"I Was a Stranger" - Other account tracking?

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
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dheilner
New Member
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:39 pm

"I Was a Stranger" - Other account tracking?

#1

Post by dheilner »

With the new "I Was a Stranger" campaign/effort, a bishop wants to work on several local relief efforts in our area. He asked if it would be appropriate to donate some cash (which I understand is from a couple members and not gathered through a fundraising effort) into the Other:Authorized Member Financed Activities category in a separate subcategory, which will be spent throughout the course of the year (not remain indefinitely).

My first reaction was to say to him, this is 1) too close to fundraising (and only 1 event is allowed per year), 2) funds would be better served in the Humanatarian funds of the church, which are tax deductible, and 3) not necessarily the best place to put these in AMFA because if they continue to remain unspent (despite intentions) than they could become be audit exceptions.

Do you think this is appropriate though to gather some funds in AMFA? I guess it is for a good purpose, and don't want red tape to prevent positive experiences. Thank you
russellhltn
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Location: U.S.

Re: "I Was a Stranger" - Other account tracking?

#2

Post by russellhltn »

Personally, I'd rather see the members donate directly to the efforts rather than run it though the church. By running it though the Other account, it's not going to on the church tax statement at the end of the year. And it just seems like there's a number of ways this can go wrong.

If you don't get a good answer here, run it by the stake clerk. If he's not sure, the stake president can run it by the Area Authority.
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