Tech Forum

I have a member who would like to donate the funds of her reimbursed expense back to the church. How do I facilitate this?

I'm not sure what she's trying to do. I believe it's against church policy to pay for things out of pocket. At minimum, it's discouraged.

Furthermore, it's not allowed to donate to the ward budget. You can return unused advances, but you can't donate.

timhans3n wrote:I have a member who would like to donate the funds of her reimbursed expense back to the church. How do I facilitate this?

Members need to reimbursed for their out of pocket expenses. However, they are certainly welcome to make donations to the Church, and there's no problem if they make additional donations that just happen to match the amount of their reimbursements. The simplest way is for them to deposit their reimbursement check in their own bank account and then make whatever donation they want through usual means. Of course, any donations have to be to appropriate charitable donation categories (as RussellHltn mentioned, you can't make donations to the Budget category).

It's great that there are generous people who want to donate the costs associated with their calling, but they should always be counseled to submit their receipts and be reimbursed. Then they can donate whatever they want. It's important for them to be reimbursed even if they will just turn around and donate it back to the Church for multiple reasons:

• It is official Church policy (see Handbook 2, Section 13.2.8).
• The ward budget will accurately reflect the actual cost of running the ward.
• Ward leaders will be able to keep different organizations in proper balance.
• If other leaders replace these generous leaders but are not in a position to make these extra donations, there will not be a sudden change in the expenditure level.
• Although it may not matter to the donor, charitable donations are tax-deductible, but just absorbing unreimbursed expenses is not (at least not with the Church issuing an official tax receipt).

Just to clarify my response, she can donate any amount to most any category. However, it's not permissible to donate to budget. And with the exception of "Ward Missionary", the local unit will have no direct benefit from the donation. It will be swept to CHQ.

As for how to do it, it's done like any other donation.

A couple members of my ward (one is our bishop's counselor) just endorse the check and attach a donation slip, usually made out to Fast Offering. We haven't had a problem depositing those checks.