It's Important to Know What You Don't Know

[Bret Ripley]

Wow.

[yellowstone123]

Faith matters? Faith in what?

[Res Ipsa]

Talk about knowing what you don't know, here's the message i get when i put the Faith Matters foundation EIN # into a charity review site:

Faith Matters Foundation Inc. cannot currently be evaluated by our Impact & Results methodology because either (A) it is eligible, but we have not yet received data; (B) we have not yet developed an algorithm to estimate its programmatic impact; (C) its programs are not direct services; or (D) it is not heavily reliant on contributions from individual donors.

Note: The absence of a score does not indicate a positive or negative assessment, it only indicates that we have not yet evaluated the organization...

https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/852759608

Huh. A 501 c 3 that in theory relies on individual donations, but TWO YEARS later, still can't be evaluated? Look at the reasons.

To be fair (as I am trying to be), the Faith Matters Foundation received its tax exempt 501(c)(3) status in March 2021, and the IRS is behind on processing 990s.

Data Updates Delayed

Expect delays in data updates for the Tax Exempt Organization Search tool. We are still processing paper-filed 990 series received 2021 and later.

However, to also be scrupulously fair to charitable organizations who are interested in transparency, it's common practice for 501(c)(3) charitable organizations to have a "finances" section on their websites on which they post copies of their 990s when they file them. Here's an example from a charitable organization in Idaho:

https://www.youthranch.org/impactandfinancials

More importantly, thank you for finding the answer to my question: who controls Faith Matters? It's an organization called the Faith Matters Foundation. You can actually find that on the Faith Matters website, but you have to hit the "donate" link or click on one of the first two photos of the "Executive Directors." Clicking on the photos tells us that the four members of the Turnbull family were the "founders" of the Foundation. The others are referred to as members of the "Executive Team."

It's a kind of convoluted way to disclose who controls Faith Matters -- If you have an "about" page, one would expect to find the name of the legal entity that controls the organization. But it's progress, because we can now ask a question that we can track down independent of the Faith Matters site: who controls the Faith Matters Foundation?

But, pedantic as it is, there are still important lessons that the Radiant Foundation can teach us about figuring out who controls an entity, so I'm going to push on with that for a bit.

[MG 2.0]

Wow.

Yeh.

Weird.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

Are you talking about the Radiant Foundation site or the DMC site?

The parent company has the child company listed on the parent company site.

I do not see any reference to the parent company on the child company site.

Thanks. I couldn't find one either on the Radiant Foundation site, and wanted to make sure I wasn't just missing anything.

The Radiant Foundation site is odd because it says absolutely nothing about the Foundation itself. Nothing about who runs it. No street address, no telephone number, no e-mail address. Yet, it purports to run a wide-ranging project to influence the media. And there is no hint whatsoever that LDS, Inc. has anything to do with it.

And the most interesting part is the evidence that it never existed except as a branding label. But that requires us all to meet an actual, bona fide, charitable foundation: the Bonneville Charitable Foundation. I'd link you to this real foundation's website, but I can't actually find one. Here's the Charity Navigator entry: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/870491455 It says "URL not available. If anyone else can find a webpage for this foundation, please post it.

Luckily, if one is willing to throw a few shekels at the government of Utah, you can actually find out information about this foundation.

The BCF was formed in 1991, and you can look up its Articles of Incorporation for the aforementioned shekels. They list two specific purposes for the Foundation:





The Articles also tell us who controls the Foundation:



So, the BCF was controlled by whoever the "Executive Committee of the Board of Directors" of the completely for profit Bonneville International Corporation appointed as members. I trust we don't have to repeat this exercise up the chain that leads, ultimately, to our favorite corporation sole.

But what about the Radiant Foundation? Well....



The Radiant Foundation was just the Bonneville Charitable Foundation operating under a perfectly legal alias.

So, who controlled the Radiant Foundation? Whoever the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Bonneville International appointed as members of the Bonneville Charitable Foundation. And who were those members? Well, that would require a subpoena. Because the entire point of this form of organizational structure is to keep you and me from finding out who those members are. Perfectly legal and perfectly opaque. And also a deliberate choice in organizational structure.

