Non-Refundable Donations/Accounts

[lajackson]

BTW, have any of you seen this upfront donation for a person's entire mission before?

We had a young man who was the only member of the Church in his family write a check for the complete cost of his mission the Sunday before he departed.

[warnick]

We have a missionary who had an extended family member that sent a check to help the missionary buy suits and supplies for the mission, but it ended up going to the ward and was deposited into the missionary's ward mission sub-account by mistake. In that case, is it acceptable to write a check to get the funds to the missionary?

[aebrown]

We have a missionary who had an extended family member that sent a check to help the missionary buy suits and supplies for the mission, but it ended up going to the ward and was deposited into the missionary's ward mission sub-account by mistake. In that case, is it acceptable to write a check to get the funds to the missionary?

I would recommend that you contact the Global Service Center for advice. Since refunding donations is against policy, you'd want to be very sure you were following an approved procedure in this exceptional circumstance.

I'm curious how a check could accidentally be deposited by the ward. Was the check made out to the ward?

In any case, it's worth reinforcing that Ward Missionary funds may not be used for purchasing clothing and supplies for a missionary.

[russellhltn]

We have a missionary who had an extended family member that sent a check to help the missionary buy suits and supplies for the mission, but it ended up going to the ward and was deposited into the missionary's ward mission sub-account by mistake. In that case, is it acceptable to write a check to get the funds to the missionary?

Who was going to support the missionary on his mission? With the money in the sub-account, the family is off the hook for that amount. They won't get the tax write-off for that amount, but in the long run, everything else would work out.

[gregwanderson]

We have a missionary who had an extended family member that sent a check to help the missionary buy suits and supplies for the mission, but it ended up going to the ward and was deposited into the missionary's ward mission sub-account by mistake. In that case, is it acceptable to write a check to get the funds to the missionary?

This is an unfortunate case where the parties involved simply don't know how the ward mission fund works. The donor did not realize that you can't really designate a donation like that to benefit one, specific missionary. The bishopric member and clerk who accepted the donation didn't realize what it was intended to do and/or that the intention was against policy.

Something similar happened in another ward that I'm familiar with. A young man was about to leave on a mission. His family had some recent financial strain. The Ward Mission Fund had "surplus" money. The (newly called) Bishop approved of writing a check from the Ward Mission Fund to buy clothing for the missionary. It seemed like a reasonable thing (to the newly called Bishop) but, after it all happened, he was informed (by a note from the higher-ups) that it was not appropriate. Someone asked me "Okay then, what was the correct way we should have done this?" I didn't know. What category would you use if this were handled as Fast Offering assistance? In the end, there was no further follow-up and whatever happened was allowed to stand.

In the case above, mentioned by warnick, I suppose the correct thing would be for the extended family member to simply pay for the supplies without running it through the ward account, because it really cannot be counted as a charitable donation. The ward cannot get mixed up in a deal like that.

[gregwanderson]

I suppose another solution to the situation referenced by warnick is this: Create a pass-through subcategory in the "Other" account called "Missionary clothing fund". Then go back to the batch and edit the donation by the extended family member and put it into the "Missionary clothing fund" instead of the ward mission fund sub-category for the missionary. Then write a check to whomever (Mr. Mac or the missionary himself, for example) for the purchase of the suits and supplies. The "Missionary clothing fund" will then have a zero balance and you can stop using it. Then there is no "refund" to the extended family member but the money will go to its intended use.

The only downside to all of this is that the donor's tax statement from the church will not show this as a charitable donation. But, to me, that's okay because such a donation should never have been expected to be counted as a deductible, charitable donation