DCP conflates humanitarian aid with church welfare

[drumdude]

some cynical critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may (and do) sniff at a mere $1.36B in 2023 humanitarian aid as too little, too cheap, even pathetic and disgraceful. But I doubt that the American National Red Cross ($1.05B) or the United States Fund for UNICEF ($959M) would be so dismissive.

As DCP himself has lamented, the church’s detailed financial reports are not available. That is a very important distinction between the church and the charities he compares it to. But the “widow’s mite” report uses publicly available data to try and infer the truth.

The truth is that out of this 1.3 billion in “humanitarian aid” approximately 850 million was paid out to members only in the form of fast offering assistance. Only $450 million would be considered humanitarian aid, the kind given out to anyone without regard to membership or religious affiliation.



Noteworthy is DCP’s silence about the church being essentially shamed into giving a significant percentage to the non-Mormon world. In 2021, only an estimated 100 million of the 900 million was given out as humanitarian aid to non-members. This change comes on the heels of a flood of bad publicity pointing out just how much money the church was hoarding and just how little it was spending.

The widow’s mite predicts real humanitarian aid may eventually surpass the church’s welfare spending, which would be a much welcomed step in the church becoming a true top 10 contender with the likes of the organizations DCP pointed to.

However, to put the current numbers into perspective, for every 1 dollar in humanitarian aid that the church spends, it spends 5 dollars in church welfare, and 99 dollars into church investments.

For more details and analysis, I strongly recommend the Widow’s mite report:

https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/caring-2023/

The church would do well to present their financial information themselves, rather than have others do it for them. If they want to be seen as a charity the way DCP would like them to be seen, that is.

[I Have Questions]

some cynical critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may (and do) sniff at a mere $1.36B in 2023 humanitarian aid as too little, too cheap, even pathetic and disgraceful. But I doubt that the American National Red Cross ($1.05B) or the United States Fund for UNICEF ($959M) would be so dismissive.

The humble bragging that the Church expends more than, say, the American Red Cross, is pretty distasteful. It’s like a wealthy ward member boasting he pays more tithing than the truck driver. They both pay the same - 10% of their income.

Now, what proportion of its income does the American Red Cross give? Unlike the Church, the American Red Cross is transparent and publishes its financials. At the end of 2021 the ARC had $3.7 billion worth of assets. So it’s $1.05 billion expenditure represents about a third of its total worth. Let’s see the Church give that proportion of its total worth out…

https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/re ... tement.pdf

Why does the Church need a rainy day fund in the first place? Don’t they trust that the members and officers of the church would consecrate their time and talents in operating and building up the kingdom of God on a volunteer basis? Don’t they trust that the members would sustain the General Authorities in the way people of old gave lodgings etc to the Apostles? The only reason for a rainy day fund is that the Prophet and Apostles don’t trust that the Church could operate without cash. It really has become a slave to money.

[Morley]

Why does the Church need a rainy day fund in the first place? Don’t they trust that the members and officers of the church would consecrate their time and talents in operating and building up the kingdom of God on a volunteer basis?

It's not the members that they don't trust. They don't trust God.

[Gadianton]

There is no use case for the money and Dan knows it. That's why he's fallen back to the argument that contra Joseph F. Smith, it's an ironclad law that members pay 10% no matter what. If the church took the money and burned it straightaway, they'd still have to pay because it's an irrevocable law of heaven.

There is no use case as a "rainy day" fund because the kind of rainy days that would require that much money to get through would end the institutions the money is invested in. This isn't like in the Book of Mormon where you could store 7 years of food during times of plenty for 7 years of famine.

If there were a nuclear war, the Church's wealth goes to zero. It has no catastrophe savings. It probably has billionaire bunkers for the top authorities and their families, but that's a few pennies.

[I Have Questions]

The only thing that makes sense of hoarding all that money is…nope, I got nothing.

[Dr Moore]

The only thing that makes sense of hoarding all that money is…nope, I got nothing.

Fear.