Since the Church seems to not have a clue on what to do with all its money, let’s help them out and crowdsource some ideas on how to spend $100 Billion. Let’s keep is simple, and not try to solve world hunger, although it is possible that $100 Billion could put a substantial dent in it. Let’s look at simple, relatively low cost (say under 1-2 billion) things the Church could do that would make a real difference in people’s lives, and as an added bonus, bring good PR to the Church.
I’ll go first. Mine are USA-centric because that’s were I live. For my readers outside the US, how could the money help your country?
- When I was bishop, there was a limit on how much fast offering funds I could give a ward member for medical. Today the limit is $10,000 with the Stake President’s permission. For the USA and our broken health care system, then will pay for a visit to the ER and maybe an aspirin. What if the Church raised it to $50,000? This could make a huge difference in people’s lives. Up to 2/3 of all bankruptcies in the US are attributed to medical bills. Even if there was one person per unit in the US that needed this help (which is probably way over), the total cost to the church would be 15, 000 units X $50,000 = 0.75 billion.
- How about something that benefits not only members, but non-members? Everyday a child dies from a house fire in the USA. Lets purchase a smoke and carbon dioxide alarm for every house in the USA. Cut a deal with the manufacturers, make a big deal of it, and get them installed. A rough calculation on number of houses (most already have one) and cost of alarms plus installation would be $2.5 billion. Think of all the goodwill and good PR the church would get.
I ask ChatGTP the same question and got the following list
- Education Initiatives: Create scholarship programs or educational grants to help underprivileged students, both within the Mormon community and beyond. Funding for vocational training, higher education, and skill development could open doors for individuals who might not have access to quality education.
- Global Humanitarian Aid: Use the funds to provide immediate relief during natural disasters, conflicts, and other crises. Establish partnerships with established humanitarian organizations to efficiently distribute aid and assistance to affected communities worldwide.
- Healthcare Accessibility: Collaborate with medical institutions and nonprofit organizations to improve healthcare access for underserved populations. This could involve setting up clinics, providing free medical camps, or supporting research for diseases that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
- Mental Health Support: Create mental health awareness programs, hotlines, and resources that cater to both the Mormon community and the general public. Addressing mental health issues openly and providing support could destigmatize the topic and offer crucial assistance to those in need.
- Affordable Housing Initiatives: Invest in affordable housing projects to help individuals and families struggling with housing costs. Partner with local governments, NGOs, and experts to develop sustainable housing solutions for vulnerable populations.
- Clean Water and Sanitation Projects: Fund projects that aim to provide clean drinking water and improved sanitation facilities in areas lacking access to these basic necessities. Clean water initiatives can significantly improve health and quality of life.
- Job Training and Entrepreneurship Programs: Create training programs and resources that equip people with valuable skills for employment or starting their own businesses. This could empower individuals to become self-reliant and contribute positively to their communities.
- Support for Disadvantaged Children: Establish programs that focus on improving the lives of orphaned, abandoned, or economically disadvantaged children. Providing shelter, education, and emotional support can make a significant impact on these young lives.
- Environmental Conservation Projects: Invest in projects that promote sustainability, environmental awareness, and conservation. Initiatives like reforestation, clean energy adoption, and waste reduction can benefit both local communities and the planet.
- Crisis Intervention and Counseling Services: Develop comprehensive crisis intervention programs, including counseling and support services for individuals facing challenges such as addiction, domestic violence, or personal crises.
Now it’s your turn. Think outside the box on how to spend 1-2 billion dollars (or Pounds, or Euros, or Pasos). Remember, that 1-2 billion from the church’s Ensign Peak funds is less that what they earn a year on interest.
Wheat & Tares 
There are approximately 3.8 million public school teachers in the USA. Give $1,000 to each of them for however they see fit to help their students. That’s $3.8 billion. Extend to other nations as well.
My number one priority would be to feed hungry malnourished children. I have shared on this blog before about Bountiful children’s f0undation. https://bountifulchildren.org/
I have shared before how Bountiful board of directors has had meetings with Q15, and were told the church can not help because they do not want the children and the families to become dependent on the program. Sounds like Anderson quote in Zimbabwe .
In the typical hypocritical fashion the church this week announced: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-unicef-mothers-children-donation
This is great! However did they also pledge dollars to Bountiful? Thousands of member infants are malnourished. I am glad they donated to UNICEF, but a UNICEF press release has more press eyes than one to Bountiful.
