NOM

I wrote this as a response to some discussion on another thread about the Canada/BYU donation relationship but decided it was kind of going off rail and might make a better stand-alone topic.

Here's a fun exercise. Take a look at LDS.org's philanthropies page: https://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/
Look at the list of the church's philanthropies:

LDS Philanthropies
Brigham Young University
BYU-Hawaii
BYU-Idaho
Family History/FamilySearch
Humanitarian Services
LDS Business College
Missionary
Self-Reliance Services/ Perpetual Education Fund
All Giving Opportunities
Gift Planning

There are 11 items on the list. The first thing on the list, the one that sounds like actual philanthropy, merely brings you back to this page.
Of the 10 remaining items, 4 are church-owned schools and two are missioniary and family history programs. That leaves 4.

"All giving opportunities" sounds like it might include what you think of as philanthropy but it is just a repeat of these same options with the addition of: Temples, Church History Fund, Tabernacle Choir Fund, and CES Fund - all church-serving. Move along, nothing humanitarian to see here folks.

That leaves Perpetual Education (check out some of the podcasts about how this little gem is actually a money generator for the church), Humanitarian Services and Gift Planning.

Gift planning tells you how to gift your assets to the church, including: Securities, Commercial Real Estate, Unimproved Property, Collectibles or Other Tangible Property, Retirement Plan Assets, Personal Residence, Art, Patents, Royalties, or Copyrights, Life Insurance Policy, Farm or Ranch, Equipment or Inventory, IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution. You wouldn't want to meet your maker without being certain that you gave everything to the building up of the kingdom.

So that leaves, finally, Humanitarian Services. The church does some really good work here but they fail to tell you that they donate a smaller percentage of their profits than Wallmart to humanitarian services, and most of that is in the form of members' time, and they make it clear on the tithing slip that your donation may be rerouted to their higher priority items (like BYU football).

Now take another look at the Philanthropies page. What are the images you see? They are links to videos that rotate through various topics. As I'm looking at it I see images of refugees in war torn countries, poor children, people in wheelchairs, students helping women in Africa, etc. Why do they choose these images when they represent a tiny percentage of the church's charitable giving? Man, I would love to donate to a charity that does all of the things the church appears to do. For a while I was giving all of my tithing to Humanitarian Aid, until the church printed the clarification on their tithing slips. I had to find someone more trustworthy to give my tithing to.

I've often wondered about the percentage or breakdown of donations actually going to a poor starving kid in a 3rd world country. Thanks for revealing the ugly truth.

One of the most bitter pills to swallow after getting out (and still bothers me to this day), is the 100's of thousands of dollars I donated over my TBM career, only to find out that most of it went to educate the kids and grand kids of the old guys at the COB, as well as all those mission presidents, then from there all the other BS investments. After a divorce and years of other struggles I have very little in retirement and my kids are left to pay for their own educations. Shame on me for not being worthy of more blessings and being a better provider and financial planner. Actually, shame on me for being scammed for so many years by a corrupt religious corporation!

It's kind of hilarious in a sad way that the church's humanitarian efforts seem to always benefit leadership and the institution.

I guess God blesses those who bless themselves....

What I found most disturbing is that they have outlined all of the possible ways that they could extract every penny that have accumulated over your lifetime, from every nook and cranny. They even have installment plans.