This? Not so much.Ī day or two after after hitting this dead end and giving up in frustration, I came upon a blog post about a question recently put to Mayor Pete Buttigieg:ĭuring a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday, Democrat Pete Buttigieg was asked by atheist activist Justin Scott about the recent scandal involving the Mormon Church.Ī Washington Post story spurred by a whistleblower’s report suggested that the LDS Church is hoarding more than $100 billion meant for charity. A rating from Charity Navigator would be helpful. But your average person considering making a $64 donation because they’ve been told that donation will save a sex trafficking victim isn’t going to contact the organization and request an audit report. The organization does say it has an independent audit each year and that these audits are available on request. This information is invisible, unavailable, not public, not looked at by anyone- because the organization is registered as a church. There’s nothing to help a potential donor to assess the effectiveness of the program or what it does-or whether the money the organization raises actually goes toward what it says it will. The financial statement does not state whether money raised for one thing is spent on that thing, what project money is spent on, how effective the organization is in creating change, what practices it uses in the countries where it operates, or even where it operates or what it operates (group homes for recovering sex trafficking victims, for instance?). The financial statement does reveal one thing-less than a third of its expenses are classified as “missions outreach and project ministries.” The are for toward fundraising, overhead, literature ministries, and its television channel. It’s not clear whether money raised for one program actually funds that-or even what is funded, beyond the words “project ministries.” There is no information about things like top staff salaries, and no breakdown by program area. Now, in finding the organization’s annual report, I also came upon an annual financial statement, which it releases voluntarily. The webpage doesn’t even say what countries this initiative takes place in-and their annual report doesn’t so much as mention the project! The IRS does not require this organization to publish a Form 990.Īnd that’s it. Why isn’t this organization rated by Charity Navigator? Portions of a Charity Navigator’s evaluation are based on information published in IRS Form 990.

Next I looked it up on Charity Navigator, and found that there was no rating available for the organization there, either. This organization is not required to file an annual return with the IRS because it is a church. So I looked that up on Guidestar, and got this: Additional googling revealed that the name used in the advertisements was part of an organization with a different name: Life Outreach International. But this didn’t appear to be a small organization. That’s not all that unusual-small organizations often aren’t. When I went to look the organization up-because it had set off my scam detector senses and I was curious-I ran into a problem almost immediately: the group wasn’t listed on any charity rating system. What does this organization do? How does it use its donations? How much money does it spend on fundraising, as opposed to its program areas? Does it work with local groups, in the countries where it is present? What does it do with the children it rescues-and from what? I took down the website url that flashed upon the scene. The ad, playing on repeat, left me with questions.

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