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You're on the right path penny...

LDS publishers include Deseret Book, Covenant Communications, Granite Publishing, Shadow Mountain, Millennial Press, Cove Fort Publications, and a few other smaller companies. Brigham Young University also has a press.

There are a number of Mormon books on faith and other religious teachings by General Authorities, Prophets, and other religious leaders of the Church.

http://www.askgramps.org/books-by-general-authorities

http://www.seagullbook.com/General_Authority-lds-products.html

Following The Money In The United Kingdom

The Church is registered as both a charity and a company, and as such it is required to be registered with the Charity Commission and Companies House. It is also obliged to publish year-end accounts of it's activities. Interestingly the Church was one of a number of charities that was censured for late returns of it's accounts for 2004. As each charity has 10 months from the end of the year to submit its report we will have to wait until 31st October to find out how the church faired in 2005.

The Church has three charities that are currently registered;

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Great Britain) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Welfare) LDS Family Services (UK) Ltd.

Each of these organisations is wholly owned by two parent companies; The Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Gordon "The Hammer" Hinckley) and The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka David "The Bruiser" Burton), both of Salt Lake City, Utah.

If you scroll down each of these links you will see a further link where you can view the yearly reports for each organisation. The COJCOLD (Welfare) also owns three additional, separate companies (not charities). These are;

AgReserves Ltd Farmspeed (Southery Anchor) Ltd Hallwsworth (Farmland Trust) Ltd

You can search for basic details of these companies here. You also have the option of paying £1 per document to look at their annual returns. I looked at a sample and will post info on this at a later date. Each of these companies are farming enterprises, and grow the wheat that we all get to buy, pack and add to our food storage.

Some of the basic info that i picked up from the accounts of the 'main' church charity include;

Surplus income over expenditure was £2,042,000, assisted by a £5m donation from the boys in SLC, leaving a balance in their HSBC account of £20,891,000.

For a church that has no paid ministry we managed to spend £7,752,000 on staff costs, in fact it was the largest single expenditure.

As well as this £856,000 was spent on 'travel', £2,301,000 on 'General administration', £265,000 on 'Materials and supplies' and £855,000 on equipment.

Despite members donating £252,000 to the Humanitarian Aid Fund the church only spent £51,000 of it. More on this another time because this sort of thing really really ticks me off.

In 2004 the number of employees earning between £70-£80k was 1; £60-£70k was 7 and £50-£60k was 12. Nice work if you can get it.

Assets in the course of construction, land and buildings, equipment and motor vehicles came to a value of £299,227,000. Depreciation of these assets was reckoned to be £52,502,000 which gives the church a net worth in terms of tangible assets of £246,725,000, a little under £0.25bn. And that doesn't include the cash in the bank.

There is an outstanding 'loan' from the parent company ("The Hammer") of £228,358,000. I used the word loan loosely as it stipulates there is no interest charge and no fixed repayment terms. More on this later as i need time to decipher the jargon; looks like large sums being channelled back to SLC but will check.

"The Church's active membership continues to grow" - yeah right. At year end there were 45 stakes, 1 District, 278 Wards and 85 Branches in Great Britain and Ireland. Compared to the end of 2003 there have been no additional Stakes, no additional Districts, 4 additional Wards, and 10 fewer Branches.

The stone that isn't rolling forth.

Following The Money In The Uk - Part 2

Last time i focussed on the workings of the main church organisation in the UK, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Great Britain) ; this post is about it's sister 'charity', The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Welfare) Limited.

The objectives of the charity are to promote the religious and other charitable work of the church here in the UK and to relieve members of the church and others who are in conditions of need, hardship, sickness or distress. In order to do this the charity;

Invests in farms which it rents out to its subsidiary companies; any profits are returned to the charity under covenant.

Acquires land and builds purpose built meeting houses in which members can worship and receive instruction. Assists individuals suffering through hardship, sickness and distress as needed. Provides advice and guidance to church members on the church's worldwide welfare and humanitarian aid programmes.

From reading the 363s Annual Return that each company is required to submit it appears that LDS (Welfare) decided to free up some cash through issuing more shares. LDS (Welfare) previously had an Issued Share Capital of 100 Ordinary shares valued at £1 each, giving an aggregate nominal value of issued shares of £100. In 2004 they upped this considerably, increasing this to £10,000,000. All shares are held by the Corporation of the Presdiding Bishop. On 31st March 2005 the Presiding Bishop became the sole owner of the charity/company and 50 shares previously held by the Corporation of the President of the Church were transferred over. On 2nd June 2005 the company's status was changed to a private limited company.

(NB On closer examination it appears that LDS (Great Britain) also released a further £10m through issuing shares and was also transferred to the sole ownership of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop)

Some more highlights include;

The Group (Welfare plus subsidiary companies) had a surplus of £147,000. Helped by a donation from it's sister charity LDS (Great Britain). This money went into the reserves, which now total £9,207,000.

