous.

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/20/2018 at 3:06 PM, Amulek said:

From the article, here's a sampling of what has been collected this year:

        • Livestock/animals (goats, cows, chickens): $517,023
        • Meals: $207,974
        • Sewing machines: $75,465
        • Water bottles: $53,150
        • Polio vaccines: $35,986
 

So that comes out to $889,598. And those are just the most popular categories.

There are only 5 vending machine locations, so you're looking at around 5 - 8 of the charity vending machines (since, from the pictures, some places appear to have more than one machine) plus maybe a couple more regular machines added in for good measure to account for locations where they have staged a taking machine next to a giving machine. 

So you're probably talking about a dozen machines max. 

A quick google search reveals that a new snack machine goes for around three grand - assuming, of course, that the church is actually buying them new instead of (what is much more likely the case, at least in my view) recycling machines already owned from any number of church properties (e.g., BYU).

Then it's just a matter of painting and modding them to look and function how you like.

Assume that they then spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 modifying all of the giving machines; and for the sake of argument assume that none of the labor / parts / etc. were donated. In that scenario, your looking at roughly a $150K investment generating about $900 in aid so far this year. And the ROI is even greater if you remember that they didn't just build them this year - most of the giving machines were built last year, so practically everything they are collecting this year is pure "profit."

I don't know about you, but that seems like an obviously successful program.

 

I wasn't in the loop this year, but I know from covering the story last year that they modified existing machines as opposed to having them made new.

 

[Kenngo1969]

On 12/20/2018 at 11:33 AM, bluebell said:

Could you answer my question though?  If a goat was bought that ended up not being needed, what would you like the charity to do with that money?

Bluebell, the charity said it was going to use the money to buy goats, so it should buy goats with the money, period, regardless whether those resources could be better expended meeting some other, more pressing need.

You're welcome.  Glad I could help.  Any time.

[Calm]

Rather than starting a new thread, I thought this would work as a related topic....BYU engineering students have created a new version of the village drill they were able to transport easily (back of a bus as well as luggage on the plane over) to be used in less accessible places.  Came across this on Dan Peterson's blog:

 

[Calm]

This is the older, larger version...still dang cool:

https://www.byu.edu/village-drill