1/1/2024 0 Comments All my children tad martin![]() ![]() Meanwhile, it funds 30,000 congregations, a global missionary effort, as well as thousands of meetinghouses, hundreds of temples and extensive free genealogical services - all part of the church’s religious mission to invite people to follow Jesus Christ. The church provides more than $1 billion in charitable contributions to an extensive multicampus worldwide educational system (including its flagship university, BYU) and another $1 billion a year in humanitarian offerings. Unlike other charitable 501c3 entities, churches are not required by the IRS to make minimum disbursements. If the church did have $150 billion, a figure the church did not confirm during the “60 Minutes” interview, then the $6 billion it is said to spend annually on its mission would represent 4% in annual charitable spending, above what a retired IRS executive told “60 Minutes” would be necessary for a non-church 501c3 to maintain its nonprofit status. These funds are managed by an investment arm known as Ensign Peak Advisors, which is not considered a separate entity but rather functions as an “ integrated auxiliary” of the church. The program suggested, again without a source, that the church takes in $7 billion in tithing each year and spends $6 billion on its various religious and charitable causes, investing what remains for a time of need. Christopher Waddell, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, told “60 Minutes.” The church does not publicize how much money it has so it can keep the focus on its religious mission, Bishop W. “60 Minutes” said some have estimated the church’s assets total as much as $150 billion, though it didn’t provide a source for that figure. Today, the church has a stock portfolio worth tens of billions of dollars. And if you do that for half a century - you take a portion of the tithing revenue every single year and you just set it aside and invest it - between savings and then the exponential growth that you get from compounding interest on investments, the church gets this enormous pool of reserves,” said Nathan Oman, a historian and professor of law at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia. “As far as I know, that program has been relentlessly and consistently followed for half a century. One historian said the principles for church finances established in the 1960s led directly to its accumulation of assets today. For five years, construction was halted on the largest building in Utah and Latter-day Saint history to that time, the 28-story Church Office Building. The biggest symbol of that frugality was an immediate building moratorium. Church of Jesus Christ nears $1 billion a year in humanitarian, welfare spendingĪ few months later, President McKay handed that role to a brand-new counselor who set the church on a rigorous course of fiscal responsibility.He changed the assignment of one the counselors in his First Presidency who had overseen church finances, historians say. With red ink soaking the church’s books again in early 1963 and its financial officers worried they wouldn’t be able to meet payroll for church employees, President David O. In 1962, the church ran a $32 million deficit. If he had failed, the church’s credit rating would have been ruined and debtors would have sued to seize church assets, according to the late historian Ronald Walker. He awoke despondent that morning, aware that a run on the two banks owned by the church threatened to wipe out the last of its deposits. That’s saying something for a church with a storied past of economic distress.įor example, an apostle once secured new loans in New York City hours before the church would have defaulted on a large payment with a San Francisco bank. ![]() Sixty years ago, a financial crisis engulfed the church and threatened to become the worst in the faith’s history, one historian wrote. ![]() ![]() Church statement: What did it say about the ‘60 Minutes’ report?.Opinion: What’s behind American media’s unhealthy fixation on ‘Mormons, Inc.’?. ![]()
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