How Churches Invest Their Money

Mintlife.com ^ | May 17, 2010 | Jason Ritchie

[Colofornian]

From the article: In 1997, Time Magazine found that current LDS assets totaled $30 billion. If LDS were a corporation, Time continued, its estimated $5.9 billion in annual revenues would have placed it midway through the Fortune 500. The LDS church has taken ambitious strides to preserve and grow its wealth over the years. Beneficial Financial Group, a $3.1 billion insurance company with annual revenues exceeding $600 million, is wholly owned by the church. LDS also owns the Deseret Morning News, Utah’s second-largest newspaper. Bonneville International Corporation, which controls over two dozen top radio stations across six states, is also wholly owned by LDS through Deseret Management Corporation, the church’s for-profit arm. Another $6 billion of church money...

Well, this is why it's called LDS, Inc.

From the article: ...individual donations made directly to the Pope neared $60 million.

Hmm...(I'd like for our Roman Catholic friends to please explain this...We Protestants would like to know why a religious leader is getting almost $60 million in individual contributions from parishioners...I'm sure it's used well...but couldn't this -- for some future Pope -- become a tremendous potential source of either mixed motives for serving or even corruption?)

[knarf]

I feel disenfranchised ... all we do is pay bills, make repairs and improvements ... and go soul winning.

The bills are paid, we own our property, eat pretty good sometimes ..... ok, often ..... and we grow comfortably.

[Roccus]

Trinity Church (Episcopal) located at B’way & Wall is one of the largest land owners in New York City.

[AussieJoe]

As the Catholic church is actually the government of an independent state (the vatican) would its income be considered the GDP of the vatican?... and talk about big government! the vatican is nothing but ‘government’ LOL.

[stefanbatory]

Wow! imagine the soul-winning our church could do with funds like that!

[Tennessee Nana]

Maybe...

But the mormon corporastion is one of the biggest private land owners in the country..

[stefanbatory]

really? that explains the revenue stream...

[Roccus]

I was once repairing a work station at a NYC agency (real estate?) and to test my repair, I sdtarted surfing through the net this station was connected to. This was long before the www. I was absolutely amazed at their holdings in the financial district alone.

[Tennessee Nana]

Actually the size of their coffers was one the main thrusts for mormon “soul winning” 30 years ago...

They would pester me constantly with “God loves us and we are the twoo “church” cause we took in more money than your church last year”

They knew the income of every church in town and had the printed tallies to check right there at your door..

The sad thing is...the mormon missionaries seemed to believe that astronomical wealth was an indication of the approval of their mormon god...

[greyfoxx39]

Note that only one of these leaders has theology credentials.

Council on the Disposition of the Tithes - LDS church

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Council on the Disposition of the Tithes (also known as the Council on the Disposition of Tithing) is a leadership body in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, composed of the First Presidency, the Presiding Bishopric, and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The Council determines how the tithing funds of the church will be spent. The Council oversees revenue, investments and expenditures valued at billions of dollars per year.

While the Church employs an independent auditing department which provides an annual report to the Church^[1], it has not published full financial reports since 1959.

The Council was established by church founder Joseph Smith, Jr. on 8 July 1838.^[2] As of April 2009, the members of the Council are:

• Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church  University of Utah. BA Business management
• Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency Doctorate in Business Administration, Harvard Business School
• Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency  started studying engineering at 18 but later continued in Business Administration in Cologne, Germany, graduated from the International Institute for Management Development,Lausanne, Switzerland.
• H. David Burton, Presiding Bishop  University of Utah, BA economics, MA Business Administration from the University of Michigan
• Richard C. Edgley, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric BS, political science from Brigham Young University, MA business administration from Indiana University
• Keith B. McMullin, Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric ??
• Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  Doctorate in educational administration from BYU, 1962
• L. Tom Perry, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  Graduated from Utah State University in 1949 with a B.S. in business.
• Russell M. Nelson, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Medical Doctor with specialty as Cardiac Surgeon.
• Dallin H. Oaks, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  Brigham Young University in accounting in 1954, and the University of Chicago Law School in 1957.
• M. Russell Ballard, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  Prior to his call as a full-time Church leader, Elder Ballard had interests in the automotive, real estate, and investment businesses.
• Richard G. Scott, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles George Washington University, BS in Mechanical Engineering.
• Robert D. Hales, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles received degrees from the University of Utah and Harvard Business School.
• Jeffrey R. Holland, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  MA in Religious Education from BYU. Yale University, Ph.D in American Studies
• David A. Bednar, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles BA in communication, MA BYU in organizational communication, Doctorate in organizational behavior from Purdue University
• Quentin L. Cook, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Utah State University , BA in political science, Stanford Law School
• D. Todd Christofferson, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles BA from Brigham Young University,  J.D. Duke University School of Law
• Neil L. Andersen, Member, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles  MBA degree, Harvard Business School.

Link

[wideawake]

The $60MM (known as Peter's Pence) is not for Benedict XVI's personal use.

It is the money donated directly to the Papacy as an institution within the Church, as opposed to money donated directly to one's local bishop.

The money goes to programs that are run on a churchwide basis - most prominently the missions and the foreign service.

This is different from money that is donated for the upkeep of one's local parish or the money donated for the local diocesan schools, hospitals, seminaries, relief programs etc.

[Reddy]

Our Church invests in people, we give away everything we get... gave away our last building when we moved to the new one.

[MayflowerMadam]

“...all we do is pay bills, make repairs and improvements ... and go soul winning.”

Same as ours, basically, except that our church “invests” most of our money in strong support of missionaries. Churches “investing” money to turn a profit... seems crass on a certain level.

[Utah Binger]

My personal belief has always been that any organization that wants my money needs to give me an accounting of where it is going. There are many, many public charities that do much more than any church. Also it seems to me there was something that Christ said about Money and Money Changers.

It is just astounding to me that people think there will be any pleasure derived by giving 60 million to the Pope. And why do the Mormons need so many buildings? I feel sorry for all my friends and relatives that have bought into the big myth.

One can get warm fuzzy feelings by coming to Mount Carmel and volunteering for our day camps for People With Special Needs

As a non profit public charity all donations are tax deductible and we share our tax returns for any donor that requests it.

So Donate Here

[tiki]

We have to support the Vatican. I can only tell you from the parish level. We are taxed by the diocese for money to run their programs, seminarian education, chancellors, all kinds of things that we need as Catholics. Dioceses pass some portion of that money up the pipeline and eventually some of it gets to the Vatican.

We also have specific 2nd collections for the Vatican which has to support itself too and, unfortunately, often runs a deficit.

As far as the real estate, it isn’t like the Catholic Church owns office buildings and retail stores, they own churches, parish halls and rectories. It does add up in worth but it is in use for Catholics and for the most part, there is no income made from real estate holdings rather like your home. You have costs associated with it and though you could sell it in a pinch you would then have to find another place to live.

[Tennessee Nana]

the Catholic Church ...owns churches, parish halls and rectories. It does add up in worth but it is in use for Catholics
_____________________________________________

Among those “churches, parish halls and rectories” that the Catholic church owns, is there any that the regular Catholic members cannot go into because they havent paid 10% of their gross income ???

[Mr. Lucky]

Plus it has all that treasure hidden beneath its burial vaults.

[knarf]

Yeah .. I forgot about that ... I can’t remember the exact number, but I think we’re supporting something like 20 or 30 missionaries

[Tennessee Nana]

Channel Nicholas Cage much ???

[Tennessee Nana]

Isnt it odd that with all those BILLIONS the mormon corporation doesnt support even ONE of their 53,000 mormon missionary/salesmen...