The money keeps growing and growing
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2020/06/09/lees-summit-vacant-acreage-development.html
Give each ward/ branch a sum annually that can be used in local humanitarian projects / programmes within the ward boundaries, as decided by the ward members. This has the advantage of connecting ward members with community projects without requiring additional funding to come from members who have already tithed, paid fast offerings, and paid contributions to the humanitarian aid funds only to see that disappear on often be hard pressed to dip into their pockets yet again for such projects. If SL are going to take all the donations they really should allocate funds to the wards for such projects.
We live in a very rural area. I would love to see a youth center or family center. Pool tables ping ping tables , games , a big court that could be used as a basketball or pickle ball. Etc. A smoothie bar or something along that line that youth can work at. They could charge a small membership fee. And yes open to the public!!!!
A work friend on Facebook was doing a gofundme type of solicitation for his brother who lives in Maui and the point was made of course that they are Church members. As background, my friend and I both live in Utah. My first thought is that we need the Church to $tep up here, and whatever the in$titution i$ doing, they could obviou$ly be doing $o much more. $orry for the gratuitou$ $ymbology here but you get the point…For context go to the KSL website and search “Maui”
Put janitors back in every chapel. Creates local jobs!
Fully fund every single food bank and homeless shelter in America in perpetuity.
Build more homeless shelters.
Make that UNICEF donation annually recurring.
Interpret Jacob 2:18-19 and Luke 12:16-21 literally.
No need to throw billions at a corrupt healthcare system that grinds upon the poor. That would be supporting a broken system and it would line the pockets of the rich. They write off many of their crazy bills already, which is another reason not to put money here. Instead, how about becoming persistently vocal from the top of the church by preaching that the healthcare system is unjust and needs serious intervention. Lock arms with every church in the nation to forcefully preach that it is unjust. Harness the collective power of the church to help the poor in this way. Have GAs preach this message over and over again. The preached answer does not have to be socialized medicine, it just has to lower prices. There are many ways to do this. There are even market approaches that could help – like easy reimportation of drugs. The church could stand up for the oppressed as Isaiah teaches. I like the associated idea of raising other limits and additionally to start providing for some wants instead of just needs as the bom and d&c both prescribe.
Looking at the chatGTP list I’m struck by how similar it is to what the church is actually involved in currently.
Education initiative: The Perpetual Education Fund and BYU Pathway program.
Global Humanitarian Aid: The church does work with humanitarian partners and donates money and other goods/services to them.
Healthcare accessibility: The Church supports vaccination programs run by International organizations and does pay a lot of medical bills. $10,000 is nothing to dismiss. I would point out that in the US that is also the maximum out of pocket deductible for the highest deductible health plans. Covering more than that could potentially incentivize people to forego insurance.
Mental health Support: the church provides or pays for therapy for a lot of people.
Affordable housing: I don’t think actually developing/buiding affordable housing is a significant program for the church but the church does help a lot of people with rent and housing payments.
I’ll stop there but the church also has job programs, water programs etc from the list. I do think there is a desire to help and I see it in action all the time. I agree that I would like to see more
I want tiny housing projects in areas with access to public transportation, work, and free or affordable healthcare. We could offer grants of access to these facilities to people in dire circumstances that need a fresh chance and a leg up
The US has a housing crisis. Too much demand and not enough supply. So instead of building more ridiculous temples, build houses. Many details would have to be sorted out (anti-growth initiatives, etc.) but with $100b there are many ways to solve problems including offering low interest loans as well since mortgage rates just hit a 20-year high. Maybe focus on cities since there’s also an over supply of office space so converting office space to housing would be amazing.
I recognize that Bishop Bill focused on the US because that is where he is based, but the CoJCoLDS is already too US-centric. So better to think globally.
The thing I like about Hedgehog’s plan of giving individual units funds to use on humanitarian projects is that it not only gives units the ability to think about and try to solve problems within their community, but also strong incentive to reach outside the Mormon community. Even better, it also would provide thousands of pilot projects that can test the efficacy of different approaches. My guess is that some of these would identify strategies that the LDS church could back in other areas via separate, sustainable funding that would have really transforming impact.
As much as I think that religious institutions ought to work to create meaningful health care security in all countries, (after all healing the sick has been a central mission of Christianity since the beginning), I do not trust the type of health care systems the LDS church would advocate for. Would women have access to birth control and abortion services? Would men have access to vasectomies? Would transgender individuals have access to gender-affirming care? What type of mental health services would be supported?
