Big Money in More Good Foundation

[Kishkumen]

One of the most shocking aspects of this latest kerfuffle between John Dehlin and FAIRMormon is the revelation on John's Dehlin's most recent podcast that the non-profits behind things like FAIRMormon and TITS are out-earning and outspending outfits like Mormon Stories and the CES letter many times over. You should check out this section of the latest Mormon Stories podcast:

https://youtu.be/8q17doc9PPI

There is a lot here that I do not trust, so someone who is more careful than John Dehlin needs to verify all of this, but it is probably a good place to dig to understand what exactly is going on with the money pouring into apologetics.

Dehlin claims, on the basis of documents he shows in the video, that:

Beginning in 2012 (ring a bell?), revenue flowing to various apologetic non-profits started to rise.

In 2017, over 6 million dollars of revenue flowed to More Good Foundation, Interpreter, FAIRMormon, and Book of Mormon Central collectively. About 5 million went to More Good Foundation alone. In one year.

Up to 2018 the various non-profits out to defend the Church have collectively taken in a revenue of over 22 million dollars.

Money from Deseret Trust Company and LDS Foundation, which are the LDS Church's entities, has flowed into the coffers of More Good Foundation.

Deseret Trust donated over a million dollars to the More Good Foundation in 2017.

In 2018, the LDS Foundation donated $430,000 to the More Good Foundation. Up to that point they had been donating between 100 and 200K a year to the More Good Foundation.

The More Good Foundation, according to its 990-PF of 2018, passed money to Interpreter (90K), Book of Mormon Central (90K), and FAIRMormon (120K).

The More Good Foundation, which received money from the LDS Church and high-profile, wealthy Mormons pays out over a million dollars in compensation to its executives and staff yearly.

Several More Good Foundation executives and managers make six-figure salaries or close thereto.

The CEO of More Good Foundation one year pulled down a salary of over $170,000.

Book of Mormon Central is also spending a surprisingly large amount on its employees' compensation: $983,128 in 2018.

(Maybe our friend Steve Smoot isn't doing so poorly after all!)

You can draw a line from Church donations and wealthy member donations to More Good Foundation to the production of TITS videos, which are wildly dishonest and irresponsible.

On the other hand, Dehlin really hurts his case by his inaccurate focus on Dr. Peterson. He doesn't understand these tour cruises. It is my understanding from my colleagues who do tours that they are not hugely personally profitable either. The stuff about the money in the 2019 990 has to do with, I would imagine, the making of Witnesses. Dehlin probably knows this, so he really should not repeat some of the mistakes of his opponents here. Get the actual facts and be the better person. He undermines his own case and his moral position by being sloppy and focusing on DCP personally in a dubiously accurate way.

Dehlin also does not understand the LDS Foundation. It is my understanding that the LDS Foundation solicits donations from wealthy members. This idea that tithing funds are going to apologetics through the LDS Foundation is inaccurate according to my understanding. The weakest link in his argument stems from his misunderstanding of the Deseret Trust and the LDS Foundation, in my opinion. I could be wrong.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The cruise thing is just a small outfit, so I don't understand why anyone would think it's anything more than a mom and pop operation? Unless I'm missing something, of course.

- Doc

[dastardly stem]

Thanks for the report, Kishkumen.

Agreed though...sounds like a lot of this needs to be credibly verified.

[Dr Moore]

Agreed that any focus whatsoever on these silly cruises is just, well, silly.

The question I am interested in fact-checking via the money trail is this: is LDS church the largest single donor to these "external" apologetic enterprises?

[Moksha]

It must be realized that the Church has more money than God (despite the rumor that the Kolobian economy is based on gold-pressed Latinum). Why should it not spread the loot around to various groups through the More Good Foundation? People donate a lot of money to ensure these groups provide assassination videos rather than live hits. Is it not better to fund six-figure salaries for these people rather than buying more shares of Amazon and Apple?

[dastardly stem]

Agreed that any focus whatsoever on these silly cruises is just, well, silly.

The question I am interested in fact-checking via the money trail is this: is LDS church the largest single donor to these "external" apologetic enterprises?

I hope its true the Church gives money to these groups. It takes money to defend, and the Church can't sit around letting people hit home runs without a response. THey need a response and it looks a little petty for the Church to get into the weeds with Runnells. A solid organization set up to offer responses to the Runnells and Dehlins seems rather necessary, even if the responses suck at least there is something to go to. The issue I think would be if the Church is funding these, in any meaningful way, and the little groups like FairMormon keep denying it. Why be dishonest about it.

bluebell over on MD&D says,

I think their taxes show that they did receive some funding from More Good ($120,000?) last year, which they used to hire a bookkeeper (again, if I'm remembering correctly). I don't think that would equate to FM being supported by the church though.

