The Widow's Mite Website and Church Finances

[smac97]

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

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Is the Church really situated to improve administering relief, where an organization like the Red Cross, with 160 years of experience, seems to have substantial difficulty in getting it right?

It is part of our mission, and it is one of the primary purposes of tithing mentioned in the D&C, so I hope we are continuously working to improve administering relief. 

Quite so:

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The education of Latter-day Saints and the Church’s four divinely appointed responsibilities—helping members live the gospel of Jesus Christ, gathering Israel through missionary work, caring for the poor and needy, and enabling the salvation of the dead by building temples—account for the majority of Church expenditures and provide the spiritual backing for decision-making, said Bishop Caussé.

The Church has in place an excellent system in place for localized assistance (fast offerings).  These instances of help are comparatively small (money-wise), and are administered by "boots on the ground" bishops overseen by similarly "boots on the ground" stake presidents.  The bishop typically knows the individual, knows their circumstances, and proceeds accordingly.

Things get a bit more hairy when it comes to international aid.  

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

We have man-power that the RED Cross can't touch. 

Um, are you sure?  Manpower with the requisite skill sets, experience, local connections, familiarity with local laws and customs, etc.?

Missionary work is one thing.  Systematized humanitarian outreach and logistical efforts are quite another.

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

We have funds that the Red Cross cant touch. 

Yes, the Church has the resources.  But the stewardship of those funds is an important thing.  Vetting philanthropic/humanitarian partners and initiatives is an important thing.  Oversight and accountability for actual distribution of food, water, clothing, medical supplies, building materials, etc. on an international scale requires more than just deep pockets. 

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

We have the doctrinal prerogative and a determined will from the membership.

"The membership" is doing well by their faithful tithes and offerings.  But Sister Jones in Herriman, Utah is not particularly well-situated to help with water wells in Nigeria or Mongolia.

I would like to better understand the Church's reasoning for having senior missionaries pay their own way.  My parents served their last mission in Zimbabwe, which was extraordinarily expensive for them.  Perhaps the Church could improve things by helping more senior missionaries/couples on the financial side, which would allow "the membership" to be projected across the world more.

That said, I'm not sure how scalable such an initiative would be.  Senior missionaries may well have a "determined will," but do they have the organizational and administrative skills needed to set up and maintain an effective humanitarian program?  Do they have a mastery of the local language, laws, customs, social structures, interactions with the Powers-that-Be, etc.?  And even if we can send out a competent and effective married couple, they will only be out for 2 years or so.  Then what?  Will their replacements have the same or similar skill sets and experience?  If not, then what happens to the humanitarian program?  Does it crash and burn?

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

It would certainly require a significant effort - but what good thing doesn't require effort.  The struggle and effort is not an excuse not to engage in a good and doctrinal cause that is directly tied to our four-fold mission of the church.  

I don't think the Church and its members have ever been accused of not being willing to put forth "effort."  We are full to overflowing with "good intentions," which by themselves are, unfortunately, the paving bricks for the path to . . .

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think the Church and its members have ever been accused of not being willing to put forth "effort."  We are full to overflowing with "good intentions," which by themselves are, unfortunately, the paving bricks for the path to . . .

Well dude you seem to be trying pretty hard to make a do nothing argument.  I liked @pogis thread on how the church could start doing more to bless humanity.  I think the church should hire Pogi to create a strategic plan for this. 😁  But again, the church has massive resources and the funds to do this and do it right.

[smac97]

43 minutes ago, ttribe said:

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I'm reasonably confident that Mr. Larson and his fellow beancounters' report is based on their broad access to the Church's actual finances, as opposed to the guesswork based on the mélange of piecemeal evidences used by the Widow's Mite folks.

Should I start referring to you as an "ambulance chaser" or "blood-sucking lawyer?"

Bean Counter: "a person, typically an accountant or bureaucrat, perceived as placing excessive emphasis on controlling expenditure and budgets."

Is this viewed by accountants as a pejorative?  If so, I honestly had no idea.

From Grammarist:

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Is Bean Counter Offensive?

The term bean counter is not supposed to be offensive. However, I can see how you could use it in a derogatory way to poke fun at someone who needs to lighten up and stop worrying about money or to belittle someone who is boring and works with numbers.

But I know a few accountants who have embraced the term as a badge of honor and even refer to themselves as bean counters.

That last paragraph reflects my experience.  Years ago I was in a bishopric with an accountant, and we frequently exchanges accountant jokes and lawyer jokes.

His favorite: "What is the difference between 'regular' roadkill and 'lawyer' roadkill?"  "There might be skidmarks in front of 'regular' roadkill."

My favorite: "What is the difference between an 'introvert' accountant and an 'extrovert' accountant?"  "The 'extrovert' accountant will look at your shoes, rather than his, when speaking to you."

 

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Well dude you seem to be trying pretty hard to make a do nothing argument. 

I am not.  I reject the charge.

7 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I liked @pogis thread on how the church could start doing more to bless humanity.  I think the church should hire Pogi to create a strategic plan for this. 😁  But again, the church has massive resources and the funds to do this and do it right.

Okay.  I guess we need to tweak the lyrics to that old Beatles song:

{Moolah}, {Moolah}, {Moolah}
{Moolah}, {Moolah}, {Moolah}
{Moolah}, {Moolah}, {Moolah}

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy

All you need is {Moolah}
All you need is {Moolah}
All you need is {Moolah}, {Moolah}

{Moolah} is all you need

 

John and Paul had this all figured out years ago!

 

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

I am not.  I reject the charge.

Reject away. Your words though show that my comment is accurate.

[pogi]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quite so:

The Church has in place an excellent system in place for localized assistance (fast offerings).  These instances of help are comparatively small (money-wise), and are administered by "boots on the ground" bishops overseen by similarly "boots on the ground" stake presidents.  The bishop typically knows the individual, knows their circumstances, and proceeds accordingly.

Things get a bit more hairy when it comes to international aid.  

Um, are you sure?  Manpower with the requisite skill sets, experience, local connections, familiarity with local laws and customs, etc.?

Missionary work is one thing.  Systematized humanitarian outreach and logistical efforts are quite another.

Yes, the Church has the resources.  But the stewardship of those funds is an important thing.  Vetting philanthropic/humanitarian partners and initiatives is an important thing.  Oversight and accountability for actual distribution of food, water, clothing, medical supplies, building materials, etc. on an international scale requires more than just deep pockets. 

"The membership" is doing well by their faithful tithes and offerings.  But Sister Jones in Herriman, Utah is not particularly well-situated to help with water wells in Nigeria or Mongolia.

I would like to better understand the Church's reasoning for having senior missionaries pay their own way.  My parents served their last mission in Zimbabwe, which was extraordinarily expensive for them.  Perhaps the Church could improve things by helping more senior missionaries/couples on the financial side, which would allow "the membership" to be projected across the world more.

That said, I'm not sure how scalable such an initiative would be.  Senior missionaries may well have a "determined will," but do they have the organizational and administrative skills needed to set up and maintain an effective humanitarian program?  Do they have a mastery of the local language, laws, customs, social structures, interactions with the Powers-that-Be, etc.?  And even if we can send out a competent and effective married couple, they will only be out for 2 years or so.  Then what?  Will their replacements have the same or similar skill sets and experience?  If not, then what happens to the humanitarian program?  Does it crash and burn?

I don't think the Church and its members have ever been accused of not being willing to put forth "effort."  We are full to overflowing with "good intentions," which by themselves are, unfortunately, the paving bricks for the path to . . .

Thanks,

-Smac

Joseph Smith started this church with zero resources and man power and zero know-how.  Look at us now.   Lots of struggles and failures along the way.   We knew that would happen.  That didn’t stop us.  I, for one, have faith that God would direct the church in fulfilling its mission. If you don’t start somewhere nothing gets done.  Excuses don’t get anything done.   The alternative is that we sit on our thumbs with hundreds of billions complaining that it is too hard to help others and improve our efforts to fulfill our stated mission.

It doesn’t have to just be senior missionaries.  We have younger service missionaries too, and we can certainly improve those efforts too.   Plus we have local members across the globe who have untapped skills, knowledge and experience.  There could be much more local callings for that effort.   We are highly organized and efficient when we need to be.  Look at our disaster response efforts.  That doesn’t happen without effort.   The church could invest in and build a humanitarian entity (like it did with the EPA), and hire vetted professionals (again like the EPA) to implement and direct these efforts and be involved in vetting partners.  It doesn’t all have to be volunteer work.  It think we have enough money to hire an impressive team.  We could easily expand the educational loan programs and diversify those efforts to include other small, low interest rate loan programs for small businesses/entrepreneurs in developing countries, teaching business skills/principles and self-reliance principles.  We could be doing SO much more.  

Edited March 10, 2023 by pogi

[ttribe]

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Bean Counter: "a person, typically an accountant or bureaucrat, perceived as placing excessive emphasis on controlling expenditure and budgets."

Is this viewed by accountants as a pejorative?  If so, I honestly had no idea.

From Grammarist:

That last paragraph reflects my experience.  Years ago I was in a bishopric with an accountant, and we frequently exchanges accountant jokes and lawyer jokes.

His favorite: "What is the difference between 'regular' roadkill and 'lawyer' roadkill?"  "There might be skidmarks in front of 'regular' roadkill."

My favorite: "What is the difference between an 'introvert' accountant and an 'extrovert' accountant?"  "The 'extrovert' accountant will look at your shoes, rather than his, when speaking to you."

 

Thanks,

-Smac

That's all well and good between you and a friend, as it were, but it diminishes the professionalism of the people you are referring to in this instance. I suspect nearly every single one of the members of the Internal Audit Department have at least the equivalent of a Master's degree as well as one or more professional credentials which require a great deal of work to obtain. They've put in thousands of hours in their profession. If they are CPAs, they are required to have at least 80 hours of continuing education every two years. You've already demonstrated elsewhere you have little or no understanding what auditors do, but that does not give you license to trivialize their achievements or their work. I think, on the whole, the Church's Internal Audit Department deals with a near herculean task of staying on top of compliance, accounting, and fraud prevention/detection issues and does a pretty good job. If they are like nearly every large company into which I've had the occasion to look behind the scenes, their department is probably starved for resources and their work undervalued except when it comes to their one-page report that is public-facing. The Church's Internal Audit Department also operates under a less than ideal situation given that it has no independent oversight board to report; having to report to the First Presidency which, as we've seen in the SEC matter, can put them in the unenviable situation of criticizing their own bosses (not to mention the ecclesiastical mine field that presents).

[Tacenda]

53 minutes ago, pogi said:

Joseph Smith started this church with zero resources and man power.  Look at us now.  I, for one, have faith that God would direct the church in fulfilling its mission. If you don’t start somewhere nothing gets done.  Excuses don’t get anything done.   The alternative is that we sit on our thumbs with hundreds of billions complaining that it is too hard to help others and improve our efforts to fulfill our stated mission.

It doesn’t have to just be senior missionaries.  We have younger service missionaries too, and we can certainly improve those efforts too.   Plus we have local members across the globe who have untapped skills, knowledge and experience.  There could be much more local callings for that effort.   We are highly organized and efficient when we need to be.  Look at our disaster response efforts.  That doesn’t happen without effort.   The church could invest in and build a humanitarian entity (like it did with the EPA), and hire vetted professionals (again like the EPA) to implement and direct these efforts and be involved in vetting partners.  It doesn’t all have to be volunteer work.  It think we have enough money to hire an impressive team.  We could easily expand the educational loan programs and diversify those efforts to include other small, low interest rate loan programs for small businesses/entrepreneurs in developing countries, teaching business skills/principles and self-reliance principles.  We could be doing SO much more.  

 

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

A couple paragraph "audit report" is not an audit report.  Not at all.  Even as a believing member I found it worthless. But I am a CPA. All the same it is essentially meaningless.  No look, I am not saying the internal auditors are not doing a good job.  Nor do I think there is intentional  financial malfeasance in the church leadership nor any by the employees who manage church finances. I just believe the church should be accountable and show what it takes in, what it spends and what its assets are. Especially to those who donate.  Always have felt this way.  That is it.

Got it.

Meanwhile, the "Widow's Mite" folks are doing essentially the same thing.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Given your lack of anything remotely close to expecting a church that requires 10% out of its member in order to get the highest ordinances for the highest reward in heaven I really don't put much stock into your seemingly becoming more indignant about the anonymity of the Widow's Mite people. 

