Other category donations incorrectly used

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iorjim
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Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:44 pm

Other category donations incorrectly used

#1

Post by iorjim »

I am looking for some guidance on two issues.

1) Our relief society held a Super Saturday which had costs for the different crafts. The sisters were told to donate the cost of each craft they wanted to do. I was instructed to create a category under "other activities" for the donations that would be made to pay for the crafts. I did so but as I reviewed policies found that this was incorrectly done all the way around. For one no one should have paid for anything to participate and it should have just been funded by the RS budget. But now for the dilemma. As reimbursement requests came in before donations in some of them were paid directly from the RS budget. Now I have a pile of money sitting in "other activities" and do not know what to do. I don't think I can transfer it to the relief society budget. What would be the proper thing to do?

2) Somewhat similar the Stake Self Reliance Instructor told attendees to pay for the books by donating the money to other category and list self reliance. Upon receipt of the donations a category under other activities was created and money place here. Now the Instructor realized this should have never been requested and said that we should refund the money. By policy I can't do this unless I am missing something. How would I correct this?

Thank you for any direction in advance.
russellhltn
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Re: Other category donations incorrectly used

#2

Post by russellhltn »

While generally one can't refund donations, you CAN refund for payments made to "other". That would seem to be the prudent route in both situations.

I wish I could find a reference, but I can't find where it talks about leftover funds in the "Other" account.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
eblood66
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Re: Other category donations incorrectly used

#3

Post by eblood66 »

iorjim wrote:But now for the dilemma. As reimbursement requests came in before donations in some of them were paid directly from the RS budget. Now I have a pile of money sitting in "other activities" and do not know what to do. I don't think I can transfer it to the relief society budget. What would be the proper thing to do?
Find each of the expenses using the View/Update Expenses menu option in MLS and edit the category from budget to the other category.
iorjim wrote:2) Somewhat similar the Stake Self Reliance Instructor told attendees to pay for the books by donating the money to other category and list self reliance. Upon receipt of the donations a category under other activities was created and money place here. Now the Instructor realized this should have never been requested and said that we should refund the money. By policy I can't do this unless I am missing something.
Yes, you can and should refund money from other accounts which is not going to be used for the purpose it was given. This is outlined in The "Other" Category in the Help Center (second paragraph, second to last sentence). You may be thinking of the prohibition on returning donations but that applies to charitable donations given to the church. Funds deposited in subcategories of Other:Authorized Member Financed Activities are not considered charitable donations and the prohibition does not apply.
lajackson
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Re: Other category donations incorrectly used

#4

Post by lajackson »

iorjim wrote:1) Now I have a pile of money sitting in "other activities" and do not know what to do.
Work with your bishop. The best approach is to refund the money in the Other account to the donors and pay for the activity out of the budget. Another approach is that, if the bishop is going to have the sisters pay for the activity, you can change the category of the expenses from Budget to Other to use up the Other funds.
iorjim wrote:2) Now the Instructor realized this should have never been requested and said that we should refund the money. By policy I can't do this unless I am missing something.
Refund the money. Contributions in general are not to be refunded. But Other funds are different. They are used for the purpose they are given, they are refunded to the donors if not needed, or they are sent to Church headquarters if you are not able to do one of the first two options. In this particular case, the money will not be used and you are following proper procedure to refund the money from the Other account to those who thought they would be paying for the manuals.
iorjim
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Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:44 pm

Re: Other category donations incorrectly used

#5

Post by iorjim »

Thank you all for the replies. I will get things straightened out and cleaned up now.
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