One part that was left out of the WSJ article but was released by the whistleblower was the source of these funds. When members asked to donate money to charity, the church said they would happily donate it on behalf of the members. It was then taken from the members and funneled into this investment fund instead of redirected to charity (as they promised).
The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they are therefore a charity (they have also claimed that the purpose for stockpiling $124B was for the second coming of Jesus). While they might be able to make this claim legally... it was obviously not the intention of the members who invested the money. If members intended to fund the church directly, they could have simply paid their tithing or even over-paid their tithing (as many members choose to do) as usual. But they chose specifically to donate to charity, which implies someone other than the church.
Since I am assuming you are a member, you are familiar with the tithing slip. That extra line at the bottom that says "charity:_____" yep, that money never went to charity. It went into this fund that the church kept for themselves. Very honest and Christlike.
It actually says at the bottom: "Though reasonable efforts will be made to use donations as designated, all donations become the Church's property and will be used at the Church's sole discretion to further the Church's overall mission."
If you want your assistance to go straight to those who need it - then walk right to that person and give it to them. If you want someone who is experienced in making said assistance stretch further than just to that one family, ask someone experienced. Complaining seems like you don't trust the person to whom you just put in charge of using your donation wisely. So why was the donation made again?
Obviously one would expect the charity to report yearly on their endeavors - since no aid may be going out at all - however, reporting on each dollar would be a tad difficult to track. So not sure what would be required here.
Emptying out said donations all in one go (to avoid the perception of hoarding say all 100 billion) may not be good either since problems today may be more bearable than problems tomorrow. So not sure what would be required here either.
Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.
> Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.
And the best recourse for people who spent significant sums of money donating to a charity that misrepresented their charitable actions and has acted more like a for profit business would be to initiate a class action suit for fraud and to remove the fake charity's tax exempt status.
The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they are therefore a charity (they have also claimed that the purpose for stockpiling $124B was for the second coming of Jesus). While they might be able to make this claim legally... it was obviously not the intention of the members who invested the money. If members intended to fund the church directly, they could have simply paid their tithing or even over-paid their tithing (as many members choose to do) as usual. But they chose specifically to donate to charity, which implies someone other than the church.
Since I am assuming you are a member, you are familiar with the tithing slip. That extra line at the bottom that says "charity:_____" yep, that money never went to charity. It went into this fund that the church kept for themselves. Very honest and Christlike.