I certainly think anti-poverty initiatives and housing initiatives could be excellent use of the funds, but it would take a complete reset of the mindset of the Q15, who for the most part seem stuck in an ETB mindset about these issues. Again, perhaps if local units were creatively engaged here, there might be a chance of a real breakthrough that could then be implemented on larger scale. But I don’t see current central leadership coming up with novel initiatives like the old church welfare program.
Lane makes an important point. It is not constructive to the building of Zion for the church to fund systems that are fundamentally corrupt. The US medical cartel is corrupt. Rather than “give” money to pay bills to this corrupt system the LDS church should advocate for and put money into alternative systems for providing medical care. It is far better for a medical bill to be affordable on its own than to provide subsidies for medical care that is priced at obscene levels
Related to this is the advocacy for affordable housing. The answer is not subsidies but in reducing the costs of permits and regulations. The LDS church could pilot projects demonstrating that environmentally friendly housing and communities can be affordably built. Laws and incentives need to be changed. There is an opportunity for church leaders to step forward to do this. Observe that the issue of affordable, nice community, housing is a challenge in many countries.
The entire post has a faulty premise: that the Church needs to spend the $100 billion, or even that it has $100 billion in cash that it can spend. Most of the Church’s investments are not liquid and cannot be used in any sort of immediate fashion. It’s structured for long-term stability and short-term flexibility.
More than half of the $100 billion (about $60 billion, IIRC) represents the value of commercial real estate properties the Church has bought. They create a dedicated revenue stream from the rents the Church receives on the properties. In today’s commercial real estate market, the Church would not be able to sell those properties for their current value, especially if it were to dump all of them on the market at once to liquidate its holdings.
The remainder of its investments are in a variety of stocks, bonds and other more liquid holdings. That makes up about 40% or $40 billion (or about 5 years of the Church’s operating budget). When you consider the rationale they have given for having a “rainy day fund”, that is not an unreasonable amount for them to have “in the bank”.
From what we know of the Church’s investments, it’s pretty much in line with what you expect from an organization looking to have a self-sustaining revenue stream, much like other non-profit setups like Harvard’s endowment.
Ways to spend the LD$ Inc. slush fund:
1. Remove the name and initials of a 19th century despot from every Mormon obelisk, university, curricula, and real estate. Prohibit using the letters BY in any setting.
2. Close all Beehive Clothing manufacturing facilities. Pay generous severances. Recycle unused fabrics to more beneficial uses. Embrace a pro-choice underwear policy.
3. Donate material $ to funds to end hunger and improve children’s health worldwide.
4. Pay qualified musicians to provide uplifting music churchwide (pet peeve).
The Church could start to seriously prepare for the prophesied chaos and societal breakdown that is expected before the Second Coming. Once things get crazy, a stock market portfolio is going to be worth nothing. No one is going to be buying and selling stocks while the oceans boil and earthquakes quake and other natural disasters have strained society to the limit.
The Church should start building Second Coming Centers adjacent to every new temple. These buildings will be fully stocked with food and medicine, and have CB radios and anything else people might need to survive the collapse of civilization as we know it.
No sense letting the Second Coming Centers go to waste. Until Christ comes again, these SC Centers will be disguised as housing-first homeless shelters. People who are currently unhoused will be welcomed in, as practice for when we need to evacuate an entire community, or rescue the survivors of a Second Coming disaster. We’ll need a wide variety of people who are trained and experienced in helping trauma survivors, so the Centers will be fully staffed with well-paid, well-trained and fully qualified medical professionals and social workers who can treat trauma. Until the Second Coming, naturally they will practice their skills on the unhoused, helping them recover from physical injury, mental illness, addiction, and other forms of trauma.
With so many formerly unhoused people living in the Centers, it only makes sense to teach them survival skills, as soon as they’re ready to learn. These people can learn to operate CB radios, learn to grow food, learn to prepare nutritious meals. They’ll also learn to clean and maintain the Center, as that’s critically important for survival. Naturally, they will also be well-paid. Some may even choose to leave the SC Center and work elsewhere. This frees up space for more of the currently unhoused to help camouflage these Centers as housing-first homeless shelters.
