Fund-raising via local charities

Does anyone know of any policies or guidelines regarding wards that may become involved in serving in the community wherein such activities involve the collection of money (not on Church premises) for local or national charities?

Thank you.

dubhdara wrote:Does anyone know of any policies or guidelines regarding wards that may become involved in serving in the community wherein such activities involve the collection of money (not on Church premises) for local or national charities?

Thank you.

Church members are always welcome (and even encouraged) to be involved in worthy causes as individuals. That doesn't change if individuals from the same ward are all involved in the same cause.

However, I would say that the church financial system should not be involved in handling such monies. Personally I would recommend that someone who doesn't not have church financial responsibilities (i.e. someone other than the bishop, counselors, ward clerk or financial clerk) handle the money to avoid any question of whether these are church donations.

If there is some compelling reason to need to involve the church you would have to follow all normal policies for money handling (i.e. all donations are given to the bishopric only each accompanied by a donation slip) and an 'Other' account would have to be used. The guidelines given in the following document would all need to be followed (an LDS account with the proper calling is needed to view this document): https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... y?lang=eng

dubhdara wrote:Does anyone know of any policies or guidelines regarding wards that may become involved in serving in the community wherein such activities involve the collection of money (not on Church premises) for local or national charities?

I don't. I'd follow all the guidelines that the other organization specifies and try to keep this as separate as possible from any church finances.

Thank you,

My concern was more with the involvement as a formal activity. I know when I served a mission we weren't allowed to handle money as missionaries. I know that members can, obviously, get involved with whatever they feel is right charitywise, but I thought there might be some Church guidelines for formal events - such as not supporting political charities, etc.

I'll bet there are guidelines, but the problem is in finding them. The Handbook seems to be silent on that type of thing. Public Affairs training seems like a likely place, but all I can find is high-level stuff. You might inquire about training for a "Service Specialist" - something that lists what is and is not acceptable service projects. That position is listed in the Public Affairs Training Guide but the guide itself doesn't seem to go into that detail.