I'm not indignant.  I was noting the irony of their failure to adhere to notions of "transparency" they expect in others.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Perosnally I do not like their anonymity nor lack of support for their high level data.

I neither like nor dislike it.  It doesn't move the needle much either way.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

I am sure they are fine auditors.  But they give you no data other than a perfunctory few paragraphs. You don't have any data to be confident in.  

I repose substantial (though not total) confidence in the Brethren.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

IT is not special pleading at all.  Your argument is flawed.  

Where you are trying to go with this line of argument is ludicrous. 

Not a valid comparison.

Oh.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Could be. But they don't ask for donations.  The church requires it to be considered in good standing. Big difference.

Not sure about that.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

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If we had indicia of profligate spending, waste, incompetence, malicious behavior, etc. in relation to the Church's finances, I think you would have a stronger point.  But we haven't, so you don't.

Well you really don't know for sure.  You have nothing to review to make that determination now do you? 

Actually, I do.  The Church is situated such that it has all sorts of eyes on it.  Many of its critics and detractors - some of which are still members of the Church - would love to catch the Church with its hand in the cookie jar.  Much of the newsworthiness of last week's story about the SEC fines arose from the story's rarity.  That the Church functions as well as it does under such close and adversarial scrutiny is, for me, pretty good evidence of a lack of "profligate spending, waste, incompetence, malicious behavior, etc."

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

But that said I agree as noted above.  My issue is not malfeasance.  Its accountability.

Nebulous terms like "transparency" and "accountability" from the critics of the Church don't clarify much.

Meanwhile, most of the observant Latter-day Saints (who, unlike most critics, actively tithe, and so have "skin in the game," and are more reasonably entitled to want "accountability") seem to be satisfied that the Church is accountable for its finances.  I commented on this back in 2021:

Quote

I {} think that most reasonably-informed members understand and appreciate that the Church is doing what it has been teaching us to do: live within its means, set aside reserve funds, plan for the future, etc.

I also think that most reasonably-informed members understand and appreciate that setting aside reserve funds and planning for the future does not mean simply stuffing money in a metaphorical mattress, but instead involves prudent use and investment of such funds.  The Parable of the Talents not only lauds such prudent use by the "good and faithful servant{s}," but also condemns the servant who buried the talent given to him and did nothing with it.

I also think that most reasonably-informed members understand and appreciate that the people who have access to and control over the Church's finances have put in place numerous safeguards, oversights, checks and balances, etc. so as to reduce the risk of misuse of such funds.  We have the Council on the Disposition of Tithes, the Budget Committee, the Appropriations Committee, the Church Budget Office, the Church Audit Committee, and more.  We get annual reports from the Audit Committee.  Moreover, we see the beautiful temples, the tens of thousands of missionaries, the thousands of church buildings, the Church's humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, the canneries and storehouses, Welfare Square, Humanitarian Square, and so on.

I also think that most reasonably-informed members understand and appreciate that the Brethren are not getting rich.  Their living allowances are static, uniform and fairly modest given the amount of work they do, the skills involved, and the alternatives available to so many of them.

I know you don't think any of this has any probative weight or value.  What I don't understand is why.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

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The first paragraph has been part of my speculation for quite a while now: "Church investments may be growing faster than the Church's ability to to give away a meaningful portion in humanitarian aid."  In other words, the Church cannot, on its own, deploy its resources on the tremendous scales involved when speaking of such vast sums of money.  It must, instead, work with various philanthropic and humanitarian groups.  That seems like a great thing, but those groups need to be vetted.  Heavily vetted.  Problems with such groups are, unfortunately, legion:

Yes on this we agree.  Managing proper deployment of large amounts of funds is very hard. Yet it can be done. The Gates foundation does it.

Right.  And how has that been going for them, BTW?

Why Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Has So Many Public Health Critics

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As a February 19, 2016 article in Britain’s The Independent eloquently put it, “They are among the richest people on earth, have won plaudits for their fight to eradicate some of the world’s deadliest and prolific killers, and donated billions to better educate and feed the poorest on the planet.”

However, it is the Gates Foundation’s methods of philanthropy that have been questioned by many. Vociferous critics in academia and the media have not been kind to the Foundation recently. A British academic and former World Health Organization adviser even said Bill Gates is "playing God" in the Third World.
...
One of the more provocative works available is the book No Such Thing As a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey. Perhaps a headline for a review by Andy Beckett in Britain’s The Guardian in fall 2015 sums things up well by asking, “Is his vast charity empire changing the world for the better? Or is Bill Gates playing God?”  Ms. McGoey is a former adviser to the World Health Organization and a sociology lecturer at the University of Essex in Great Britain.

Ms. McGoey writes that Bill Gates practices “philanthrocapitalism,” The author argues how Mr. Gates and some private donors play “an outsized role in national and global policy-making, wishing to 'revolutionize the last realm untouched by the hyper-competitive, profit-oriented world of financial capitalism: the world of charitable giving.' ”

The book chronicles negative factors about the Gates Foundation and its tackling of global health problems. “The foundation favors ambitious vaccines and disease eradication programs,” the Guardian review says. “A persuasive array of health professionals cited by McGoey say these are squeezing out cheaper, quicker solutions. She also criticizes the foundation’s choice of collaborators: not just farmers and small businessmen in poor countries but Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola, Monsanto and Rupert Murdoch. Too much of the foundation’s money and activity, she argues, stays in the west.”

How Bill Gates Makes the World Worse Off (emphases added) :

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The Foundation was established in 2000 as a result of the amalgamation of two earlier smaller foundations that had been set up by Bill Gates in the ‘90s. So it was set up with a lot of fanfare in the year 2000. And the big announcement that Bill and now former wife Melinda made at the time was that not enough was being done to try to ensure improved outcomes in three main areas: global development, global health, and U.S. education, mostly at the primary and secondary level. They said that was where their foundation was going to devote its resources. Having traveled the world, they argued that these were areas that they could make a major difference in, to try to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots at the global level. And I think this is a very important thing to understand.

You could argue that addressing gaps like that at the globe level was easier than trying to solve things domestically, where you actually had to engage a bit more explicitly with things like universal health care, which would be one of the best things to ensure a closing of gaps when it comes to livelihoods in the United States. But, of course, they never really wanted to do that, because they’ve never been in favor of things like universal health care programs. They’ve never once advocated for that when it comes to U.S. policy. So they claimed they were trying to help people who had been left out globally.

And they had a bullish attitude to their ability to do so by harnessing the skills and the acumen of business people in ways that they argue had not been tried before in philanthropy. They said they were going to solve problems that no one had really tried to solve. Actually, many people had tried to solve these problems in the past. And they came up against major problems: global monopoly protections hindering access to antiretroviral medicines, for example, in Sub Saharan Africa, and low wages.

They decided that they were going to deliver a lot of grants and resources to combat these three main problems, and they had a fairly large endowment when they were set up in 2000. But then that endowment was essentially doubled on paper by Warren Buffett when he pledged to give the majority of his fortune accrued from Berkshire Hathaway to the Foundation. And that was a process that was to take place in incremental stages, but on paper it increased the Foundation size from about $30 billion to $60 billion. They started to attract a lot of attention as they gave a lot of money to places like the World Health Organization. At one point they were the second largest donor to the WHO behind the U.S. government. At the same time, the WHO budget is not that large. So the amounts that they were giving were peanuts in comparison to World Bank divestments toward global health initiatives.

So the Gates Foundation was rightly criticized for being this private actor playing a larger role than is really beneficial. But at the same time, they sometimes receive disproportionate praise for alleviating different health outcomes that had much more to do with, say, China’s overall economic growth, which led to an overall reduction in global under-5 childhood deaths, for example. Sometimes you would see a place like the Gates Foundation say things like, We did that. Well, what a joke. Of course they didn’t do that.

Bill Gates’s Philanthropic Giving Is a Racket

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The business press has observed how “Twenty years ago, people associated the name Gates with ‘ruthless, predatory’ monopolistic conduct.” However, “after taking a public relations beating during [the Microsoft antitrust] trial’s early going in late 1998, the company started what was described at the time as a ‘charm offensive’ aimed at improving its image . . . Mr. Gates contributed $20.3 billion, or 71 percent of his total contributions to the foundation . . . during the 18 months between the start of the trial and the verdict.” A wealth manager frankly states, “his philanthropy has helped ‘rebrand’ his name.”
...

{P}rivate charities, even on the scale reviewed here, are nowhere near able to independently pay for a country’s social needs, from housing the mentally ill to providing vaccines.

The foundations themselves recognize this, as when Patty Stonesifer, then chief of the Gates Foundation, said, “Our giving is a drop in the bucket compared to the government’s responsibility.” This was confirmed when the foundation committed $50 million to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. In contrast, the UN estimated the total cost of containing the outbreak at roughly $600 million.  Such amounts are within the reach of these modern foundations, but far beyond the kind of commitment they are known to make.  Of course, if the towering fortunes of today’s billionaires were socialized and put under some form of popular control, we could go much farther and have an actually robust global public health system, making testing quickly available on a nonprofit basis, and making epidemics less likely to break out in the first place.

 

The media loves the Gates Foundation. These experts are more skeptical.

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If you only ever read media coverage of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, you would assume everybody loves it.

In contrast to the scrutiny of, say, the Koch brothers' philanthropy, the Gateses' foray into global public health attracts mostly uncritical adulation. A sample headline: "Bill and Melinda Gates the most generous humans ever."

So it's surprising to wade into academic journals and find that many political scientists and development scholars are actually quite skeptical about the Gates Foundation's outsize impact on global health. In numerous papers over the past decade, researchers have raised concerns about the foundation's lack of transparency, its veto power over other global health institutions, and its spending priorities. Some experts worry that the Gateses’ health philanthropy has become too big to scrutinize.
...

The foundation's money has undeniably been a huge boon to global health efforts. But because the private organization is so wealthy and large, some researchers have argued that it wields a disproportionate influence on global health — with little accountability.

"You may have foundations with assets larger than almost 70 percent of the world’s nations making decisions about public policy and public priorities," Georgetown Public Policy Institute's Pablo Eisenberg told Nature, "without any public discussion or political process."

The Gates Foundation, global health and domination: a republican critique of transnational philanthropy

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Abstract

The turn of the twenty-first century witnessed a revival of interest in the role of philanthropy in the international system, especially in the fields of global poverty and health. Yet, despite an emergent critical literature in development studies and international studies, philanthropy has barely featured in the debate on global distributive justice. This article uses the republican conception of domination as an analytical framework to precisely articulate concerns of justice raised by transnational philanthropy. Using the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its role in global health as a test case, it argues that transnational philanthropy is characterized by an asymmetric distribution of power, which is sufficient to produce dependence, and that is uncontrolled insofar as its use either rests on the will of powerful agents or on terms of social cooperation beyond contestation. This arbitrary character is particularly relevant to philanthropy because of its use of epistemic power to produce and legitimize knowledge. In short, transnational philanthropy is dominating. If individuals have the right to exercise control over the social institutions that profoundly affect their basic interests, then philanthropy has a problem of justice that cannot be dismissed.

Why Are Indians So Angry at Bill Gates?

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This is not the first time the BMGF or Bill Gates has been at the receiving end of public anger in India. This latest outburst is part of constantly growing anger against Gates and his foundation in India. As early as April 2021, Gates received flak for expressing his reluctance about sharing COVID-19 vaccine technologies with developing countries like India. After severe public criticism in India and abroad, BMGF Chief Executive Officer Mark Suzman officially supported a temporary waiver on vaccine IP.

Gates has also been criticized by Indian farmer groups, who have been protesting on the border of the national capital New Delhi for six months. The farmers are protesting against controversial laws promoting privatization of agriculture passed by the Hindu nationalist government, and they see Gates as a supporter of such efforts. Dainik Jagran, one of the largest Hindi newspapers in the country, reported on June 8 that farmers burned an effigy of Bill Gates at one of the protest sites due to his support for the privatization of agriculture in India.
 