Basically, the Second Coming Centers will work to make life better for people now, which will produce untold benefits during the Second Coming chaos. Imagine a worldwide network of emergency shelters, fully staffed and already operational, right next door to the temples, already doing Christlike work among the people Christ cared for so diligently during his time in mortality.
To start, I really appreciate the move to take EFY, a program for kids whose parents had means, and convert it into FSY, a program for all. My oldest had a good experience this summer, not only attending the church activities, but getting an idea of dorm/university life. Room, board, and the weeklong program for $75.
Can the church also do the same for YW/YM camp? Enough with the bake sales already.
Otherwise I think the idea to help with the housing crisis would be wonderful. And also the idea to push the funds down locally and letting the members be more involved would also be a win for all. I would volunteer for such a calling.
I would like to see them make a significant contribution to the issue of global climate change. Not necessarily money, but I would like to see a campaign of awareness designed to stave off disaster rather than preaching to horde resources in preparation of it. It could be focused on ways to limit energy consumption and transforming Salt Lake into a net zero community firstly with the intention of taking that model to the stakes of Zion. Secondarily I would like them to ask members to contribute to local charities rather than pay tithing. An accounting of charitable contributions could even be required at the end of the year in bishop tithing settlement interviews. This could include time spent as well as monetary donations.
I love dreaming of ways to spend other people’s money.
I feel our meetinghouses are underutilized and could be used in ways that benefit the entire community. Would love to see the church hire building managers to facilitate more community uses since any added use would otherwise burden ward members.
Sd: It’s our money.
The church could buy land and mitigate climate change by reestablishing prairies and forests. Gotta make Missouri the Garden of Eden again.
Kidding. Church doesn’t care about climate change.
Divest stocks and bonds from Babylon’s secular economic system and work on Zion—vertical integration of a private, closed food system, and Church-owned farms to develop regional agriculture. Include flax for linen, so temple garments can be made from the fabric designated to express the symbol of the resurrected body (the frequency of the linen fabric is scientifically documented as “healing” to the body). The current temple garment is a China-slave-made abomination.
Wards should keep 90 percent of tithe, pay 10 percent of the tithe to headquarters. Wards need to be able to take care of their own, be self-sufficient, before sending money to Salt Lake City for the purpose of building Utah’s secular economy. This way, the greedy middle-managers of the LDS Establishment can keep their current fund, and watch it dwindle as the dollar collapses and the market tanks.
LDS health care, medical insurance, and Church-owned hospitals. Pure religion is this…
Be prepared to bridge the inevitable gap there’ll be (and already is) between local resources and costs in poor countries where the church is growing.
“Everyday a child dies from a house fire in the USA. Lets purchase a smoke and carbon dioxide alarm for every house in the USA. Cut a deal with the manufacturers, make a big deal of it, and get them installed.”
Wow, talk about bringing up a good memory. This is exactly what my 13-year old son came up with for his Eagle Scout project 25 years ago (minus the 100B, which is literally more money than I make in a year). He went to Lowe’s and got an at-cost deal from them, then canvased all of the residents in our ward boundaries. More than half of the houses jumped on the idea. Still proud.
I like educational assistance in the model of the Perpetual Ed Program (I think BYU Pathways as now constituted doesn’t cut it), but opened to ALL members who can benefit. How about microloans available for all Relief Society members in the Third World? In fact, I’d have the Relief Society manage the microloans and Perpetual Ed programs locally and globally.
They just announced that they are giving 1 million dollars to help Maui, what more do you people want? 1 million dollars is a lot of money and I’m sure it will make a big impact to the faithful Hawaiian people as well as the non-members in the community.
Jack, the income/resources gap has existed throughout my life. A friend who spent his career working for the Presiding Bishopric said 40 years ago that the disparity in the large amount of money spent by the Church in the wealthy areas of northern Utah in comparison to the relatively small amount spent in the extremely poor countries of the world was of concern to the Presiding Bishopric. I don’t have any idea if anything has been done about this concern.
Travis and Old Man, the Church used to be involved in gathering and storing food, hospitals, etc. It was during the time when the Relief Society was a fairly independent organization. The grain shared with the nation during the Great Depression and sent to Europe following World War II was purchased by the Relief Society and stored in silos built by the Relief Society. I love the idea of the Relief Society again being in charge of helping to make the world a better place.
