Tech Forum

A ward member told me she recently donated money on several occasions to my daughter's missionary fund while she is still serving her mission.
My daughter checked the account and it was not received. Besides the possibility of it going into a general missionary fund, what else could be the reason for it not going into her account?
Please advise,
Shari Kantrow

Just to be clear, the "account" in question would be something the ward that is financially responsible for the mission would have. I assume we're talking about a conventional full-time missionary. The kind that 18-22 year olds go on. Senior/couple missions may not have such an account. This would not be an account that the missionary would have direct access to, like a checking account.

It depends on how the donation was done. If it was done on-line, then it would have gone where the donor directed it to go if the transaction actually happened. If it was done via donation slip, then it's likely that the clerk wasn't aware which missionary it should have gone toward.

I believe we must clarify a few things. Only a person with access to the ward finances (a member of the Bishopric or one of the proper clerks) can check the account. If your daughter checked the account then that means she received information from one of those individuals. But those individuals are not allowed, under policy, to tell your daughter about anyone else's donations. They could give her an account balance but not any details about anyone (other than herself) who contributed to the account.

The only way to confirm where some other donor's donation went would be for that donor to request her own donation records (or, perhaps, look it up online herself, but there are some reports floating around that the online record and the local, ward computer's record might not always match… because they're still working bugs out of the system, I suppose). If that donor can confirm that her donations went to the wrong category then she can request a correction. Otherwise, according to policy, you don't really have anything to do with her donations.

So my advice is: Tell the other donor you think there might be a problem and that she should ask for a printout of her donation records. Everything else is really out of your hands.

The generic "ward missionary" fund is another possibility of where it could have gone. The clerk can re-categorize donations if needed (if he's not sure how, he can come here for help and we can guide him through it).