'Direct Charitable Expenditure' for the year was £7,243,000. This is all well and good until you learn what counts as 'charity'; £5,279,000 was 'construction' costs' (remember, one of the purposes of this charity is to build meeting houses for the church) £37k was depreciation, £663k was on 'physical facilities', £322k on 'operating costs' and £50k on 'professional fees' (probably the auditors from PwC) which left £892,000 for 'charitable contributions'.

2004 was a tough year down on the farm. The trustees report that due to a wet harvest that prolonged the season there was a drop in both yield and quality, which hit profits. They indicate a 12% drop from the previous year. Yet in the accounts 'profits covenanted from farm activities' was £472,000 this year, compared with £855,000 last year. So profits might have fallen by 12% but what was passed on to the charity fell by nearly half.

Staff costs were high, accounting for £1,142,000 over the year. There is 1 employee earning between £60-70k and 2 earning between £50-60k.

As with LDS (Great Britain) there is an outstanding loan to the boys in Salt Lake, the amount outstanding on this one is £52,077,000. It appears on the accounts but there is no interest charge and no fixed repayment conditions.

The last 2 pages of the submission don't seem to have been posted on the charity commission's website, i have emailed them requesting them as this generally provides a neat summary of the year.

Taking into account all of the income and expenditure of the church in the UK i have managed to make the following calculations;

The church (GB) received £23,488,000 in 'unrestricted funds' (tithing) and £2,663,000 in 'restricted funds' (Fast, Humanitarian Aid, Missionary Support etc etc). Together with interest, profits from selling assets their total income was £27,077,000.

LDS (Welfare) received £7,433,000 (£500k of which was from LDS (GB). Taking that into account the total amount of money, from all sources, coming in to the church in this country was £34,010,000. (NB The £5m from SLC i mentioned in the previous post wasn't a donation as such, but rather a cancelled loan re-payment. No actual money changed hands)

Money that was made available to those in need by way of 'grants', 'humanitatian aid' and 'charitable contributions' by both organisations was £1,077,000. (NB I have not included the £500k transfer from one to the other, even though LDS (GB) counted this as a charitable donation, as i included it in the above calculation).

The cost of staff, travel, admin, supplies, equipment, auditing, money lost exchanging currencies, physical facilities and operating costs came to £15,507,000. That doesn't include building new meeting houses, depreciation etc.

In other words the church spent 14 times more money administering itself than it spent on the 'needy'; or calculated another way the church spent a little over 3% of it's incoming money on the needy.

Fast Offering and Humanitarian Aid Fund contributions came to £1,571,000, so even if we calculate that money church members donated specifically for the needy, the church only spent 70% of that on what the members had in mind when they donated it.

This is interesting because every now and then there is talk in church of maybe supporting a charity involved in the developing world, or that specifically helps the homeless or whoever.

There is always someone who sticks their hand up and cautions that alot of these charities spend money on their overheads, but you know that if you donate through the church that every single penny will find it's way through to those in need.

I think this has demonstrated that assertion to be unsupported by the evidence.

source - http://www.mormoncurtain.com/topic_missionaries_section2.html

Wow. This is incredible information you have provided.

Did SOMEone say CORPORATION???

Corporation of the President

ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION
of the
CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS
CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

STATE OF UTAH

COUNTY OF SALT LAKE

I, the undersigned, having been duly chosen and appointed President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in conformity with the rites, regulations and discipline of said Church, being desirous of forming a corporation for the purpose of acquiring, holding and disposing of Church or religious society property, for the benefit of religion, for works of charity and for public worship, under and pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 3, Title 19, of the Compiled Laws of Utah, 1917, on "Churches and Religious Societies," and all acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, for that purpose do hereby make and subscribe, in duplicate, the following

ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION

First: The name of this corporation shall be the CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

Second: The object of this corporation shall be to acquire, hold and dispose of such real and personal property as may be conveyed to or acquired by said corporation for the benefit of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religious society, for the benefit of religion, for works of charity and for public worship. Such real and personal property may be situated, either within the State of Utah, or elsewhere, and this corporation shall have power, without any authority or authorization from the members of said Church or religious society, to grant, sell, convey, rent, mortgage, exchange, or otherwise dispose of any part or all of such property.

Third: The estimated value of the property of which I hold the legal title for the purpose aforesaid, at the time of making these Articles of Incorporation, is One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars.

Fourth: The title of the person making these Articles of Incorporation is "PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS."

Fifth: The corporation seal shall contain the words, "Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," and an impression thereof is hereto affixed.

[Seal] [Signed] Heber J. Grant
President of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.

STATE OF UTAH
SS:
COUNTY OF SALT LAKE

On this 26th day of November, 1923, before me, Arthur Winter, a Notary Public in and for said County, personally appeared HEBER J. GRANT, who is known to me to be the person whose name is subscribed to the foregoing instrument as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and duly acknowledged to me that he executed the same as such President.

[Seal] [Signed] Arthur Winter
Notary Public
Residing at Salt Lake City, Utah.
My commission expires Dec. 1, 1923.