Bubbles, the cost to restore Lahaina alone is estimated at $5.2 BILLION. I’m glad that the Church donated $1 million. I think it’s a fantastic gift. But it’s not a lot of money in comparison with the need. It’s .02% of the need to rebuild Lahaina, without adding in the need to care for the people now or help in the other devastated areas of the island. But again, I am grateful the Church is making this donation. I lived in southeastern Idaho when the Teton Dam flooded the region. I know firsthand the difference made when we help in rebuilding from devastation.
If I were given power to shake things up a bit at church headquarters, I would do the following:
1. Invest in church programs. I think the FSY program, which is clearly heavily subsidized, is a step in the right direction, but it’s not going to be of interest to every kid. Make youth programs more diverse to appeal to more kids, and consider having more paid staff (beyond just CES people) to run them. The scout camp experience I had as a kid was run by paid professionals, and it showed. You really do get what you pay for with youth programs. Probably bump up ward budge funds a bit while they’re at it. They can afford it.
2. Make missionary service free. It’s probably already subsidized. Why ask anyone to pay?
3. Hire custodians for church buildings. Enough said.
Those things would all be done with the excess tithing funds that currently go into the reserve fund. The reserve fund doesn’t need any more incoming funds added. It’s not 1960 anymore. The church isn’t in financial crisis anymore. Be willing to spend what’s coming in every year.
It’s completely justifiable to have a reserve fund. Keep enough of those investments for 2-3 years worth of operating funds. You’ll still have 100-odd billion left, so let’s talk about that now:
1. Create a global humanitarian fund, similar to other big charitable funds like the Gates Foundation (with double the endowment) and get to work deciding what kinds of things you want to focus on. Let’s note, for reference, that the Gates Foundation employs 1500 people. This will be a non-trivial operation and it will take some time and thought. There will probably be big joint ventures with the Gates Foundation and others like it. Make it something people can easily donate to directly. If all those investments actually have a meaningful purpose, people might actually be interested in contributing more. Wealthy members might be proud to be associated with such an operation.
2. Consider setting aside several billion for a big investment in education in Africa and some other developing nations. There is strong church growth in those regions, and there is real need for good educational resources. BYU Pathways is an interesting initiative, but it’s likely not what they need there. Figure out what kind of university is needed in Africa, and be willing to subsidize it so it’s as cheap to them as BYU is to the average Mormon family in the western US. Make it open to non-members. And don’t use any BYU branding. I suggest naming it after a beloved Mormon leader, ideally non-white, an educator, and even better, a woman. Yes, that’s Cheiko Okazaki I’m suggesting.
Bubbles said: They just announced that they are giving 1 million dollars to help Maui, what more do you people want? 1 million dollars is a lot of money and I’m sure it will make a big impact to the faithful Hawaiian people as well as the non-members in the community.
This is a perfect example of Poe’s law: without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views
Never going to happen. The church, like any business entity, is concerned with enhancing and preserving profits. There may be some trivial showings of “community concerns” but no different than Exon giving some minuscule part of its profits to cultural events. The “business” of being a church is actually secondary to the accumulation of huge amounts of money. That’s why the post-correlation world is so thin and dry: it’s not the primary focus.
Faithfully tithed all my life(no longer). My chapel will be shut in September, so any community presence we had will disappear.
So. A chapel built by the members will sit empty and degrade the neighbourhood, when it could be at least a community resource run by perhaps a paid building manager hosting a food bank using supermarket outdates, a warm up facility for refugee families in winter, language and literacy groups for refugees, a playgroup and if necessary some of those lauded but ignored courses the church runs like self reliance and marriage enrichment. And some more stuff, opening up our youth groups to non members, fitness and diet classes and info. Way to have influence in the community, missionaries to be warm bodies populating, cleaning and doing as necessary. Not preaching but responding to requests to inform. Money well spent.
There are 153 million foster children and orphans in the world according to UNICEF. If we broke down $100B by this number it would be about $650-ish per child.
There are 391,000 children in the US in foster care- which would break down to approximately $256k each (enough to raise and send a child to college).
I don’t know how to prioritize which children to help (likely those in the most dire situations in impoverished circumstances), but I do know we need to help the children.
Well, rather than brainstorm my own ideas, I’ll take a crack at the ChatGPT suggestions and whether I think they are a good fit for the church:
1) Educational Initiatives. They do have Pathways already, but my personal perspective is that Mormon students who don’t make it into BYU should be eligible for some kind of church-funded scholarship at state schools. The problem is that they would prefer to route students into indoctrination centers, er, the less prestigious BYUs (ID and HI) and force them to take bogus Rel Ed classes. I guess they could do the same by forcing them to take Institute classes which are educationally sus, but probably really a place to meet LDS spouses.
