Re: Did the Church "Bail Out" Interpreter with Tithing Money?
Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:01 pm
Doctor, forgive me for the public correction. You misattributed Witnesses profit to the stated revenue in the 990 forms. Please see the correct profit computations below, pieced together by our talented new financial studies intern, Nobert Rygren.Doctor Scratch wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 8:05 pmLuckily, I received a pair of links recently from an "informant" which help to shed some light on the situation: namely, Interpreter's 2021 and 2022 tax documents. These documents show, very curiously, that rather than burning a hole in Interpreter's budget, Witnesses managed to somehow turn a profit: $387,000 for 2021, and $102,000 for 2022. What on earth is going on here?
WITNESSES
2020 Revenue: $0 (page 10)
2020 Expenses: $335,165 (page 3)
2020 Loss: -$335,165
2021 Revenue: $387,274 (page 10)
2021 Expenses: $631,041 (page 3)
2021 Loss: -$243,767
2022 Revenue: $102,076 (page 10)
2022 Expenses: $234,843 (page 3)
2022 Loss: -$132,767
2020-2022 total loss from Witnesses: -$711,699
So as a profit venture, Witnesses was a huge loser.
What is interesting from these 990 filings is this: despite losing $711,699 on Witnesses over the course of 3 years, Interpreter managed to turn a nice profit each year. For a shoestring budget operation, how does that happen? My best guess is they had generous donor(s) fully funding the production and marketing of Witnesses. To that theory, Interpreter reported the following "contributions and grants" revenue. The spike in 2019 and elevated level in 2020 suggest successful fundraising efforts against expected production & marketing costs. My guess is that Witnesses was "sold" to donors on the following assumptions: (1) cost over $1 million to make & distribute (actual close to $1.2 million) and (2) theatrical revenue could be zero.
Interpreter -- total contributions & grants revenue:
- 2018: $359,977 (pre Witnesses)
- 2019: $1,177,102 (pre Witnesses)
- 2020: $838,080 (Witnesses in production, no revenue)
- 2021: $575,635
- 2022: $447,501
The question you should be asking is how much of the elevated donations to Interpreter -- $1.2 million in 2019 and $838,000 in 2020 -- came from private donors and how much came from institutional donations, i.e. the church.