Who Knows wrote:Good luck Jason. Maybe since you're still a believer in the church (for the most part) charity will listen to you.
I doubt it. I may have a belief level in the Church but Charity and other cannot stand any thing that disagrees with the way the Leaders do it currently. If the leader says it or does it, it must be correct. In ten years from now if they opened the books Charity and most other TBMs would just as strongly argue agains someone who said they should be closed.
This is a cool organization designed to help entrepeneurs in developing nations. You actually invest in a business by providing the money to help villagers start a business. It is a really great organization in my opinion!
This is the most incredible invention!. They have designed a water pump that works like a merry go round... they install these in villages with no water and the children play on them. One pump can provide enough water for an entire village or a school or a clinic! Only 10,000 dollars for a pump to give pure and clean water to an entire community!
This organization is AMAZING. Their program 20/20 is fabulous! Twenty-five cents keeps a child from going blind... maybe dying from vitamin deficiency! Watch a 30 second video and Jones Soda will donate as well!
~dancer~
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
After I quit attending the LDS Church, I attended the Community of Christ for a while. I had done some research about them on the internet, and I was intrigued by some of the differences between the LDS and CoC practices. Well, one Sunday, in the middle of an open meeting, with members and visitors present, one of the female priesthood holders announced to the group the details of the Community of Christ's financials, including the amount of tithes and offerings, the debts of the Church, and how generous giving had helped them edge toward paying them all off.
I was astounded. Having attended the LDS Church all of my life, I could not believe how open the Community of Christ was being about their finances, and in a regular Sunday meeting to boot!
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
Most of the Churches I've ever attended had the printout of expenditures and offerings printed in the bulletin each and every Sunday.
The last one I attended has the prior weeks offerings, the monthly offerings, last years offerings for same time period, offerings needed for budget to be met, and the budget broken down line by line.
JAK wrote: charity stated: I can see what you are saying about the lack of publication of financial records. But it doesn't matter. Those who are giving donattions (donations) and tithing don't care, and anyone who might care doesn't have to donate. Perfect plan.
Yes it matters. Institutions have a responsibility to be accountable. Otherwise, they can take money, keep it for their own selfish reasons or misuse it for selfish reasons. If they claim to be using the money for helping the poor for example, they should be able to show that they are helping the poor. I see the demonstration of that all the time. The Church gave a couple of million dollars to Catholic Charities. I was watching TV in my own hometown in the Pacific Northwest one evening. One of our local reporters had gone to Kosovo when there was a big refuge problem due to the fighting there. His report to the folks back home was about the very first planeload of supplies to get to the refuges. "From the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City," he reported. If you aren't seeing where the Humanitarian effort is being given, you aren't looking very hard.
It may be that those giving “don’t care.” However, they ought to care. Such lack of accountability is an invitation to misuse of money and no one will know what that misuse is. It means no one is accountable for the money. There is accountabliity. The auditor report is read every 6 months to the general membership. You want to see nickles and dimes. That is what does not matter.
Suppose they use it to build a gambling casino? Is that O.K.? I suspect most who give money to a church organization would not like the idea that they were supporting gambling, or prostitution, or liquor sales. Yet, with no accountability, money might easily be use for just such purposes. It might build excessive and extravagant homes (plural) for deceptive gatherers of the money under the pretense that money would be used for a different purpose. For myself, I trust in the layers of accountability. It isn't one person with his fingers in the pocketbook. It is committees, and oversight committees, and it would take a whole lot of people being dishonest, and then bribing the auditors. It just is not a likely scenario. Could it happen? Maybe. Is it likely? Hardly. So I trust what we get in the way of reports.
If, as you say, people “don’t care” how the money is used, perhaps they deserve to have it taken from them and used for purposes which they would oppose -- if they knew how it was being used.That is, they deserve to be duped. I don't think it isn't that we "don't care" how the money is used. We don't care if we are given nickles and dimes reporting of how it was used. I think we expect that the donations will be used well. We, I certainly, expect that the money will be used in much better ways than the Red Cross or Salvation Army or any other charity you can name would use it. I know of the ways in which money and goods are misused by the Red Cross. I won't give anything to them but blood. And I made a mistake in giving to the Salvaiton Army one time. After years of dropping dollars in their bell ringer's pots, I sent them a check before Christmas one year. Then, armed with my address, in the subsequent years they have spent more money on trying to get me to give them more than I gave them originally. Not very smart.JAK
Charity....PLEASE learn to use the quote function and cut and edit some. Your posts are impossibly difficult to wade through.
Jason, it sounds like you need charitynavigator.org!
I think it would be morally right to lie about your religion to edit the article favorably. bcspace
barrelomonkeys wrote:Most of the Churches I've ever attended had the printout of expenditures and offerings printed in the bulletin each and every Sunday.
Usually the only organizations who are clandestine in their financial revelations, have members with names like Joey and Vinnie and have in the past been known to wear black shirts with white ties - for extra reverence, of course.
This is what is on the tithing and offerings:
Tithing
Fast Offering
Ward Missionary
General Missionary
Book of Mormon
Humanitarian aid
Temple construction
Perpetual education
Other
My question is, what is the difference between Fast Offering and Humanitarian aid?
Some of you may want to think about doing some good with your time if it is not taken up with Church callings. Giving some of your time on a truly voluntary basis is a great way of serving the community, and what is more my own experience is that you actually get THANKED for your help, rather that all your work (preparing lessons, home teaching etc.) being taken for granted. In my case I have helped a group of children who could not afford to pay for private lessons learn how to play a musical instrument, and quite frankly I feel guilty that in the past I had only shared my talents with Church youth, and find my myself far more "blessed" to help the wider community.
Please think about giving your time as well as your money!
Green Minstrel wrote:Some of you may want to think about doing some good with your time if it is not taken up with Church callings. Giving some of your time on a truly voluntary basis is a great way of serving the community, and what is more my own experience is that you actually get THANKED for your help, rather that all your work (preparing lessons, home teaching etc.) being taken for granted. In my case I have helped a group of children who could not afford to pay for private lessons learn how to play a musical instrument, and quite frankly I feel guilty that in the past I had only shared my talents with Church youth, and find my myself far more "blessed" to help the wider community.
Please think about giving your time as well as your money!
Wise words, Green minstrel.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”