Missionary donations - Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund

Hi, all:

I have two issues: A member of our ward set up an Education and Mission Fund to help pay the mission and education expenses of their grandchildren. I administer it. They will pay $200 per month for their grandchildren on missions. Am I right to write a check from their Fund account to the ward mission fund of the ward where the grandchildren left from?

In addition, another member has a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund account. It is a self directed charitable giving account, where they donated some stock long ago, and then can direct donations when they want to. It has a modest balance, they say. They now want to pay $50 of the monthly cost for one of their relatives. They tell me they tried to have the Fidelity CGF donate to the ward mission fund, but they would not do it. So, they decided to send a donation to the Church, in SLC, for $600, one years worth, with a note that it should go to the SuchnSuch Ward, North Hereitis Stake, mission fund. They asked them (people in SLC) to let them know if they have done it. They have not heard from them. Will they?

Please help.

fredjudd wrote:A member of our ward set up an Education and Mission Fund to help pay the mission and education expenses of their grandchildren. I administer it. They will pay $200 per month for their grandchildren on missions. Am I right to write a check from their Fund account to the ward mission fund of the ward where the grandchildren left from?

That's correct. That ward will want to send a Official Tax Statement at the end of the year, so make sure that you provide an address where that statement should be mailed.

fredjudd wrote:In addition, another member has a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund account. It is a self directed charitable giving account, where they donated some stock long ago, and then can direct donations when they want to. It has a modest balance, they say. They now want to pay $50 of the monthly cost for one of their relatives. They tell me they tried to have the Fidelity CGF donate to the ward mission fund, but they would not do it. So, they decided to send a donation to the Church, in SLC, for $600, one years worth, with a note that it should go to the SuchnSuch Ward, North Hereitis Stake, mission fund. They asked them (people in SLC) to let them know if they have done it. They have not heard from them. Will they?

It would have been best to have contacted the Church Donations Department first to make sure that the donation was sent to the correct address with all the necessary information for directing the donation to the correct category. But in any case, procedures and contact information are on the wiki under Donations by check. I would suggest that they contact the Donations Department to find out the status of this donation.

aebrown wrote:

fredjudd wrote:A member of our ward set up an Education and Mission Fund to help pay the mission and education expenses of their grandchildren. I administer it. They will pay $200 per month for their grandchildren on missions. Am I right to write a check from their Fund account to the ward mission fund of the ward where the grandchildren left from?

That's correct. That ward will want to send a Official Tax Statement at the end of the year, so make sure that you provide an address where that statement should be mailed.

In addition make sure the name on the "Tithing and Other Offering" slip is as needed for tax filing purposes since that name will be the one on the tax valid statement.

fredjudd wrote: In addition, another member has a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund account. They tell me they tried to have the Fidelity CGF donate to the ward mission fund, but they would not do it. So, they decided to send a donation to the Church, in SLC, for $600, one years worth, with a note that it should go to the .....Please help.

When requsting grants from Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund to be sent to the church, you need to use the box that allows you to identify a message to the recipient (in this case, Church HQ). You need to specifiy that the donation be used for the benefit of "Unit #123456 SuchAndSuch Ward for the Ward Missionary Fund (Elder Smith)". The key pont is to include the unit number. We did this prior to HQ creating the specific account for missionaries and had no problems.

BTW.. We always asked to be recognized for the donation (an option in Charitable Gift) and always recieved a letter from HQ acknowledging the grant (technically it is not a tax donation, since you already recieved the tax benefit when you donated to the Charitable Gift Fund.