Church's 2023 Expenditures in Philanthropic/Humanitarian Relief

[Analytics]

34 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Ah - your 'annual revenue' is interest on the temple fund.

Well, @Analytics shown me something I didn't believe was possible.  A feasible and desirable future scenario where my church is off engaged in it's work, and a critic is happy about it.

The plan I laid out is eminently feasible from a financial perspective--saying it would cost $4 million a year to operate a mini temple in Africa is ridiculously conservative estimate--mini Temples in the third world really don’t need a payroll of $1.5 million per year to operate. But if the costs were really that high, the Church could still do it. The question is whether it is feasible from the perspective of the membership and leadership. Would there be enough temple-attending people for a plan like this to make any sense? And will the leadership have the guts to actually implement it?

As a reminder of how we got here, until a couple of years ago the Church operated on the formula that was devised by President Tanner in 1960 and most clearly articulated by President Hinckley in the 1990’s:

In the financial operations of the Church, we have observed two basic and fixed principles: One, the Church will live within its means. It will not spend more than it receives. Two, a fixed percentage of the income will be set aside to build reserves against what might be called a possible “rainy day.”

In the context of how this fixed principle was conceived and implemented, the money the Church “receives” means the money it receives from donations. It uses some of its donations to operate the Church, and uses some of its donations to grow the size of its investment portfolio. Its other source of income are the profits it makes on its for-profit investment portfolio. 100% of the income from that source goes towards increasing the size of that portfolio.

The size of the investment portfolio has historically been a top-secret thing. The Presiding Bishopric and the First Presidency were authorized to know what it contained, but the apostles weren’t--this information was above their pay grade. But now thanks to MormonLeaks, the IRS Whistleblower, the SEC investigation, and the Widow’s Mite project, we have a general idea of how big the for-profit investment portfolio actually is. Now, we can say with confidence that when you include investment income as part of the Church’s income, the Church uses the majority of its annual income to increase the size of its investment portfolio.

To me, how an entity allocates its resources is an accurate indication of what the institution’s priorities are. By that measure, the Church’s top priority is to grow the size of its investment portfolio. And to be completely clear on this, I don’t think anybody in the Church, including Tanner and Hinckley, intended for the Church to get in this situation. This wasn’t the plan. When I say this is the Church’s top priority, I’m not talking about the general membership, and I’m not even talking about the brethren. What I’m talking about is the entity that emerged from the culture and institutional practices over time. Nobody in authority had the vision or guts to make any changes to the protocol’s Tanner put in place. And only about seven people were authorized to see what was happening with the Church’s assets. It wasn’t anybody’s decision for the Church to use most of its annual income to grow the size of its for-profit investment portfolio. It just kind of happened.

Now that the cat is out of the bag regarding how much the Church could do, it has started to spend more on humanitarian efforts and to publicize those efforts. The question is whether or not they have the vision and courage to scale this up to the point where the amount of good they are going in the world is commensurate with their resources. 

 

[Teancum]

On 3/26/2024 at 12:26 PM, LoudmouthMormon said:

They have so many needs (and scriptural mandates), and not nearly enough funds to meet the needs.  Plus they need to spin their numbers in ways that don't upset people and keep them donating.  This is what Analytics and Teancum and SeekingUnderstanding would turn our church into.  

You most certainly are misrepresenting my position on this. Totally.🙄

[Stormin' Mormon]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I’m with analytics. It’s the fact that your church’s biggest goal appears to be “grow the size of our financial endowment” that brings into question whether it should enjoy tax advantaged status as well as whether it makes sense to donate incremental dollars to it. 

First of all, holding off on spending money doesn't really tell us anything about the organization's priorities.  It's when those expenditures actually remove the funds from the control and care of the org that we can make actually draw conclusions about what the organization's goals and purposes are.  The Church is saving money, true.  Maybe it's saving too much money.  But if you want to know what the Church's goals actually are.  We can get a good idea of what those funds will eventually be spent on by looking at what the Church spends money on today.  And I'm pretty satisfied with how the Church is actually spending its money, when it does spend its money.    

But even if we concede that "savings" is somehow the same as "spending," the amount of revenue dedicated to any given purpose is a poor metric for identifying an organization's "biggest goal," or even a primary goal.  Sometimes it's just a necessary thing that has to be done.

This would be like concluding that my biggest goal is to pay off my mortgage, since that's where the plurality of my income goes.  Yes, it's a goal, but it's not what motivates me or drives me in any way.  It's not even something I really think about very much.  My biggest goals are more focused on doing good in the world and raising my family right.  Or, at the risk of becoming too political, it's like concluding that the biggest goal of the US government is taking care of old people, since the largest chunk of expenditures in the US budget is for social security and Medicare.  

 

[Teancum]

22 hours ago, bluebell said:

In these discussions I do think it's paramount for people to remember that according to our beliefs, the church is more than a humanitarian organization run by well-meaning but imperfect men.  We do believe that it is Christ's church on the earth run via revelation through a prophet and apostles, with goals and divine mandates that are sometimes (often?) not going to make sense to our "lower ways" (to imply a quote of the "my ways are not your ways" scripture). 

Critics, especially atheists, are not going to see the value in some of the things that we view as being the most valuable and so there is always going to be a gap between what critics think we should be doing and what we think we should be doing. Our two groups do not ultimately have the same agenda.

I most certainly understand  that the church has more than humanitarian aid to think about as well as deploy funds towards.  I am not at all stating that the church should abandon its other stated missions. Keep in mind that tithing and other contributions cover ALL operating costs annually as well as capital expenditures such as building temples.  After that there is a surplus that the church invests. In addition  the EPA fund grows annually and to date none of that has been used at all for anything other than two for profit businesses.  This is why many of us feckless critics think the church ought to do more to relieve human suffering.  And perhaps that is the direction the leadership is headed.  If so kudos.

[Teancum]

23 hours ago, Calm said:

Christ being at the helm (which is a description I prefer as it implies he has others managing other parts of the ship that is the Church) is why I am able to trust that the Church as a whole is not hoarding (I allow for someone hoarding in a small way in their particular calling/job, but don’t believe it is system wide) without seeing financial data that would prove it. It is not the only reason, but the main one. 

Have you ever looked at The Widow's Mite report.  One can define hoarding any way they want.  But if this group is accurate at all the  church has a massive amount of wealth and is one of the most wealthy organizations in the world. And a large chunk of that wealth is in stocks and bonds and it just keeps growing.

[Teancum]

19 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Nothing at all stops you from contributing to causes that you believe are worthy, and you are welcome to do so: 
 

Well sort of but not really.  A believing Latter day Saint will tithe 10% and give to FO, missionary funds at times, other donations, etc.  I know for me when I was active my church contributions did not leave a lot of room to support other causes to any great extent.

[Teancum]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I’m with analytics. It’s the fact that your church’s biggest goal appears to be “grow the size of our financial endowment” that brings into question whether it should enjoy tax advantaged status as well as whether it makes sense to donate incremental dollars to it. 

Me as well!