AMENDMENT TO

ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION
of the
CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS
CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
STATE OF UTAH ss.
COUNTY OF SALT LAKE

HEBER J. GRANT, being first duly sworn, deposes and says:

That he is now and for more than twenty years last past has been the duly chosen and appointed President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as such President has been since on or about the 26th day of November, 1923, and now is, the legally constituted Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter=day Saints, a corporation sole; that under and pursuant to Section 18-7-5 R.S.U. 1933 he hereby amends Article "Fourth" of said Articles of Incorporation as now of record in the proper offices of this and other states, said article as amended to read as follows:

ARTICLE FOURTH

Fourth: The title of the person making these articles of incorporation is "President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." He and his successor in office shall be deemed and are hereby created a body politic and corporation sole with perpetual succession, having all the powers and rights and authority in these articles specified or provided for by law. But in the event of death or resignation from office of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or in the event of a vacancy in that office from any cause, the President or Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of said Church, or one of the members of said Quorum thereunto designated by that Quorum, shall, pending the installation of a successor President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be the corporation sole under these articles, and the laws pursuant to which they are made, and shall be and is authorized in his official capacity to execute in the name of the corporation all documents or other writings necessary to the carrying on of its purposes, business and objects, and to do all things in the name of the corporation which the original signer of the articles of incorporation might do; it being the purpose of these articles that there shall be no failure in succession in the office of such corporation sole.

[Signed] Heber J. Grant
President of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints,
corporation sole.
[Seal]

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 18 day of June, 1940.
[the name of Notary Public not shown on copy of amendment]

(Original in State of Utah Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah)

ARTICLES OF AMENDMENT
TO THE

ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION
of the
CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS
CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

A UTAH CORPORATION SOLE

Pursuant to the provisions of Section 16-7-5 of the Utah Code Annotated 1953 (as amended) relating to amendments of articles of incorporation of corporations sole, the CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, a Utah Corporation Sole, does hereby amend its Articles of Incorporation by adding an additional Paragraph V thereto as follows:

Upon the winding up and dissolution of this corporation, after paying or adequately providing for the debts and obligations of the corporation, the remaining assets shall be distributed to a nonprofit fund, foundation or corporation, which is organized and operated exclusively for charitable, educational, or religious and/or scientific purposes and which has established its tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned has caused these presents to be executed this 19th day of November, 1973.

CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE
CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY
SAINTS, a Utah Corporation Sole

By: [signed] Harold B. Lee
Harold B. Lee, Corporation Sole

STATE OF UTAH ) ss:
County of Salt Lake )

HAROLD B. LEE, being first duly sworn, deposes and says: That he is now and ever since July 7, 1972, has been the duly chosen and appointed President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and, as such president, is now and ever since said date has been the legally constituted CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, a Utah Corporation Sole; that the original Articles of Incorporation of said Corporation Sole were executed by Heber J. Grant, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; that he, Harold B. Lee, is the successor in office to the said Heber J. Grant; that he, Harold B. Lee, executed the foregoing Articles of Amendment as said Corporation Sole.

[signed] Harold B. Lee

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN to before me this 19th day of November, 1973.

[signed] Wilford W Kirton, Jr
NOTARY PUBLIC
Residing at Salt Lake City, Utah
My commission expires:
2-3-77

Articles of Incorporation as amended:

ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION

First: The name of this corporation shall be the CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

Second: The object of this corporation shall be to acquire, hold and dispose of such real and personal property as may be conveyed to or acquired by said corporation for the benefit of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religious society, for the benefit of religion, for works of charity and for public worship. Such real and personal property may be situated, either within the State of Utah, or elsewhere, and this corporation shall have power, without any authority or authorization from the members of said Church or religious society, to grant, sell, convey, rent, mortgage, exchange, or otherwise dispose of any part or all of such property.

Third: The estimated value of the property of which I hold the legal title for the purpose aforesaid, at the time of making these Articles of Incorporation, is One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars.

Fourth: The title of the person making these articles of incorporation is "President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." He and his successor in office shall be deemed and are hereby created a body politic and corporation sole with perpetual succession, having all the powers and rights and authority in these articles specified or provided for by law. But in the event of death or resignation from office of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or in the event of a vacancy in that office from any cause, the President or Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of said Church, or one of the members of said Quorum thereunto designated by that Quorum, shall, pending the installation of a successor President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be the corporation sole under these articles, and the laws pursuant to which they are made, and shall be and is authorized in his official capacity to execute in the name of the corporation all documents or other writings necessary to the carrying on of its purposes, business and objects, and to do all things in the name of the corporation which the original signer of the articles of incorporation might do; it being the purpose of these articles that there shall be no failure in succession in the office of such corporation sole.

Fifth: Upon the winding up and dissolution of this corporation, after paying or adequately providing for the debts and obligations of the corporation, the remaining assets shall be distributed to a nonprofit fund, foundation or corporation, which is organized and operated exclusively for charitable, educational, or religious and/or scientific purposes and which has established its tex-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Sixth: The corporate seal shall contain the words, "Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," and an impression thereof is hereto affixed.