Critiques of Gates Foundation agricultural interventions in Africa

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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a major influencer and funder of agricultural development in Africa, with little accountability or transparency. Leading experts in food security and many groups in Africa and around the world have critiqued the foundation’s push to expand high-cost, high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture in Africa. Critics say this approach is exacerbating hunger, worsening inequality and entrenching corporate power in the world’s hungriest region.

Is the Gates Foundation Out of Control?

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With little oversight to mitigate a rich donor’s personal privilege, left out from this formula is the public’s interest. The scale of Gates’s generosity makes it hard to question his wisdom or his ethics. As Schwab writes, billions of dollars of grants annually have “created a blinding halo effect around his philanthropic work, as many of the institutions best placed to scrutinize his foundation are now funded by Gates, including academic think tanks that churn out uncritical reviews of its charitable efforts and news outlets that praise its giving or pass on investigating its influence.”

And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doesn’t just spend its own money. As much as 40 percent of a foundation’s assets represent funds that otherwise would have been collected by governments as income and estate taxes.
...
 

The Gates Foundation invests in advocating for public policies they believe to be important. These efforts also have the potential to be self-serving. Dating back to his Microsoft days, Gates strongly supports patent protections. It’s no surprise, then, that the Gates Foundation has worked to strengthen intellectual property rights—including those over patented pharmaceuticals. Schwab observes, “These patent protections are widely criticized for making lifesaving drugs prohibitively expensive, particularly in the developing world.”

In fact, James Love, the director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, highlights the fallacy that may underlie “creative capitalism” when he notes that Gates “gives so much money to [fight] poverty, and yet he’s the biggest obstacle on a lot of reforms.”

There’s also a lack of evidence that success in business translates into success in tackling big problems like wealth inequality, health, and education—all areas the Gates Foundation prioritizes. (NPQ has extensively covered the Gates Foundation’s inability to translate its personal approaches to solving problems into successful interventions.) Add to that the potential for serious conflicts of interest and misuse of tax-exempt funds, and we are left with serious questions about the current laissez-faire approach to foundations.

Report Slams Gates Foundation for Self-Serving Agenda, Corporate Ties

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In a 54-page report released Thursday, U.K. social advocacy group Global Justice Now slammed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for using its enormous giving-power to influence global health policies in the foundation's own interests. The report also claims the Gates Foundation often invests in the same health care and pharmaceutical companies it funds, creating “a corporate merry-go-round" that benefits corporations while undermining support for basic public health systems.

"The [foundation's] program is not a neutral, charitable strategy for which the world should be thankful that a rich man is deciding to spend his money on good causes," reads the report's introduction. "Analysis of the foundation's programs shows that it has an agenda—it is a specific ideological strategy that promotes neo-liberal economic policies, corporate globalization [and] the technology this brings, and a long outdated view of the centrality of 'aid' in helping the 'poor.'"

Among the report's allegations against the Gates Foundation:

• It provides a disproportionate amount of funding to health organizations in high-income countries, "exacerbating unequal research and development infrastructures between poor and rich regions." The report cites as an example the foundation's "overwhelming focus" on developing and promoting new vaccines at the expense of already-proven preventative measures for diseases that most affect poverty-stricken areas.
• Its projects are primarily "vertically funded interventions targeted at specific diseases or health problems" and do little to strengthen public health systems, leaving underdeveloped nations ill-equipped to combat the root causes of disease. The report backs this claim with comments from Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), who said in an interview with The New York Times that the WHO's budget is "driven by what I call donor interests." This limits the organization's ability to maintain fixed support staff "to build response systems" when there is no active health emergency. Adds the report: "The inference in Chan’s remarks is that the WHO, whose largest donor is [the Gates Foundation,] is unable to respond adequately to ebola and other disease outbreaks because donor interests prevent it from being able to build public health systems in developing countries.
• It "prioritizes support for corporations." The report notes that the Gates Foundation has funded a huge number of projects for major corporations—including Monsanto, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Coca-Cola—and that the corporations often stand to profit. According to the report, the foundation has owned or still owns shares in some of the corporations it funds. "The foundation is profiting from its investments in corporations which contribute to social and economic injustice," reads the report.

Perhaps the most troubling allegation, though, is one we've heard before—that the Gates Foundation, through massive donations and global influence, has effectively bought the silence of would-be critics. The Seattle Times addressed the issue in 2008:

“The danger isn’t in what people do tell you—it’s in what they don’t,” departing foundation CEO Patty Stonesifer warned in the 2007 annual report.

In other words, Stonesifer says, the Gates Foundation needs honest feedback and criticism to help it figure out how best to improve the health of the world’s poor, boost food production in Africa and improve schools in the U.S.

Honesty can be hard to come by, though, when you’re handing out staggering amounts of cash.

And some question how sincere the foundation is about listening to critics.

“They’re not really fostering tough debate,” said Pablo Eisenberg, a columnist for The Chronicle of Philanthropy and senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. “They have not solicited and gone after people who will tell them the truth.”

The Global Justice Now report reinforces those claims. It notes that the Gates Foundation has spent $1 billion on policy and advocacy, investing heavily in training programs for journalists at major media organizations, and funding research and articles in scientific journals. It also notes that the foundation supports a number of NGOs that "might otherwise be expected to criticize aspects of the foundation's agenda," but have been notably silent.

In other words, many of the organizations capable of holding the foundation accountable are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Truth About Bill Gates:

Quote

I would point out that under U.S. law, charitable foundations need to pay out 5 percent of their assets every year to maintain their tax-exempt status. But the assets of the Gates Foundation Trust are mostly in stock, including investments in some of the companies that contribute to the same problems the foundation is supposed to be fighting—and stock prices are not limited to a 5-percent annual return. In one year, I’d say, entirely apart from any actual donations, the value of the Foundation’s assets rose by nearly $10.5 billion. That’s more than three times the total net worth of Donald Trump. The Foundation is making far more money than it gives away, and all that income is completely tax-free. It’s a scam, I’d say, the biggest scam in the world. It’s a clever trick used by large amounts of money to maintain their size. And then the mood would turn glum, and at the end of the night all of us would return, feeling vaguely hollow and unfulfilled, to our small and squalid homes.
...
Today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the second-largest overall donor to the World Health Organization, supplying 10 percent of its annual budget, behind only the U.S. government. And unlike the U.S. government, the Foundation has a single voice. Gates essentially sets the agenda for international health policy; if he decides tomorrow that the most urgent problem we face is irritable bowel syndrome, the whole clunky mechanism of global governance will turn, slowly, ponderously, but with great weight, toward helping you have a nicer time on the toilet. Something like that is happening now. In Pakistan, villagers ask the people doling out vaccines: “What is polio? We’ve never seen it—why are we worried about it? Our children are dying of measles.” But the Gates Foundation wants to eliminate the last vestiges of polio, so that’s where the funding goes, and the NGOs with it.

Gates Foundation “dangerously skewing” development agenda according to new report

Quote

The enormous amount of money and influence controlled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is dangerously and unaccountably distorting the direction of international development according to a new report published today.

With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It is arguably the most influential actor on issues of global health and agriculture, and distributes more aid for global health than any government. But critics argue that this concentration of power is undemocratically and unaccountably skewing the direction of international development in a controversial direction. The report, Gated Development – Is the Gates Foundation always a force for good? argues that this could end up exacerbating global inequality and entrenching corporate power internationally.  

The influence of the foundation is all the more dangerous because numerous NGOs and agencies that are critical of many aspects of BMGF’s operations stay silent because of the money they are receiving from the programme.

Released at the same time that Bill Gates is promoting his brand of philanthrocapitalism at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the report raises a series criticisms including:

• The relationship between the money that the foundation has to give away and Microsoft’s tax practices. A 2012 report from the US Senate found that Microsoft’s use of offshore subsidiaries enabled it to avoid taxes of $4.5 billion – a sum greater than the BMGF’s annual grant making ($3.6 billion in 2014).
• The close relationship that BMGF has with many corporations whose role and policies contribute to ongoing poverty. Not only is BMGF profiting from numerous investments in a series of controversial companies which contribute to economic and social injustice, it is also actively supporting a series of those companies, including Monsanto, Dupont and Bayer through a variety of pro-corporate initiatives around the world.
• The foundation’s promotion of industrial agriculture across Africa, pushing for the adoption of GM, patented seed systems and chemical fertilisers, all of which undermine existing sustainable, small-scale farming that is providing the vast majority of food security across the continent.
• The foundation’s promotion of projects around the world pushing private healthcare and education. Numerous agencies have raised concerns that such projects exacerbate inequality and undermine the universal provision of such basic human necessities.
• BMGF’s funding of a series of vaccine programmes that have reportedly lead to illnesses or even deaths with little official or media scrutiny.

And on and on and on.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

So do many other large private foundations. 

Such as?

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

So what? 

That's what.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

JUst because there are bad actors out there doesn't mean they should take no action.

Nobody has suggested that the Church "should take no action."  More to the point, the Church is taking action.

Just not enough for its self-appointed critics, for whom the Church's efforts will never be enough.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Yes it is really hard to do. So what? 

I think before the Church elects to spend billions and billions of dollars, it ought to spend a lot of time and effort in sorting out the overall feasibility of its anticipated efforts.  "Best laid plans" and all that.

It can do that by, for example, examining how other "big players" have done.  You seemed to concede this, pointing to . . . Bill Gates.  And yet the accusations and criticisms against the Gates and their Foundation are extensive, such as

• they are "'playing God' in the Third World,"
• that their choices in expenditures necessarily results in "an outsized role in national and global policy-making,"
• that they have ulterior motives and conflicts of interest pertaining to things like "global monopoly protections,"
• that their philanthropy originated as a "charm offensive" to "rebrand" Bill's "image,"
• that they lack "transparency,"
• that they have an improper "veto power over other global health institutions,"
• that they have "a disproportionate influence on global health — with little accountability,"
• of being reluctant to share "COVID-19 vaccine technologies with developing countries,"
• for being "a major influencer and funder of agricultural development in Africa, with little accountability or transparency,"
• that they are "using its enormous giving-power to influence global health policies in the foundation's own interests,"
• that the Foundation "often invests in the same health care and pharmaceutical companies it funds, creating “a corporate merry-go-round" that benefits corporations while undermining support for basic public health systems,"
• that the Foundation "is not a neutral, charitable strategy for which the world should be thankful" and instead "has an agenda,"
• that they are focusing "on developing and promoting new vaccines at the expense of already-proven preventative measures for diseases that most affect poverty-stricken areas,"
• that their efforts "do little to strengthen public health systems, leaving underdeveloped nations ill-equipped to combat the root causes of disease," that the Foundation "through massive donations and global influence, has effectively bought the silence of would-be critics," and so on.

And then there's the endless second-guessing.  They are faulted for not pushing for "universal health care," for being a "private actor playing a larger role than is really beneficial," that these "towering fortunes" ought to be "socialized" (that is, seized by the State), that their "spending priorities" are wrong, that their "push to expand high-cost, high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture in Africa" is wrong, and so on.

I respectfully submit that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an important role to play, but that role is not primarily about it, as an institution, financially bankrolling efforts in ways similar to the Gates Foundation, or even the Red Cross.  I think such matters are necessarily outside the province of the institutional Church.  Should its members be involved in governmental and philanthropic efforts to improve the condition of the world and its inhabitants?  Certainly.  As individuals.  Should the institutional Church assist in such efforts?  Yes, but not as a Power Player (like Bill Gates), and not as an organization that is straying from its intended and appropriate mandates (as it would by trying to be like the Red Cross).  

If the Church were to alter course and start investing tens of billions of dollars in ways similar to Bill Gates, it would be susceptible to many of the same criticisms Bill Gates has received.  And many of those criticisms would be justified.  Mr. Gates is not an elected official.  He is making huge decisions for many, many people, and not due to any particular expertise or wisdom, but rather by dint of his having tremendous wealth and a willingness to spend it in ways he thinks best.  I think the rule and function of the Church is predominantly to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Candidly, I don't know that the Lord would bless the Church if it were to take on this sort of Social Crusader-style role.  That is not the intended purpose of the institution.  It can and must help its members and neighbors.  But it must also be a good and wise steward of its finances.  And it must also refrain from accruing to itself unseemly power or "influence."  But large-scale spending of tens of billions of dollars would necessarily result in the Church doing just that.