2) Global Humanitarian Aid. Yes, they should do more of this.
3) Healthcare Accessibility. I would love to see the Church offer a low-cost healthcare option for members, not just cover medical disasters, but this type of healthcare needs to be stripped of the strings the Church attaches for its employees (e.g. birth control is not covered until you’ve had FIVE children??)
4) Mental Health Support. Hard pass on this one. You can’t offer valid mental health support while denying the experiences of LGBTQ people. You can’t both create the mental health problem and treat it.
5) Affordable Housing Initiatives. This one is my favorite of the suggestions. I loved the Utah homeless solution of just giving people apartments. What about some sort of Section 8 style housing vouchers for young, married church members trying to start a family but who can’t really afford to get their own place yet?
6) Clean Water & Sanitation. This falls into global humanitarian aid IMO, but one thought I have had recently is that they have the money to actually save the Great Salt Lake, which poses a health hazard for Utahns.
7) Job Training & Entrepeneurship. Eh, maybe. This doesn’t thrill me.
8) Disadvantaged Children. Maybe, but not sure it’s a top priority for charity vs. government.
9) Environmental Conservation Projects. See my Great Salt Lake comment.
10) Crisis Intervention & Counseling Services. Well, I’ve seen their “gold standard” for handling abuse, and it’s not great. I would love to see the Church learn how to help domestic violence victims, but it’s literally terrible at it right now.
Regarding higher education–I’ve often felt that the Church should stop giving LDS BYU students a tuition break and hand out the equivalent in money to ALL LDS youth who are at least 18 and have graduated from high school (possibly with a minimum GPA? Service / community / church work? An essay on how the money will be spent?). The youth could then use the money AS THEY SEE FIT to attend any (accredited) tech school, college or university, or even do a study abroad program, gap-year service project, apprenticeship, open their own business, etc. Obviously this is unlikely to happen because of intense administrative costs and working out all the wheres. whens, hows, and so forth. But this would provide youth with a clear way to do what they want, where they want. And encourage them to focus on what they’re actually suited for and interested in. And maybe the BYUS would be forced to become more competitive and less sexist, racist and homophobic in order to attract students. Pie-in-the-sky, I know…
The impression I get from the Church’s humanitarian efforts is that they don’t want to be the main source of funds for any one entity. They give a million dollars to the Maui fund, they give money to UNICEF, they give money to the Red Cross. But none of it is ongoing support (that I know about – I could be wrong). Maybe part of the reason the Church was reluctant to donate to the Bountiful’s Children foundation was because they were at risk of being the biggest donor and a major source of their budget. The Church doesn’t want an entire charitable program depending on it for funding.
The Church also doesn’t run anything itself. Humanitarian work means relief societies put together hygiene kits, or disaster food packages. But typically, the Church donates to other organizations. It partners with other charities who have ways to distribute those food packages. There’s nothing like the Gates foundation, with its own agenda and employees. I don’t believe the Church wants to be involved in that way. It funds temples and missionaries and BYUs and seminaries and other Church stuff. But while it’s willing to donate to humanitarian work, it doesn’t want to be the one running humanitarian work, nor does it want to be any other charity’s source of ongoing funding.
Here’s a gift! Don’t rely on us! Great press release, thanks, now we’ll go find another charity so no one gets used to our donations!
Here’s a crazy thought:
The Church keeps its nest egg as an endowment to fund all church operations in perpetuity. Since it doesn’t need our money, it asks its members to pay their tithing to worthwhile charities instead of to the Church. Ten percent is encouraged if you can afford it, but less if not. No records are kept and no declarations are required.
Fund college degrees and job training programs at every prison nationwide. They could award credits through BYU – already have a strong online program… they could have local folks be instructors.
Janey: I think your hunch sounds right, that the Church doesn’t want to be the primary funder of any individual charity, and my best guess as to why is because of liability. So. Many. Church. Decisions. are about liability. I’m not sure in this case it’s a bad idea. They were a primary funder of the BSA, and that didn’t work out so well. Charities are great and all, but how many of them have had a scandal or been embezzled from? I guess we should just thank our lucky stars that they aren’t the main funders of Trump University or the Build the Wall foundation, both of which turned out to be grifts.