Well, um...wouldn't giving them money equate to supporting it? Why try and weasel out of this? It seems obvious some moneys are making it to the end of the line. Why pretend its not happening or that it's so far down the line it doesn't really matter?

[Moksha]

It is better that the Church contribute directly to these organizations than asking members to fund them. I remember how sad it was to read about that California family that gave their life savings to Proposition 8, thinking they were somehow serving God. They were hoodwinked on Proposition 8 and a FAIRMormon snuff film would be even worse.

[Kishkumen]

Agreed that any focus whatsoever on these silly cruises is just, well, silly.

The question I am interested in fact-checking via the money trail is this: is LDS church the largest single donor to these "external" apologetic enterprises?

Agreeing to agree: I totally agree about the cruises. It is a pointless distraction. If DCP or I lead a tour group and get a cruise out of it, that is not living the high life. Is it cool? Yes. But, for pity's sake, such things go with being an ancient history professor in some form or another. There is absolutely nothing untoward about it. Period.

Question response: I don't think so. I think that most of the funding is coming from wealthy members. The LDS Church is using its resources to facilitate the donations, and thus one can say that they are responsible for a chunk of the funding. But I had a professor whose wife worked for the LDS foundation. When I was on the inside of the LDS Church, he told me that she spent her time cultivating wealthy donors to give money for big initiatives. This was done, in my opinion, to keep the tithing out of the equation.

Now, of course, if the Church is involved in some way, then tithing ultimately is involved in some way, but it might be so indirect and insignificant as to be negligible. So, it really does not help to do what Dehlin does at the outset, which is try to connect these apologetic non-profits to tithing. At the very least he should not put that in the front window if he is likely wrong about it, and I think he very well may be. If I am right about the LDS Foundation, there is one place where tithing funds are not being funneled to apologetics, as Dehlin would have people think.

Honestly, I think it is irresponsible of everyone to trade in these speculations and give them a patina of respectability through slick productions. Dehlin really should not go out on a limb this way and say things about Deseret Trust or LDS Foundation that he does not, in fact, know. There was enough in his presentation without these kinds of stretches--the other dumb stretch was the Interpreter 990 and its 1+ million dollars of expenses--that make him look hopelessly biased and ignorant. Is it not enough to know that the Church facilitates and lends its name to, however indirectly, the efforts that have brought about T.I.T.S.?

I don't like that, and I don't think any member would like that. Let's assume, however, that this is a horrible mistake that can and will be walked back. Let's not paint a crazy and distorted picture of President Nelson personally green-lighting Kwaku's stunts and writing checks to fund these videos. Frankly, that's just stupid.

[Dr Moore]

Kish: my concern is deceptive marketing w.r.t. these 3rd party apologetic research sites.

The church publicly distances itself from these organizations. See below for the current presentation. It is pretty much black and white to the public -- these are not sites that the church "endorses."

Yet, by privately donating significant sums to them, the church (a) tacitly DOES endorse them and (b) creates a hidden system of rewards and punishments for any researchers at these "unaffiliated" sites who might dare to contradict the brethren.

This page is, therefore, dishonest marketing.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/si/ ... s?lang=eng

Other Resources
(The following websites are maintained by a third party that is unaffiliated with the Church. By linking to this content The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not endorse the content of these sites.)

1828 edition of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language: Word definitions commonly used in the time of the Restoration of the Church.

Book of Mormon Central: Information that was created to explain, engage, inspire, and encourage greater knowledge and appreciation of every aspect of the Book of Mormon.

FairMormon: Well-reasoned and faithful responses to doctrinal, historical, and social questions.

Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Information about Joseph Smith’s plural marriage practices and teachings.

Mormon Scholars Testify: Messages of faith from scholars who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Interpreter Foundation: Independent organization that focuses on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They publish a peer-reviewed journal: Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture.

[Kishkumen]

Kish: my concern is deceptive marketing w.r.t. these 3rd party apologetic research sites.

In my view, deceptive comes with the territory. Is the Church going to teach lucidly and fulsomely its actual history and actual doctrine to non-Mormons? Or even its own members?

No. I don't think so. But what is the aim being pursued here?

I just don't think or expect the LDS Church will be perfectly honest about its relationship with its own apologists.

What I think we can hope to do is to pressure the Church into nudging the apologists not to go off the deep end as we see in the T.I.T.S. videos. The extent to which any kind of relationship between the Church and these organizations can be honestly established will help keep everyone accountable.