So I don't think the Church can, or ought, to "go big or go home."  It needs to take a prudent and cautious and self-determined path, one which involves both extensive humanitarian outreach and good financial decisions, and which decisions will need to be based on reasoning, evidence, "vetting," and so on, and which decisions should resist substantial social pressure to just throw money around because a bunch of self-appointed critics and faultfinders are demanding it.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Is that a good reason not to attempt to start finding ways to deploy some of these massive assets to help humanity?  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are more altruistic than the church is.

Gates and Buffet will be dead in a few years.  And it's their own money.  And more power to them.

The Church is intended to be perpetual.  And its members are in the millions.  And its leaders hold and oversee the money in trust as a fiduciary.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Again the church has the resources.  I don't think they should just start throwing money around but they can start a strategic plan on how to deploy some of their assets.

The Church has been on that trajectory.  For years.  From 2020:

Quote

“The people who say we’re not doing our part, that is just not true,” Bishop Waddell said. “We’re talking close to $1 billion in that welfare/humanitarian area on an annual basis. Yes, we are using our resources to bless the poor and the needy as well as all of the other responsibilities we have as a church.”

The figure includes all humanitarian and welfare expenditures, including fast offering aid.

The budget for humanitarian work “has gone up dramatically,” Bishop Waddell said.

In fact, Bishop Caussé added, humanitarian expenditures have doubled in the past five years.

“And we believe they are going to increase fast,” he said.

Increases in humanitarian and welfare spending are driven first by the contributions and volunteerism of church members, the bishops said. The other major factor is how quickly the church can ensure new avenues for precise giving. For example, Latter-day Saint Charities carefully and thoroughly assesses each partner. “The last thing you want to do is just give them money and then you really don’t know where it goes,” Bishop Davies said. “So we have both missionaries and area staff on the ground, feet on the ground, who actually are there, they can see that food’s being distributed, or equipment, or schools are being built as part of our program.”

 And yet here we are, finding fault.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Or do you simply think they should just continue to accumulate wealth.  You know, work towards becoming a trillion $ entity.

Are you still skinning puppies for and profit?  

(This is the part where we exchange barbed and baselessly loaded questions, right?)

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

I wonder how newer and less-established and less-credentialed NGOs and such would fare if the Church became sugar daddy to their efforts.  Risks of corruption, waste, incompetence, etc. would be pretty significant.

Why does the church need to be anyone's sugar daddy.

You tell me.  You are the advocating for it.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Good lord, for someone who claims to be a disciple of Christ, you know the one who said if you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me, you sure seem to find all sorts of excuses for your church, the self proclaimed Church of Jesus Christ, to just amass more and  more wealth and just let people suffer.

Right.  This is a fair and accurate summary of the work of the Church.  

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

Should the Church should just shrug and mindlessly throw huge amounts of money at groups like this?  No questions asked?  

Yea this is really a non sequitur.  

No, I don't think it is.  You are demonstrating why it's so easy to be a faultfinder, an armchair quarterback.  All you have to do is sit back and gripe at other people's efforts.

As of 2020, the Church had doubled its humanitarian spending over the past five years, spends $1 billion/year on humanitarian aid (which expenditures the Church anticipates "are going to increase fast"), spends $1.5 billion in subsidizing the education of 90,000 students, operates 27 wheat storage facilities and more than 100 bishops’ storehouses, funds nine refugee resettlement agencies in the United States, manages thousand and thousands of buildings and programs, and so on.

And yet you somehow find a way to characterize this organization as "to just amass more and  more wealth and just let people suffer."

There is no placating such relentless faultfinding.  

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

Is the Church really situated to improve administering relief, where an organization like the Red Cross, with 160 years of experience, seems to have substantial difficulty in getting it right?

Not yet. But it can be.

But I don't think it's supposed to be.  See above.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

I would love to see a logistical framework for the Church's resources to be put to more and good use. 

Well I am happy to hear that.

I don't think you understand my point.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

But proper stewardship requires proper oversight, and facilitating oversight creates bureaucracy and expense. 

Of course it does. I am not advocating the church just go out and start throwing billions around to whomever.  But start. Make a plan.

It has started.  It has a plan.  Nevertheless, you just publicly accused it of only planning "to just amass more and  more wealth and just let people suffer."

There is no satisfying such relentless backbiting.  Ever.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

 

So I think the Widow's Mite folks might need to be a bit more forthcoming in what they think the Church ought to do (which, ironically, is what Prof. Anderson said they aren't trying to do).  Setting up a website with nifty graphics outlining their critique of the Church is all well and good, but it also has a decent amount of "Armchair Quarterbacking" in it.  Do any of these folks have any experience in administering international aid programs on a scale commensurate with the Church's resources?  I suspect . . . not.  And yet they are quite free in offering unsolicited advice that pretty much boils down to "Show Us More!" and "Give Your Money Away!"

If the Widow's Mite folks were truly interested in assisting the Church to improve its humanitarian efforts, I would hope they would take a more constructive stance, as opposed to the barbed, "arm-twisting," "let's see if we can shame the Church into doing what we want it to" approach reflected in their website.

 

It seems to me the group is more trying to shed some light on church finances and ye advocate that the church do more to relieve human suffering than they do now. 

Yes.  Using a barbed, "arm-twisting," "let's see if we can shame the Church into doing what we want it to" approach.

I don't see this as a good faith attempt to assist the Church, but rather an attempt to embarrass it and alienate its members from it.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Do you really think the church can't do more and that doing more would be a good thing if done properly? 

Do I really think that people like you will ever credit the Church?  That you will ever find its efforts sufficient or worthwhile or admirable or praiseworthy?  

No.  No matter what the Church does, you will just shift the goalposts and demand "more."  Ever the nebulous "more."

I find it ironic that the critics of the Church endlessly lambast it for purportedly requiring perfection, only to then turn around and - as so many abusive jerks do - ignore its virtues and endlessly find fault with it and demand "more" of it.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

And guess what. The church leaders could do away with all this just by being open about their finances.

Transparency and expenditures are not the same thing.

And . . . baloney.  You and yours will never let the Church "do away" with the points you criticize.  You'll just shift the goalposts and continue to demand "more."

I am reminded of John 12:

Quote

1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

I am grateful that the Church is improving in its various efforts.  I am persuaded that these efforts are sincere.  And substantial.

I am less persuaded that the endless slew of deprecations and demands for "more" actually have much to do with concern about "the poor."  It's all about casting the Latter-day Saints in the worst possible light.  To wit, the claim that I or anyone else in the Church want it "to just amass more and  more wealth and just let people suffer."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 10, 2023 by smac97

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Quote

 

Quote

Well dude you seem to be trying pretty hard to make a do nothing argument. 

I am not.  I reject the charge.

 

Reject away. Your words though show that my comment is accurate.

Well, no.  See here.

Quote

The Church has been on that trajectory.  For years.  From 2020:

Quote

“The people who say we’re not doing our part, that is just not true,” Bishop Waddell said. “We’re talking close to $1 billion in that welfare/humanitarian area on an annual basis. Yes, we are using our resources to bless the poor and the needy as well as all of the other responsibilities we have as a church.”

The figure includes all humanitarian and welfare expenditures, including fast offering aid.

The budget for humanitarian work “has gone up dramatically,” Bishop Waddell said.

In fact, Bishop Caussé added, humanitarian expenditures have doubled in the past five years.

“And we believe they are going to increase fast,” he said.

Increases in humanitarian and welfare spending are driven first by the contributions and volunteerism of church members, the bishops said. The other major factor is how quickly the church can ensure new avenues for precise giving. For example, Latter-day Saint Charities carefully and thoroughly assesses each partner. “The last thing you want to do is just give them money and then you really don’t know where it goes,” Bishop Davies said. “So we have both missionaries and area staff on the ground, feet on the ground, who actually are there, they can see that food’s being distributed, or equipment, or schools are being built as part of our program.”

...

As of 2020, the Church had doubled its humanitarian spending over the past five years, spends $1 billion/year on humanitarian aid (which expenditures the Church anticipates "are going to increase fast"), spends $1.5 billion in subsidizing the education of 90,000 students, operates 27 wheat storage facilities and more than 100 bishops’ storehouses, funds nine refugee resettlement agencies in the United States, manages thousand and thousands of buildings and programs, and so on.
...
I would love to see a logistical framework for the Church's resources to be put to more and good use. 

Kinda hard to characterize this as me advocating that the Church "do nothing."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Smiley McGee]

3 hours ago, ttribe said:

That's all well and good between you and a friend, as it were, but it diminishes the professionalism of the people you are referring to in this instance.

Meh, it’s not that big of a deal. Even among bean counters, internal audit is kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of the profession. Lots of well credentialed and sharp internal auditors but you don’t go into IA looking to be respected; usually has good work-life balance. Could be worse…like being a worthless attorney. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Smiley McGee

[LoudmouthMormon]

3 hours ago, ttribe said:

That's all well and good between you and a friend, as it were, but it diminishes the professionalism of the people you are referring to in this instance. I suspect nearly every single one of the members of the Internal Audit Department have at least the equivalent of a Master's degree as well as one or more professional credentials which require a great deal of work to obtain. They've put in thousands of hours in their profession. If they are CPAs, they are required to have at least 80 hours of continuing education every two years. You've already demonstrated elsewhere you have little or no understanding what auditors do, but that does not give you license to trivialize their achievements or their work. I think, on the whole, the Church's Internal Audit Department deals with a near herculean task of staying on top of compliance, accounting, and fraud prevention/detection issues and does a pretty good job.

I'm a bean counter with an awful lot of years of experience in the private sector.  I've also been a ward finance clerk for over 5 years.  I'm not an auditor per se, but I am in my third decade of occasionally either getting audited or conducting audits of some form or another.  Almost the entirety of folks I've met in in the finance or business process community, have zero issues with the term beancounter.  I routinely introduce myself as one to new co-workers, so that they can immediately gain a rough understanding of what I do.  So, on behalf of all these professionals, @ttribe, I'd like to formally request that you get bent.  We don't want your silly being insulted on our behalf.  You may consider us a bunch of low humor easily offended weak kneed easily victimized sad sacks, but I'll have you know I've never once met a single one of me who has an issue with being called beancounter.

Our sense of self-effacing humor is legendary.  Here - I'll prove it:

Q: In any group of beancounters, how can you tell which one is the extrovert?
A: He'll be the one looking at someone else's shoes.

Now stop this nonsense before I crack wise a second time.

Edited March 10, 2023 by LoudmouthMormon

[The Nehor]

Just once I would like the Church Auditing Report to to include malfeasance or that Frank accidentally wired money to Bangladesh or that the Church has decided that fiat currency is worthless and invested all their money in Lego sets with the plan to trade vintage sets for things in the Millenium.

[smac97]

5 hours ago, pogi said:

Joseph Smith started this church with zero resources and man power.  Look at us now.   Lots of struggles and failures along the way.   We knew that would happen.  That didn’t stop us.  I, for one, have faith that God would direct the church in fulfilling its mission.

So do I.

I think where we part ways is the particulars of how the Church should be "fulfilling its mission{s}."  

5 hours ago, pogi said:

If you don’t start somewhere nothing gets done.  Excuses don’t get anything done.  

The Church is doing quite a bit now.

5 hours ago, pogi said:

The alternative is that we sit on our thumbs with hundreds of billions

We're into the "hundreds of billions now"?

5 hours ago, pogi said:

complaining that it is too hard to help others and improve our efforts to fulfill our stated mission.

I don't think you are understanding my point.  Again:

Quote

Yes, the Church has the resources.  But the stewardship of those funds is an important thing.  Vetting philanthropic/humanitarian partners and initiatives is an important thing.  Oversight and accountability for actual distribution of food, water, clothing, medical supplies, building materials, etc. on an international scale requires more than just deep pockets. 

I don't think you are addressing this.  Or this:

Quote

"The membership" is doing well by their faithful tithes and offerings.  But Sister Jones in Herriman, Utah is not particularly well-situated to help with water wells in Nigeria or Mongolia.

I don't think you are addressing this, either.  Or this:

Quote

I would like to better understand the Church's reasoning for having senior missionaries pay their own way.  My parents served their last mission in Zimbabwe, which was extraordinarily expensive for them.  Perhaps the Church could improve things by helping more senior missionaries/couples on the financial side, which would allow "the membership" to be projected across the world more.