But, I shouldn't really be talking about "members." Because, at least until 2019, it was actually "member." One unidentified person chose the trustees of the Bonneville Charitable Foundation, who are publicly identified. And we know this because the Foundation told us so when it adopted and filed restated Articles of Incorporation.



The restated articles eliminate "members" from the governing structure. Now there are just Trustees. For another couple shekels the state will tell you who they are.



But what the state can't tell you is who chooses the Trustees:



Yes, you can look up who the Trustees are, but you can't look up who selects the Trustees because Corporations don't have to file their bylaws and the Foundation doesn't have a website where it posts them. Again, this is a deliberate choice. Charitable organizations can and do provide to the public information that makes their governing structure completely transparent. We'll look at one for the purpose of contrasting what a transparent charitable organization does with the structure of the Faith Matters Foundation.

But it's late and I'm tired. A couple of notes. We might be able to glean a little more information about the BCF from its 990s, but the latest one available on the IRS website is from tax year 2017, so nothing about it after it revised its governance structure. Also, I can't find a renewal for the Radiant Foundation dba. Or evidence of a legal entity called Radiant Foundation. Just the listing on the Deseret Management Corporation website, which doesn't tell us anything about its legal relationship to the "Foundation."

[Moksha]

Radiant is the LDS group controlling Beliefnet and Patheos, right?

[yellowstone123]

Clearly Faith Matters is trying to counter John D’s videos of a faith crisis or crisis of faith, but I never bought into John D’s belief. If one puts their faith and money into a man-made organization then you are going to be upset when disturbing information comes out about that man-made organization. Clearly Fawn Brodie and the Tanners tried their best to help but then the Internet and newsgroups appeared, Baby-boomer computers and the rest is history. I don’t know what John D’s current belief is but there are five or six interviews where he did very well and hit the ball out of the park.


Right now the church has held on to money that needed to be spent on the poor, the captives, who ever Christ was referring to in the Isaiah scroll if one believes he read from the scroll.

Read Roger Thompson’s Do the next right thing about Jesus and his relationship with Simon-Peter who Thompson calls a high-maintenance disciple.

[Res Ipsa]

Radiant is the LDS group controlling Beliefnet and Patheos, right?

That’s another whole layer that I’m not sure I fully understand. The Radiant Foundation and Radiant Digital (which is the owner of Beliefnet) use the same trademarked logo on their sites. I can’t remember whether I tried to figure out who owns the trademark. There’s probably more detail in the old thread that traced the ownership of Beliefnet and Patheos. I think that ended in a Delaware Corporation, which makes virtually nothing about corporations or LLC’s public.

[Moksha]

That’s another whole layer that I’m not sure I fully understand. The Radiant Foundation and Radiant Digital (which is the owner of Beliefnet) use the same trademarked logo on their sites. I can’t remember whether I tried to figure out who owns the trademark. There’s probably more detail in the old thread that traced the ownership of Beliefnet and Patheos. I think that ended in a Delaware Corporation, which makes virtually nothing about corporations or LLC’s public.

Doesn't that shell corporation trace right back to SLC and to its ultimate parent The Corporation of the First Presidency? BtheW, was that Delaware Corporation one of the mailing addresses used by Ensign Peak Investments?

[Res Ipsa]

viewtopic.php?p=2790916#p2790916

Here is a link to the old thread. At present, I can only tie the Radiant Foundation to corporations owned by the church. The link from Bonneville Communications goes to the Radiant Foundation site. Radiant Digital appears to be (or be owned by) owned by BN Media, LLC (Delaware). It is a for profit corporation that has registered in several states so that it can do business there. It’s possible that those states will disclose more about the ownership of BN Media, but that will require research on each states’ website.

ETA: Seek and ye shall find. Florida requires a little more disclosure. The official contact for BN Media LLC is one David Pearce, who has an e-mail address at benfinancial.com.

https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/Corpo ... 3000003329

And here is Brother Pearce, who is also legal counsel for Deseret Management.

Cozy.