A little example of how severely the contributions for the Society are drying up

by sir82 86 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sir82

  Just a little tidbit from the congregation I attend....

  The congregation has approximately 120 publishers.

  Well over 1000 magazines per month are picked up, not to mention all the books, brochures, and tracts that are picked up.

  There was a "local needs" part on the service meeting recently, asking for more contributions.

  It seems our congregation has averaged just about $300 per month contributions to the "worldwide work" over the past year.

  Assuming 1500 magazines / month, that's just 20 cents per magazine - and that completely ignores all other literature that is picked up.

  The last price the magazines had, 20+ years ago, was 25 cents per issue. With inflation that would have been about 50 cents each now.

  Just another sign of how severely the contriutions to the Society are drying up....

  Another way of looking at it, the average publisher contributes about $2.50 per month to the "worldwide work", for any & all literature used.

  Oh, and this congregation is one of the wealthier ones around. several people live in half-million dollar homes and there is a pretty large collection of Mercedes & Acuras in the parking lot.

  My contribution? A big fat $0.

  Does anyone else who still attends have any idea how their congregation is doing regarding contributions?
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  wha happened?

  sounds like my old hall back in the late 90's. Well to do mostly. You would always see the latest autos in the parking lot. However the donations were poor at best. We had a lot of negative months. That was back then. I can only imagine how bad it is now
• 

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  Doesn't surprise me. With the struggling economy worldwide, people simply don't have too much expendable cash. I remember that in my Hall in the 80's, deficits were almost unheard of. Then came some sort of BS letter from the GB which "suggested" that every congregation donate something like $300 or $500 to the "Worldwide Work" every month. As you probably know, JW democracy consists of the speaker asking the audience if anyone wants to make a motion. Once this motion is made, a next call is to second the motion. Any opposed? Raise your hand for this would invite a private meeting with the elders in the back after. So with this added burden, our congregation went into serious debt.
• 

  stillin

  I handled the literature department during the switch to "contribution basis."

  Big run on deluxe bibles etc. The witnesses themselves took advantage!
• 

  N.drew

  From the beginning of my time spent with the Witnesses I noticed the donations were scanty every month. I doubted the contributions covered the cost of the literature, but the society has other expenses so I reasoned that some friends must have been sending some directly to the Society. I don't know. But when the math is applied the donations didn't top $10.00 a person. More like $5.00. $5.00? Even for a couple that's just $10.00. Add a little more for Kingdom Hall expenses, at about $10.00 a person. So the worst months saw only about $12.00-$15.00 a month. I believe poor worldlings give more than that to adopt a child fund and feed an animal fund each month. Let's just say that a brother works hard so his pioneer wife can pioneer. She doesn't have anything to put in the box. Then he puts $50.00 in a good month, but for that they get magazines and Bibles. Maybe even a concordance. So I said on another thread that they will run out of money. Now times are much tighter and educated intelligent people are leaving. If I am correct, they will run out of money.
• 

  blondie

  Basically a congregation has these expenses

  1) monthly mortgage payment (unless it is paid off)

  2) Utilities: phone, electricity, water, heat

  3) Maintenance account payment (especially if 2 or more congregations sharing)

  Until 1990, jws paid for their magazines and literature upfront and that went to the WTS each month. Whether they "placed" them or not, they paid. Now money is based on whether jws ask people to donate to the "worldwide work" and donate that. Non-jws barely "contributed" for the literature back then, so the individual jw ate the cost.

  I was married to one accounts servant and related to 3 others in 4 separate congregations and they either barely made their expenses, or had to juggle the time of payment.
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  wha happened?

  I remember it got to the point that local needs talks started up about appreciatting what Jehovah provides, etc etc
• 

  elderelite

  And bear in mind blondie that kh's mortgages are just debts to the society, which has no money that wasnt donited to it by the publishers in the first place
• 

  00DAD

  It's a business.
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  I don't like the fact that the new accounts report does not have a line by line breakout on expenses (at least out cong does not).

  Just $xxx.xx received from Contributions

  and $xxx.xx in expenses.

  __________________

  Balance. $xxx.xx

  BUT it does say how much sent to Society WWW and it is ALWAYS over $1000

  No Cheapos Allowed -- A lot of older, conservative JWs who saved their buckeroos for their old age.

  What better place to send it than WTBT$

  DOC