That said, I'm not sure how scalable such an initiative would be.  Senior missionaries may well have a "determined will," but do they have the organizational and administrative skills needed to set up and maintain an effective humanitarian program?  Do they have a mastery of the local language, laws, customs, social structures, interactions with the Powers-that-Be, etc.?  And even if we can send out a competent and effective married couple, they will only be out for 2 years or so.  Then what?  Will their replacements have the same or similar skill sets and experience?  If not, then what happens to the humanitarian program?  Does it crash and burn?

I don't think the Church and its members have ever been accused of not being willing to put forth "effort."  We are full to overflowing with "good intentions," which by themselves are, unfortunately, the paving bricks for the path to . . .

Or this:

Quote

I respectfully submit that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an important role to play, but that role is not primarily about it, as an institution, financially bankrolling efforts in ways similar to the Gates Foundation, or even the Red Cross.  I think such matters are necessarily outside the province of the institutional Church.  Should its members be involved in governmental and philanthropic efforts to improve the condition of the world and its inhabitants?  Certainly.  As individuals.  Should the institutional Church assist in such efforts?  Yes, but not as a Power Player (like Bill Gates), and not as an organization that is straying from its intended and appropriate mandates (as it would by trying to be like the Red Cross).  

I think the Church is not supposed to play the role you seem to want it to play. 

Quote

If the Church were to alter course and start investing tens of billions of dollars in ways similar to Bill Gates, it would be susceptible to many of the same criticisms Bill Gates has received.  And many of those criticisms would be justified.  Mr. Gates is not an elected official.  He is making huge decisions for many, many people, and not due to any particular expertise or wisdom, but rather by dint of his having tremendous wealth and a willingness to spend it in ways he thinks best.  I think the rule and function of the Church is predominantly to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

I don't think the Church is situated to take on the role you want it to.  And again, I don't think it's supposed to take on that role.

Quote

Candidly, I don't know that the Lord would bless the Church if it were to take on this sort of Social Crusader-style role.  That is not the intended purpose of the institution.  It can and must help its members and neighbors.  But it must also be a good and wise steward of its finances.  And it must also refrain from accruing to itself unseemly power or "influence."  But large-scale spending of tens of billions of dollars would necessarily result in the Church doing just that.

I honestly question if folks like you have thought through the ramifications of what you are espousing.  

The Church is not designed to do what you want you seem to want it to do.  I think this is the point Elder Bednar was making here:

Quote

The basic purpose of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to help people learn about the nature and attributes of God — to love God, to become disciples of His Son Jesus Christ and to love and serve God’s children, said Elder David A. Bednar at the National Press Club.

"The basic purpose..."

Serving and helping our fellow man is necessarily a component of that.

Quote

“We believe God can change our hearts and make more of us from the inside out than we can ever make of ourselves,” said Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “And we also believe that change many times is required from the outside in.”
...

Addressing journalists and others not familiar with the work, Elder Bednar spoke of the Church’s effort to lift and strengthen God’s children.

“Often, the world works from the outside in. Changing a person’s circumstances and environment may be considered the best method of changing that person. This approach certainly is important. …

“But God typically works from the inside out through a spiritual rebirth. If a person allows God to change his or her heart, then that person is empowered in remarkable ways to change his or her circumstances and environment.”

Elder Bednar said both temporal change — from the outside in — and spiritual change — from the inside out — are needed and useful in different situations.

The Church is intended to facilitate "both temporal change — from the outside in — and spiritual change — from the inside out."

Humanitarian and philanthropic efforts are necessarily part of that.

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“But we have learned that a person with a new heart, a person changed from the inside out, serves and blesses family, friends, neighbors, congregations and communities in powerful ways,” he explained. “They learn to see each other for who they are and therefore treat each other accordingly.”

I think this change-at-the-individual-level emphasis is very important.  It is, I think, intended to facilitate the work of helping our fellow man.  I think it is that individual change and effort that ought to be the focus of our mandate to serve and the help the "poor and needy," considerably more so than using the amount of dollars donated to this or that NGO by the institutional Church as the primary  yardstick for measuring our fulfilling the missions of the Church.

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This is how the Latter-day Saint faith community has expanded to all parts of the world, including the Middle East, eastern Asia and eastern Europe, he continued. “For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, drawing closer to God through our temple worship is life changing,” he said.

I agree with Elder Bednar here.  I suppose an endlessly regressive mindset might end up finding fault with the Church for spending funds on the temple, as such funds could be donated to NGOs.  But I think the Church has a broader perspective in view.

To be sure, I think the Church has recognized that it needs to improve, and it is improving.  It's an unsurprising bummer to see this not being acknowledged at all in this thread.

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In addressing the journalists, Elder Bednar highlighted some of the questions Church leaders have received while participating in the Washington D.C. Temple open house.

“Some inquiries are focused on our beliefs and the temple, others pertain to the issues of our day — such as the role of women in the Church, race relations, and issues impacting our LGBTQ members and friends,” he said. “Perhaps most often asked is why do we now open the temple, if only members can enter after the rededication. The simple answer is that what we do in our temples is not a secret; it is sacred.”

Temples are much more than beautiful buildings, he continued. “The commitments we make in our temple worship help us to see beyond our own self-interest, self-centeredness and selfishness. Our hearts are changed and turn outward as we learn about God’s plan for our eternal destiny and happiness. Our love for God grows as we learn about the redeeming role of His Son, Jesus Christ, and our desire to love and serve our brothers and sisters increases.”

Speaking of women, Elder Bednar referenced the Relief Society and its 7.1 million members.

The Church, he said, has more than 31,000 congregations around the world, and each has a local Relief Society president. That’s 31,000 women — and most presidents have two counselors, a total of about 90,000 women — helping to lead and direct the work of the Church in their local congregations.

“All women and all men in our Church have responsibilities to teach, minister and serve our brothers and sisters,” he said.

On the issue of race, he said, the Church teaches that all people are beloved sons or daughters of God, who loves all of His children equally.

In reference to LGBTQ members and friends, Elder Bednar talked about the Church’s 2015 role in passing legislation in Utah to protect LGBTQ individuals from discrimination in housing, employment and other rights. “You also should know that at the federal level, we have been working with our LGBTQ allies to advance legislation of a similar nature,” he said. And the LGBTQ advocates support securing the freedom of belief that Church members hold so dear.

“We are proud to stand with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters — some of whom are with us today — in this important effort. It is hard work — and an objective worth fighting for. While we may not agree on everything, we surely are building a foundation of mutual respect and understanding.”

These are all wonderful contributory elements of the Restored Gospel.  It truly is for everyone.  That is so even though the Church is not an organization centrally focused on "LGBTQ" or gender or race issues (which are, nonetheless, meritorious matters to address).

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Presently, the Church has almost 300 temples in operation, announced, in design or under construction. President Nelson has announced 100 of those temples in his four busy years as president of the Church. These beautiful structures are located in 74 countries.

“Temples, once they are dedicated, are reserved for Church members who are prepared to participate in our most sacred rites and ordinances. … These ceremonies lift, inspire, ennoble and change participants as they accept the individual responsibility to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.”

I like that Elder Bednar is repeatedly emphasizing temples, which I think is one of the "weightier matters" referenced in Matthew 23.  "Judgment, mercy, and faith" are more important than "tithe{s} of mint and anise and cummin."  The former we ought to do, while not leaving the latter "undone."

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Today, Church membership is almost 17 million worldwide, he said. “We have more than 31,000 congregations. More of our members live outside of the United States than within the United States. Church members speak over 160 languages. While we are growing in the U.S., our greatest expansion presently is occurring in Africa.”

In addition, he said, “the Church locks arms with the global community to eradicate hunger, administer lifesaving immunizations, provide wheelchair mobility for those who are immobile and train health care professionals to provide physical, mental and emotional support.”

Around the world, the Church assists in digging wells and providing clean water, a common and critical need in poorer parts of the world.

Kinda hard to square this with the suggestion that until and  unless the Church converts itself into a giant "NGO"-style entity, and/or immediately gives away tens of billions of its its money to other NGOs, "nothing gets done."

Again, the Church is doing quite a bit now.  As follows:

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In 2020 and 2021, in response to supply issues experienced during the pandemic, 2,800 truckloads of commodities from the Church’s storehouse system were delivered to nearly 400 food banks, homeless shelters and other charitable organizations across the U.S. This equated to more than 82 million meals for those in need. Outside of North America, the Church works with local grocery chains to help provide food to members in need.

“As an organization, our humanitarian efforts are guided by our commitment to live God’s second great commandment, to love our neighbor,” he said.

In 2021, the Church supported 135 mobility projects, such as wheelchairs, in 57 countries and territories; hosted 3,000 blood drives resulting in 100,000 units donated; and assisted seven major immunization campaigns, including significant financial donations to help UNICEF take COVID-19 immunizations to dozens of countries, he added. 

And last year, Church members donated millions of hours of volunteer service, including labor at Church farms, orchards and canneries, and participated in charitable service projects in 85 countries and in community service projects following natural disasters.

Again, it's kind of weird to see Teancum suggest that I or other defenders of the Church are advocating a "do nothing" approach.

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In addition, he reported, the Church has more than 91,000 missionaries serving around the world, primarily young men and women.

“Missionaries teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others on their spiritual journey to become more like the Savior,” he said. “Every missionary learns the life-changing lesson that he or she is part of something greater and more important than self.”

Missionary work is also a core aspect of one of the Church's four missions.  

And the Church spends huge amounts of money and effort on this, but somehow Teancum finds a way to say the Church is "do{ing} nothing."

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A core tenet of the faith is the importance of education, he added.

“Interestingly, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the few religions where the more education you receive, the more committed you are to the religion. Pew Research found over 80% of Latter-day Saint college graduates describe their religion as ‘very important.’

“We give significant attention, energy and resources to educating our youth. All secular and spiritual education fall under the umbrella of our Church Educational System, and nearly 1 million student learners are enrolled.”

And their educations are subsidized to the tune of about $1.5 billion per year.

But somehow the Church is charged with "do{ing} nothing."

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Elder Bednar continued that the basic beliefs of the Church fuel the enthusiastic interest of its members in genealogy. “Learning about one’s ancestors was once reserved for a small, often older, population,” he said. “Today, a hobby has turned into a vast worldwide pursuit.”

Family history is integral to the Church's core missions.

Quote

Concluding, Elder Bednar said he has tried to describe a few of the things “we cherish and strive to do as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

He then addressed one final question: Why do the members of your Church do all of these things?

“Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is far more than passive belief or assent,” he said. “Faith in the Savior is a principle of action and of power. Faith is evident in our priorities and how we live. 

“As we learn and live according to the teachings of Jesus, we are blessed with capacity, power and strength beyond our own. Our hearts are changed, we change from the inside out, and we become new creatures in Christ.”

To be clear, he added, Latter-day Saints do not believe their works save them, adding that only the grace of Jesus Christ can enable God’s children to overcome the many negative influences of the world. “But our faith does actuate the spiritual responsibility to work, bless and serve. We do not seek blessings only for ourselves. Rather, the blessings we receive enable us to serve other people more efficaciously.”

"{T}he blessings we receive enable us to serve other people more efficaciously."

Yes.  Yes.

The institutional Church has an important role to play in humanitarian efforts, but humanitarian efforts are still secondary, still not definitive.  Elder Bednar really emphasizes this point here:

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Elder Bednar noted that while he highlighted many aspects of the Church’s humanitarian outreach, the Church is primarily not a humanitarian organization.

“We are the Church of Jesus Christ, reestablished or restored upon the earth in the latter days in preparation for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do all of these things because, as His disciples, we love Him and want to follow His example in our lives.”

And there it is: "{T}he Church is primarily not a humanitarian organization."  I find it odd that this is a controversial statement, so much so that the Widow's Mite folks featured it as a decontextualized quote on their website.

Our primary purpose and objective is not to solve world hunger, or climate change, or champion animal rights, or provide free healthcare or education, or oppose Russia's aggressions against Ukraine, or any other goal, however laudable they may be.  We are, fundamentally and first and foremost, "the Church of Jesus Christ, reestablished or restored upon the earth in the latter days in preparation for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ."  Everything else is derivative of that.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of the Church to help both its members and others.  I am likewise happy to hear that its "humanitarian expenditures have doubled in the past five years," and that "we believe they are going to increase fast."  And as I have no expectation that the Church is perfect, I fully expect it to continue to improve and grow.

