Anonymous Donations to Specific Ward Missionary?

Is it possible for a ward member to donate to a specific missionary serving from the ward (to his fund in the ward account) without the missionary's family knowing who the donor is?

Could you deposit the donation to the ward missionary parent account and then do a transfer from the parent account to the applicable subaccount? I suppose you could also just black out the name if you ever need to give a print out to the family.

mlh78 wrote:I suppose you could also just black out the name if you ever need to give a print out to the family.

If/when you print out a report showing the amounts paid/owed, just print a Summary instead of a Detail report. This way, no names will show, just the starting and ending amounts.

mlh78 wrote:Could you deposit the donation to the ward missionary parent account and then do a transfer from the parent account to the applicable subaccount?

That gets my vote. It's a very simple thing to do and then all of your printed reports will retain the desired confidentiality. If someone who doesn't know about the arrangement (or forgot about it) prints a report there won't be an accidental disclosure.

GregAnderson wrote:That gets my vote. It's a very simple thing to do and then all of your printed reports will retain the desired confidentiality. If someone who doesn't know about the arrangement (or forgot about it) prints a report there won't be an accidental disclosure.

I'll second the "summary-only" recommendation, and even then with trepidation. The reports that come from the "Income and Expenses" menu should really only be used for bishopric reference. I generally look at the report myself and then verbally inform the parent who requests the "missionary account status", but have on occasion been known to hand out the above-referenced summary report.

oregonmatt wrote:The reports that come from the "Income and Expenses" menu should really only be used for bishopric reference. I generally look at the report myself and then verbally inform the parent who requests the "missionary account status", but have on occasion been known to hand out the above-referenced summary report.

I'll second that concern. The family of the missionary has no right to see the Income and Expense detail report. A donor only has the right to see their own donations and those of their minor children -- not those of anyone else. The question discussed in this thread presupposes that missionary families will be seeing the Income and Expense detail report, which seems to me to be an incorrect assumption.

Since the Income and Expense detail report is for the bishop and clerk's use, it should contain the best information possible, so in my opinion a clerk should not do anything to make that information less specific, as some have suggested in this thread. I suppose the summary report could be given to the family in some situations, but even for that I as a clerk would make sure that the bishop specifically authorizes the release of that information.

Alan_Brown wrote:Since the Income and Expense detail report is for the bishop and clerk's use, it should contain the best information possible, so in my opinion a clerk should not do anything to make that information less specific, as some have suggested in this thread.

I repent of my earlier recommendation.

I don't think you need to repent. Ultimately, it's up to the Bishop to decide how Ward Missionary Funds can/should be transferred to the support of a specific missionary. If the Bishop approves of the "earlier recommendation" I would say the clerk is in the clear.

It seems to me that the CUBS change will require more transfers within the Ward Missionary category anyway. And what if the "anonymous donor" supplies more than what is needed for a specific missionary? Then it'll stay in the non-specific Ward Missionary category. And when the anonymous donor gets their donation statement it's only going to say "Ward Missionary" even if it went into a sub-category.

I still approve of your recommendation. It does the best job of accommodating the donor's wishes no matter if the missionary's family sees a print-out or an on-screen report "by accident" or by looking over someone's shoulder or whatever. I also think the transfer idea makes a record of what happened more specifically than putting the donation directly into the sub-category for the missionary. (Suppose the anonymous donor has a missionary son of his own at the same time he's making these additional donations. A well-recorded transfer will stop someone from thinking, "Oops! We gave this one to the wrong missionary.")

One way or another, the family is going to know that someone else is donating to their missionary's support. I would suggest that the clerk must closely track the balances and the Bishop should be in charge of informing the family (and the anonymous donor) about how much they still "owe," especially as the missionary nears their return. Let the Bishop worry about the confidentiality issue.