5 hours ago, pogi said:

It doesn’t have to just be senior missionaries.  We have younger service missionaries too, and we can certainly improve those efforts too.   Plus we have local members across the globe who have untapped skills, knowledge and experience.  There could be much more local callings for that effort.   We are highly organized and efficient when we need to be.  Look at our disaster response efforts.  That doesn’t happen without effort.   The church could invest in and build a humanitarian entity (like it did with the EPA), and hire vetted professionals (again like the EPA) to implement and direct these efforts and be involved in vetting partners.  It doesn’t all have to be volunteer work.  It think we have enough money to hire an impressive team.  We could easily expand the educational loan programs and diversify those efforts to include other small, low interest rate loan programs for small businesses/entrepreneurs in developing countries, teaching business skills/principles and self-reliance principles.  We could be doing SO much more.  

Okay.  Go ahead and prepare a prospectus and submit it to the Church.  Honest!  Go for it.

Perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps the leaders of the Church are resting on their laurels, or else they are as indifferent to and/or ignorant of to the plight of the poor as Teancum asserts.  That seems pretty farfetched, but I'm willing to consider it. 

Perhaps the leaders of the Church are just to obsessed with hoarding money as an end unto itself, as Analytics and others have repeatedly and emphatically declared.  Again, that doesn't quite jibe with what I have observed, or with what I have learned from people who have first-hand experience with the Church's efforts.  But again, I'm willing to consider it.

Perhaps the leaders of the Church have genuinely not given much time or effort to considering how it can do "SO much more."  Perhaps the Presiding Bishopric is oblivious to the capacities of the Church.  Perhaps there are no real logistical or other practical constraints on the Church expanding its philanthropic efforts.  Again, this seems kinda unlikely.  But let's give it a go.

Quite a few years ago my brother, having graduated with a master's from BYU, went on to law school.  IIRC, while there he received a call or email from one of his former professors at BYU, who said that the Church was looking for proposals to use some property above Apia, Samoa for the benefit of the Samoan members.  My brother put together a proposal for an "agricultural center" which would provide instruction in, well, agriculture, but also animal husbandry, english, math, basic business practices, and so on. 

The Church apparently thought it was a good idea, as they asked my brother to move to Samoa and start it up.  So he did.  He ended up spending, I think, a total of 14 years there.  Here's a news item about it from 2000:

Quote

Once a refuge for ostracized members of the Church, a remote mountainous village in Samoa is now a site for education and entrepreneurship.

Sauniatu, near Samoa's capital of Apia, is an area of special historical and spiritual significance to members here. Nearly a century ago, President Joseph F. Smith authorized its establishment as a refuge for converts expelled from their villages for joining the Church. Today, it encompasses a small LDS primary school and the Sauniatu Agriculture Center, a program designed to promote family self-reliance based on gospel principles and training in agriculture and entrepreneurship. Young men who study at the center also learn English and family management skills and take institute courses."  We are experiencing first-hand the far-reaching implications of the scriptures and the counsel of latter-day prophets in areas of international development such as agriculture and microenterprise," said Brett Macdonald, director of the center. "A statement by Elder Neal A. Maxwell [of the Quorum of the Twelve] is just one example: 'The difference between wanting to help those you love and being able to help those you love is education.' The truth and clarity of that statement provides a powerful incentive for the students to make the most of their training in Sauniatu."
...

The students at the center spend part of each day in the classroom and several hours helping to operate the Sauniatu plantation. Because Samoa is still an overwhelmingly agrarian country with limited employment opportunities, students study how to meet the nutritional needs of their families on small plots of land as well as learning skills necessary for larger scale commercial production.

In addition, students are also working with University of the South Pacific researchers who are trying to develop resistant varieties of taro, a staple crop that has been severely damaged in recent years by disease.

And here (from 2005) :

Quote

SAUNIATU, Samoa — Any light-hearted argument about the exact, present-day location of ancient Eden may be settled with a visit to the Latter-day Saint settlement of Sauniatu on the Samoan island of Upolu.

Just a 45-minute drive from the Samoan capital of Apia, Sauniatu is fertile, green and "Edenly" peaceful. Apostle David O. Mckay was so moved by his 1921 visit that he reportedly dubbed the village "the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
...

Yet Sauniatu is more than postcard aesthetics and enduring Samoan culture. Often called "the Nauvoo of the Pacific," Sauniatu is revered by LDS Samoans as sacred ground. Originally established as a refuge by early island converts who were persecuted for their deep gospel faith, the village remains a place of Eden-like learning and worship.

Outside the campus grounds housing the LDS primary school and the Sauniatu Agricultural Center is a small cemetery where many of the early Church-member settlers to Sauniatu are buried. A neighboring plaque tells the stories of faithful Samoan pioneers with ties to Sauniatu who sacrificed for their devotion to their young faith. Indeed, the village has known sadness. Decades ago, disease killed almost all the villagers. A young boy was left with the macabre task of burying the dead.
...

Meanwhile, some 25 older male students, ages 18 to 26, are enrolled at the Sauniatu Agricultural Center. There young, single men learn the nuances of self-reliance, operating private and commercial farms and entrepreneurial skills. Most of the agricultural students come from poor families and have had few educational opportunities. Since its establishment in 1998, more than 200 LDS men have graduated from the Church-sponsored program.

This blog post has some nice photos:

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A few observations about this as applied to your proposal:

1. I think my brother suggested that this Center may well end up being the last educational endeavor the Church will ever set up.  He may be right.  From this 2012 article:

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The key to understanding Church finances is to understand that they are a means to an end. They allow the Church to carry out its religious mission across the world.

Does the Church own for-profit businesses? Yes. In the Church’s earlier history as it was establishing itself in the remote intermountain west, some of those businesses were necessitated by the simple fact that they didn’t exist elsewhere in the community. Gradually, as private businesses developed and the need for Church-owned businesses diminished, they were sold off, donated to the community or discontinued. Zions Bank and the LDS Hospital system are examples.

Today, the Church’s business assets support the Church’s mission and principles by serving as a rainy day fund. Agricultural holdings now operated as for-profit enterprises can be converted into welfare farms in the event of a global food crisis. Companies such as KSL Television and the Deseret News provide strategically valuable communication tools.

Hospitals, banks and such are wonderful, but not necessarily essential to the core missions of the Church.  I think the Church has found sufficient value in its present educational institutions to keep them running (though it has shut down several smaller ones over the years).  Per this article, "'{i}t is the policy and practice of the Church,' observed the Church News, 'to discontinue operation of such [Church] schools when local school systems are able to provide quality education.'"  These days the Church is less interested in starting up and maintaining a facility, and more interested in helping other institutions run theirs.  I think there are a few reasons for this.  First, it may just be a "We'll stay in our lane" decision.  The Church is, after all, a church.  As Elder Bednar noted, it "is primarily not a humanitarian organization," so perhaps it is better off providing resources than in running the show.  Second, longevity is a real toughie, but I suspect the Church, once it starts up this or that initiative, would be expected to run it in perpetuity.  

2. As practical as the Sauniatu Agricultural Center is in terms of its curriculum and operating expenses, it is a fair challenge to keep it staffed and operated.  And that's for only 25 students at a time (it was started in 1998, and by 2005 only 200 young men had graduated from it).

3. There is then the question of gender equity.  The campus isn't co-ed.  Should the Church set up some sort of corollary school for young women in Samoa?  And if Samoa has one, why not Tonga?  Or Fiji?  Or Vanuatu?  

4. I think the Church, being mostly a "volunteer" outfit, has a lot of personnel rotation going on.  Yes, we are willing to serve, but as a practical matter that lasts for 18-24 months in a given location.  Moreover, willingness to volunteer does not necessarily equate to administrative/operational competencies and skills.

5. The Church could, as you suggest, "hire vetted professionals" to run initiatives, but I think that goes against the Church's generalized propensity to downsize.  And questions of decisionmaking authority would seemingly be endless.  I spent years watching as my brother worked his tail off to get the Sauniatu Agricultural Center up and running, and also "self sufficient" (that is, run by Samoans rather than by expatriates such as himself).  Would these "vetted professionals" be able and willing to set up and maintain humanitarian initiatives?  And if so, isn't the Church at that point replicating systems/initiatives that already exist?  And would these initiatives be cost effective?  Would they be run well?  I previously provided a litany of articles discussing the challenges associated with international humanitarian projects.  The Church has willing hands, but those hands may not be competent.  The Church has funds, but funds don't guarantee competency or honesty, either.

6. This 2020 article has had a big impact on my thinking on this subject, as it makes a number of points which I feel are pretty salient:

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Mission of the Church

Bishop Caussé said caring for those in need across the globe is at the heart of the mission of the Church. It is not “an appendage to the mission,” but instead is intermingled in everything the Church does. “We are all sons and daughters of God upon the earth, and we are committed to take care of one another,” he said. “And this is one of the ways that, as disciples of Lord Jesus Christ, we care for those in need.”

Seems like Bishop Caussé is pretty focused on humanitarian efforts.

Quote

In addition to responding to disasters across the globe, Church humanitarian funds have been used to provide food programs, vision care, maternal and newborn care, clean water and sanitation, immunizations, wheelchairs, and help for refugees.

However, reaching out and helping those in need is “a very complex endeavor,” he said.

The Church can’t just send out cash and checks to people, he said. “It has to be done in an organized way, and with follow up, with training, a lot of expertise and good partners. Otherwise, you just don’t get any results.”

"A very complex endeavor."

"The Church can't just sent out cash and checks."

"It has to be done in an organized way, and with follow up, with training, a lot of expertise and good partners."

"Otherwise, you just don't get any results."

I wonder how to reconcile Bishop Caussé's sentiments expressed here with your declaration that the Church "could be doing SO much more."  I mean, isn't it possible that Bishop Caussé, who eats and drinks and breathes humanitarian efforts, has considered working with "senior missionaries," "younger service missionaries," "local members across the globe," and so on?  Or hiring "vetted professionals" as "an impressive team?"  Seems like we'll still be working in "a very complex endeavor," as failing to be "organized" and follow up with "training" to develop "training" with "good partners," the Church would not "get any results."

So what is it that you think the Church is not doing that it is not presently doing, and/or has not attempted to do?

More:

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Bishop Davies said the Church is careful to select humanitarian projects and partners that will make the best use of the Church’s funds. “We are very careful with the widow’s mite,” referring to the biblical parable by the Savior.

Well?  You are faulting the Church for not using vetted "professionals," but isn't that what Bishop Davies is describing here?

Quote

“We recognize that this comes from the faith of Church members and we want to make certain that they have the trust and confidence that their donations are being managed in a careful and thoughtful and very safe way for them and for the Church,” said Bishop Davies.

This seems like a reasonable precaution.  The Church ought to take steps to ensure "donations are being managed in a careful and thoughtful and very safe way."  That is what the Church is doing at present.  I suspect you are not proposing that the Church start "looking the other way" relative to the expenditure of the Church's funds, but scrutinizing that use seems to require some real time and effort, and results in the Church narrowing the pool of "humanitarian projects and partners" with which it will work.

In that context, what does "We could be doing SO much more" mean?  Is there some sort of bottleneck here?  And if so, what is it?  Is it the Church being incompetent when it "{carefully} select{s} humanitarian projects and partners that will make the best use of the Church’s funds"?  If so, how do you know that?  And how would you propose to improve things?  

Or is there also perhaps a "bottleneck" in terms of available and sufficiently vetted "humanitarian projects and partners"?  If so, it seems like the Church should not be less "careful with the Widow's Mite" simply because it wants to give its money away to placate its critics.  So does this bottleneck exists, how do you propose to address it?  And how do you know that the Church has not tried or is not presently trying to address it (that's how "We could be doing SO much more" comes across)?

Quote

Leaders often ask themselves “what else can we do, where else can we go, who else can we work with,” said Bishop Waddell.  

Every time the Church reaches out, the objective is to bless both the giver and the receiver, added Bishop Caussé. So in addition to selecting good humanitarian projects, Church leaders are always mindful of providing service opportunities for Church members. “It’s not just a matter of money,” he said. It’s also done as members “devote time and resources and efforts to help others.”

So the Presiding Bishopric is not just working with carefully vetted "humanitarian projects and partners," it is also working at "providing service opportunities for Church members," which I presume encompasses the folks you referenced ("senior missionaries," "younger service missionaries," "local members across the globe," and so on).  If so, that seems pretty close to your proposal above, yet you are seemingly faulting the Church for not doing enough ("again, that's how "We could be doing SO much more" comes across).

Anyway, I was quite sincere in encouraging you to draft a proposal and submit it to the Church.  I don't know if anything will come from it, but it's worth a shot.  I want the Church to improve, and perhaps you have insights as to how it can do things it is not presently doing, or how to improve on its processes, etc.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 10, 2023 by smac97

[smac97]

9 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

The pope's salary: $0

😁

 

$0 goes must go a long way in the Vatican, as the Papal Apartments appear to be some pretty nice digs!  

Except that...

Quote

Pope Francis has decided to shun a grand papal apartment on the top floor of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace in favour of a modest two-room residence.

His spokesman said he was "trying out this type of simple living" in a communal building with other priests.

In doing so he has broken a tradition which is more than a century old.

The decision reinforces the newly-elected Pope's austere reputation. As archbishop of Buenos Aires he refused to move into the Bishop's Palace.

Preferring more modest accommodation, he also often cooked his own meals.

Cool.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

6 hours ago, Teancum said:

Well it seems that a large part of Smacs argument is it is just to hard to deploy large amount of $$ and it can be subject to fraud and other shady behavior.  It is a bad argument.

First, that's not a fair or accurate characterization or summary of my argument.

Second, the argument I am making is, I think, pretty good.

6 hours ago, Teancum said:

If the Widow's Mite estimates are anywhere near accurate the Church has HUGE resources to plan this out and do it better than anyone else ever has.

Right.  Because there is a one-to-one correlation between A) having a lot of money, and B) having the skills, experience, connections, etc. to successfully create / maintain / operate a worldwide network of hundreds or thousands of humanitarian projects.

Sure, that makes sense.  

Armchair quarterbacking is such a lazy and easy endeavor.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

That's all well and good between you and a friend, as it were, but it diminishes the professionalism of the people you are referring to in this instance.

I don't think so.  I was speaking of them favorably.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

I suspect nearly every single one of the members of the Internal Audit Department have at least the equivalent of a Master's degree as well as one or more professional credentials which require a great deal of work to obtain.

And I have a JD.  So what?  I still enjoy lawyer jokes.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

They've put in thousands of hours in their profession.

So have I, but I don't begrudge anyone barbed comment about how sweet n' cuddly lawyers are.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

If they are CPAs, they are required to have at least 80 hours of continuing education every two years.

I spend almost as much time researching the law as I do on all other aspects of my law practice combined.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

You've already demonstrated elsewhere you have little or no understanding what auditors do, but that does not give you license to trivialize their achievements or their work.

I wasn't doing that.  

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

I think, on the whole, the Church's Internal Audit Department deals with a near herculean task of staying on top of compliance, accounting, and fraud prevention/detection issues and does a pretty good job.

I agree.  That was, after all, the point I was making.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

If they are like nearly every large company into which I've had the occasion to look behind the scenes, their department is probably starved for resources and their work undervalued except when it comes to their one-page report that is public-facing.

I regularly bust a gut crafting legal arguments and presenting them in writing and verbally, only to have my efforts disappear like a burp in the wind.  Lots of hard work and sometimes the "atta boys" are lacking.  C'est la vie.

6 hours ago, ttribe said:

The Church's Internal Audit Department also operates under a less than ideal situation given that it has no independent oversight board to report; having to report to the First Presidency which, as we've seen in the SEC matter, can put them in the unenviable situation of criticizing their own bosses (not to mention the ecclesiastical mine field that presents).

Okay.  

All this because I used the term "bean counter."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Rain]

9 hours ago, Teancum said:

A couple paragraph "audit report" is not an audit report.  Not at all.  Even as a believing member I found it worthless. But I am a CPA. All the same it is essentially meaningless.  No look, I am not saying the internal auditors are not doing a good job.  Nor do I think there is intentional  financial malfeasance in the church leadership nor any by the employees who manage church finances. I just believe the church should be accountable and show what it takes in, what it spends and what its assets are. Especially to those who donate.  Always have felt this way.  That is it.

 

I have never argued it is morally imperative for the church to publish it financials. I do believe it is the right thing to do however.

Given your lack of anything remotely close to expecting a church that requires 10% out of its member in order to get the highest ordinances for the highest reward in heaven I really don't put much stock into your seemingly becoming more indignant about the anonymity of the Widow's Mite people.  Perosnally I do not like their anonymity nor lack of support for their high level data.

I am sure they are fine auditors.  But they give you no data other than a perfunctory few paragraphs. You don't have any data to be confident in.  

 

Well it seems that the church itself is a very wealthy organizations.  Among the most wealthy in the world.  And yea nobody is getting wealthy from all that money nor is anyone benefiting from it at all.  Not one whit.

\

Shadowy?  Oh please.  Well the two are not mutually exclusive.  You can have confidence in the church auditors.  Nobody is asking you not to. Are the Widow's Mite authors asking you to do so?

IT is not special pleading at all.  Your argument is flawed.  I promise you when I set up a church and take money donations from the members I will be totally transparent with the finances.

 

Where you are trying to go with this line of argument is ludicrous. 

 

Not a valid comparison.

Could be. But they don't ask for donations.  The church requires it to be considered in good standing. Big difference.

Meh...

Well you really don't know for sure.  You have nothing to review to make that determination now do you?  But that said I agree as noted above.  My issue is not malfeasance.  Its accountability.

If Widow's Mite was asking for donations I would be  more "outrages."  They aren't.  But as noted yes I would like to know who  they are and more details behind their conclusions.

Yes on this we agree.  Managing proper deployment of large amounts of funds is very hard. Yet it can be done. The Gates foundation does it. So do many other large private foundations. If the Church is really worth $250 billion and $180 billion is in fairly liquid non operating assets it has the resources to do this, to hire people to do it and so on. Just sitting on all those assets and letting it grow to a trillion is not the most prudent way, nor Christ like way to go.

 

So what?  JUst because there are bad actors out there doesn't mean they should take no action.

Yes it is really hard to do. So what?  Is that a good reason not to attempt to start finding ways to deploy some of these massive assets to help humanity?  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are more altruistic than the church is. The Gates foundation has tens of billions.  They don't with on their hands and wring them saying it is just to hard and there might be lots of waste and fraud so let's just not do it.  Again the church has the resources.  I don't think they should just start throwing money around but they can start a strategic plan on how to deploy some of their assets. It will take time, and effort, and resources and so on. You know they did quite a nice job setting up EPA to amass a large amount of assets.  Well done. Now do the same with deploying some of the $$.

I do know they vet charities - how much detail they do I'm not sure.  They have vetted the charity I am with and again when we applied to be in the giving machine.  From what I have seen there was more vetting for the giving machine than for normal giving, but I'm not over all of that so I couldn't say for sure.

9 hours ago, Teancum said:

 

Or do you simply think they should just continue to accumulate wealth.  You know, work towards becoming a trillion $ entity.

 

Why does the church need to be anyone's sugar daddy. Good lord, for someone who claims to be a disciple of Christ, you know the one who said if you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me, you sure seem to find all sorts of excuses for your church, the self proclaimed Church of Jesus Christ, to just amass more and  more wealth and just let people suffer.

 

Yea this is really a non sequitur.  

 

Not yet. But it can be.

 

Well I am happy to hear that.

 

Of course it does. I am not advocating the church just go out and start throwing billions around to whomever.  But start. Make a plan.

It seems to me the group is more trying to shed some light on church finances and ye advocate that the church do more to relieve human suffering than they do now.  Do you really think the church can't do more and that doing more would be a good thing if done properly?  And guess what. The church leaders could do away with all this just by being open about their finances.

 

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, Rain said:

I do know they vet charities - how much detail they do I'm not sure.  They have vetted the charity I am with and again when we applied to be in the giving machine.  From what I have seen there was more vetting for the giving machine than for normal giving, but I'm not over all of that so I couldn't say for sure.

 

Here's one:

[ttribe]

11 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I'm a bean counter with an awful lot of years of experience in the private sector.  I've also been a ward finance clerk for over 5 years.  I'm not an auditor per se, but I am in my third decade of occasionally either getting audited or conducting audits of some form or another.  Almost the entirety of folks I've met in in the finance or business process community, have zero issues with the term beancounter.  I routinely introduce myself as one to new co-workers, so that they can immediately gain a rough understanding of what I do.  So, on behalf of all these professionals, @ttribe, I'd like to formally request that you get bent.  We don't want your silly being insulted on our behalf.  You may consider us a bunch of low humor easily offended weak kneed easily victimized sad sacks, but I'll have you know I've never once met a single one of me who has an issue with being called beancounter.

Our sense of self-effacing humor is legendary.  Here - I'll prove it:

Q: In any group of beancounters, how can you tell which one is the extrovert?
A: He'll be the one looking at someone else's shoes.

Now stop this nonsense before I crack wise a second time.

Classy.

[pogi]

11 hours ago, smac97 said:

So do I.

I think where we part ways is the particulars of how the Church should be "fulfilling its mission{s}."  

The Church is doing quite a bit now.

We're into the "hundreds of billions now"?

I don't think you are understanding my point.  Again:

I don't think you are addressing this.  Or this:

I don't think you are addressing this, either.  Or this:

Or this:

I think the Church is not supposed to play the role you seem to want it to play. 

I don't think the Church is situated to take on the role you want it to.  And again, I don't think it's supposed to take on that role.

I honestly question if folks like you have thought through the ramifications of what you are espousing.  

The Church is not designed to do what you want you seem to want it to do.  I think this is the point Elder Bednar was making here:

"The basic purpose..."

Serving and helping our fellow man is necessarily a component of that.

The Church is intended to facilitate "both temporal change — from the outside in — and spiritual change — from the inside out."

Humanitarian and philanthropic efforts are necessarily part of that.

I think this change-at-the-individual-level emphasis is very important.  It is, I think, intended to facilitate the work of helping our fellow man.  I think it is that individual change and effort that ought to be the focus of our mandate to serve and the help the "poor and needy," considerably more so than using the amount of dollars donated to this or that NGO by the institutional Church as the primary  yardstick for measuring our fulfilling the missions of the Church.

I agree with Elder Bednar here.  I suppose an endlessly regressive mindset might end up finding fault with the Church for spending funds on the temple, as such funds could be donated to NGOs.  But I think the Church has a broader perspective in view.

To be sure, I think the Church has recognized that it needs to improve, and it is improving.  It's an unsurprising bummer to see this not being acknowledged at all in this thread.

These are all wonderful contributory elements of the Restored Gospel.  It truly is for everyone.  That is so even though the Church is not an organization centrally focused on "LGBTQ" or gender or race issues (which are, nonetheless, meritorious matters to address).

I like that Elder Bednar is repeatedly emphasizing temples, which I think is one of the "weightier matters" referenced in Matthew 23.  "Judgment, mercy, and faith" are more important than "tithe{s} of mint and anise and cummin."  The former we ought to do, while not leaving the latter "undone."

Kinda hard to square this with the suggestion that until and  unless the Church converts itself into a giant "NGO"-style entity, and/or immediately gives away tens of billions of its its money to other NGOs, "nothing gets done."

Again, the Church is doing quite a bit now.  As follows:

Again, it's kind of weird to see Teancum suggest that I or other defenders of the Church are advocating a "do nothing" approach.

Missionary work is also a core aspect of one of the Church's four missions.  

And the Church spends huge amounts of money and effort on this, but somehow Teancum finds a way to say the Church is "do{ing} nothing."

And their educations are subsidized to the tune of about $1.5 billion per year.

But somehow the Church is charged with "do{ing} nothing."

Family history is integral to the Church's core missions.

"{T}he blessings we receive enable us to serve other people more efficaciously."

Yes.  Yes.

The institutional Church has an important role to play in humanitarian efforts, but humanitarian efforts are still secondary, still not definitive.  Elder Bednar really emphasizes this point here:

And there it is: "{T}he Church is primarily not a humanitarian organization."  I find it odd that this is a controversial statement, so much so that the Widow's Mite folks featured it as a decontextualized quote on their website.

Our primary purpose and objective is not to solve world hunger, or climate change, or champion animal rights, or provide free healthcare or education, or oppose Russia's aggressions against Ukraine, or any other goal, however laudable they may be.  We are, fundamentally and first and foremost, "the Church of Jesus Christ, reestablished or restored upon the earth in the latter days in preparation for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ."  Everything else is derivative of that.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of the Church to help both its members and others.  I am likewise happy to hear that its "humanitarian expenditures have doubled in the past five years," and that "we believe they are going to increase fast."  And as I have no expectation that the Church is perfect, I fully expect it to continue to improve and grow.

Okay.  Go ahead and prepare a prospectus and submit it to the Church.  Honest!  Go for it.

Perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps the leaders of the Church are resting on their laurels, or else they are as indifferent to and/or ignorant of to the plight of the poor as Teancum asserts.  That seems pretty farfetched, but I'm willing to consider it. 

Perhaps the leaders of the Church are just to obsessed with hoarding money as an end unto itself, as Analytics and others have repeatedly and emphatically declared.  Again, that doesn't quite jibe with what I have observed, or with what I have learned from people who have first-hand experience with the Church's efforts.  But again, I'm willing to consider it.

Perhaps the leaders of the Church have genuinely not given much time or effort to considering how it can do "SO much more."  Perhaps the Presiding Bishopric is oblivious to the capacities of the Church.  Perhaps there are no real logistical or other practical constraints on the Church expanding its philanthropic efforts.  Again, this seems kinda unlikely.  But let's give it a go.

Quite a few years ago my brother, having graduated with a master's from BYU, went on to law school.  IIRC, while there he received a call or email from one of his former professors at BYU, who said that the Church was looking for proposals to use some property above Apia, Samoa for the benefit of the Samoan members.  My brother put together a proposal for an "agricultural center" which would provide instruction in, well, agriculture, but also animal husbandry, english, math, basic business practices, and so on. 

The Church apparently thought it was a good idea, as they asked my brother to move to Samoa and start it up.  So he did.  He ended up spending, I think, a total of 14 years there.  Here's a news item about it from 2000:

And here (from 2005) :

This blog post has some nice photos:

A few observations about this as applied to your proposal:

1. I think my brother suggested that this Center may well end up being the last educational endeavor the Church will ever set up.  He may be right.  From this 2012 article:

Hospitals, banks and such are wonderful, but not necessarily essential to the core missions of the Church.  I think the Church has found sufficient value in its present educational institutions to keep them running (though it has shut down several smaller ones over the years).  Per this article, "'{i}t is the policy and practice of the Church,' observed the Church News, 'to discontinue operation of such [Church] schools when local school systems are able to provide quality education.'"  These days the Church is less interested in starting up and maintaining a facility, and more interested in helping other institutions run theirs.  I think there are a few reasons for this.  First, it may just be a "We'll stay in our lane" decision.  The Church is, after all, a church.  As Elder Bednar noted, it "is primarily not a humanitarian organization," so perhaps it is better off providing resources than in running the show.  Second, longevity is a real toughie, but I suspect the Church, once it starts up this or that initiative, would be expected to run it in perpetuity.  

2. As practical as the Sauniatu Agricultural Center is in terms of its curriculum and operating expenses, it is a fair challenge to keep it staffed and operated.  And that's for only 25 students at a time (it was started in 1998, and by 2005 only 200 young men had graduated from it).

3. There is then the question of gender equity.  The campus isn't co-ed.  Should the Church set up some sort of corollary school for young women in Samoa?  And if Samoa has one, why not Tonga?  Or Fiji?  Or Vanuatu?  

4. I think the Church, being mostly a "volunteer" outfit, has a lot of personnel rotation going on.  Yes, we are willing to serve, but as a practical matter that lasts for 18-24 months in a given location.  Moreover, willingness to volunteer does not necessarily equate to administrative/operational competencies and skills.

5. The Church could, as you suggest, "hire vetted professionals" to run initiatives, but I think that goes against the Church's generalized propensity to downsize.  And questions of decisionmaking authority would seemingly be endless.  I spent years watching as my brother worked his tail off to get the Sauniatu Agricultural Center up and running, and also "self sufficient" (that is, run by Samoans rather than by expatriates such as himself).  Would these "vetted professionals" be able and willing to set up and maintain humanitarian initiatives?  And if so, isn't the Church at that point replicating systems/initiatives that already exist?  And would these initiatives be cost effective?  Would they be run well?  I previously provided a litany of articles discussing the challenges associated with international humanitarian projects.  The Church has willing hands, but those hands may not be competent.  The Church has funds, but funds don't guarantee competency or honesty, either.

6. This 2020 article has had a big impact on my thinking on this subject, as it makes a number of points which I feel are pretty salient:

Seems like Bishop Caussé is pretty focused on humanitarian efforts.

"A very complex endeavor."

"The Church can't just sent out cash and checks."

"It has to be done in an organized way, and with follow up, with training, a lot of expertise and good partners."

"Otherwise, you just don't get any results."

I wonder how to reconcile Bishop Caussé's sentiments expressed here with your declaration that the Church "could be doing SO much more."  I mean, isn't it possible that Bishop Caussé, who eats and drinks and breathes humanitarian efforts, has considered working with "senior missionaries," "younger service missionaries," "local members across the globe," and so on?  Or hiring "vetted professionals" as "an impressive team?"  Seems like we'll still be working in "a very complex endeavor," as failing to be "organized" and follow up with "training" to develop "training" with "good partners," the Church would not "get any results."

So what is it that you think the Church is not doing that it is not presently doing, and/or has not attempted to do?

More:

Well?  You are faulting the Church for not using vetted "professionals," but isn't that what Bishop Davies is describing here?

This seems like a reasonable precaution.  The Church ought to take steps to ensure "donations are being managed in a careful and thoughtful and very safe way."  That is what the Church is doing at present.  I suspect you are not proposing that the Church start "looking the other way" relative to the expenditure of the Church's funds, but scrutinizing that use seems to require some real time and effort, and results in the Church narrowing the pool of "humanitarian projects and partners" with which it will work.

In that context, what does "We could be doing SO much more" mean?  Is there some sort of bottleneck here?  And if so, what is it?  Is it the Church being incompetent when it "{carefully} select{s} humanitarian projects and partners that will make the best use of the Church’s funds"?  If so, how do you know that?  And how would you propose to improve things?  

Or is there also perhaps a "bottleneck" in terms of available and sufficiently vetted "humanitarian projects and partners"?  If so, it seems like the Church should not be less "careful with the Widow's Mite" simply because it wants to give its money away to placate its critics.  So does this bottleneck exists, how do you propose to address it?  And how do you know that the Church has not tried or is not presently trying to address it (that's how "We could be doing SO much more" comes across)?

So the Presiding Bishopric is not just working with carefully vetted "humanitarian projects and partners," it is also working at "providing service opportunities for Church members," which I presume encompasses the folks you referenced ("senior missionaries," "younger service missionaries," "local members across the globe," and so on).  If so, that seems pretty close to your proposal above, yet you are seemingly faulting the Church for not doing enough ("again, that's how "We could be doing SO much more" comes across).

Anyway, I was quite sincere in encouraging you to draft a proposal and submit it to the Church.  I don't know if anything will come from it, but it's worth a shot.  I want the Church to improve, and perhaps you have insights as to how it can do things it is not presently doing, or how to improve on its processes, etc.

Thanks,

-Smac

I don't know how you expect me to respond to all of this.  I will just address a couple points.

1) "There is more required than deep pockets."  To which I say, of course.  I never suggested otherwise.  That is not an excuse to not work towards expanding our efforts.  

2) "The church is not supposed to play that role".  To which I say, yes...it is.  We only have a 4 fold mission.  It is one of them.  It is also one of the primary purposes of tithing stated in the D&C.  You suggest that this burden should be placed on the individual members and not the church. Ok, great.  Then help fund our efforts.  Don't expect those of us who barely get by to pay beyond our tithing to fulfill the stated mission and purpose of tithing as it sits on billions and does nothing with it.   If tithing is to be used for the purpose of humanitarian work as mentioned in the D&C, and we are supposed to pay our tithing to the church, then it is absolutely their role and responsibility to use tithing for that purpose.   I would be happy to take on more of that role if they would allow me pay my tithing to humanitarian efforts instead of directly to the church.  

3) We will be criticized if we expand our humanitarian efforts.  That is a poor excuse to not do more to fulfill our mission.   We are going to be criticized no matter what we do, so I say "choose the right and let the consequence follow".  Our decision making process should not be centered around how others might criticize us, that is a terrible way to run a church.  Jesus and Joseph Smith would have been immobilized in their missions with that attitude.  Not to mention, keeping the status quo despite exponential growth in wealth beyond what is reasonable while we sit by and watch other suffer where we could offer aid is going to engender far more severe criticism.  And it would all be deserved.  

4) "but I think that goes against the Church's generalized propensity to downsize".  I disagree with this statement completely.  It goes against the stated mission of the church which requires growth in every area.   Downsizing efforts is not moral when we are sitting on 100 billion dollars which is growing exponentially.  Downsize in everything except wealth accumulation is not a reasonable mission and direction for the church.  Wealth accumulation is not even part of the mission yet it seems to be the only area of measurable growth in the church currently (with the exception of maybe temples, and redeeming the dead).  That is not ok.  We need to be using a much higher percentage of that wealth to expand efforts in fulfilling our stated missions, including humanitarian efforts.  We need to be growing humanitarian effort in fractional proportion to our wealth.   The mission of the church is to grow in every fold of its stated mission, not to "downsize".   

The church is only investing an almost invisible fraction of what they could to this effort.  They could do far more to expand efforts.  Even if they just started using 2-5% of the EPA funds to build the infrastructure and ground work with partners, then start directing efforts for humanitarian work, they would still keep growing in wealth beyond what we need.   That fund doesn't need any more money funneled into it.  The status quo of continuing to funnel billions into a giant account that is earning good interest on its 100 billion annually is going to become (if it hasn't already) unconscionable for many members.  At least a proportion of that money needs to be used for something.  If not to fulfill the stated mission of the church, then what?  Again, what is the alternative? 

You seem to think that I am suggesting that we just unload all of this money blindly and unorderly.  Nope.  Not at all.  There are much smarter and more experienced people than me that they can hire to help with all of that.  Placing this on my shoulders to figure out is silly.  

Quote

I honestly question if folks like you have thought through the ramifications of what you are espousing.  

Please enlighten me.  What are the ramifications?  Criticism?  Hard work? Expense?  Potential waste? Getting taken advantage of?  Failures along the way?  Anything else?  On the flip, are you considering the benefits vs the risks and the potential to learn from mistakes along the way?  If we don't start somewhere, no good gets done.

Doing something for a good cause (our mission in fact) and failing will hurt less then doing nothing at all out of fear of failure.  Success typically comes only after several failures. 

And I honestly don't think you have thought through the ramifications of what you are espousing. 

 

 

   

Edited March 10, 2023 by pogi

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, pogi said:

The church is only investing an almost invisible fraction of what they could to this effort

$1 billion a year is an almost invisible fraction?

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Here's one:

I'm a little confused.  Did you mean to quote someone else?

[jkwilliams]

30 minutes ago, Calm said:

$1 billion a year is an almost invisible fraction?

What is the "$1 billion a year" referring to? Cash donated by the church? Labor hours donated by members? Some combination of that and something else? Not questioning it, just curious what that figure refers to.

[pogi]

46 minutes ago, Calm said:

$1 billion a year is an almost invisible fraction?

Compared to the 8-12%  it is earning off interest annually, plus the funneling of billions of dollars of tax free excess tithing into the fund annually, yes, 1 billion is an almost an invisible fraction of its accumulated and exponentially growing wealth.   As our wealth grows beyond 100 billion, which we probably already have, that 1 billion will become an ever shrinking fraction of one percent. 

We only have 4 stated missions in the church.  A fraction of one percent is an almost invisible fraction to use towards fulfilling 1 of only 4 stated missions. 

I give 10% to the church who doesn't need my money (according to them).  The church only gives a fraction of a percent to humanitarian efforts (one of the primary stated purposes of tithing and a mission of the church).  Some of that 1 billion comes from fast-offerings, which is above and beyond the 10% I pay in tithing. 

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by pogi