by hoser 37 Replies latest jw friends
I went to the meeting this morning and we had some guy from overseas bethel give the public talk. This is what he said. 6 countries subsidize the rest. He said in some countries all the donations that they get from contributions don't even pay the electricity bill for the branch buildings so money has to come in from these 6 richer countries.
I guess that's why they closed a bunch of branches.
Evidently even the donations from those 6 could not keep open those branches.
Must be some creative accounting going on. Most branches are nothing but storage depots with volunteers staffing the place part time and sometimes a skeleton crew for translations. I know several countries where that is the case that are very affluent and have plenty of income.
It sort of surprises me that comment and then again it doesn't. I remember when I was awakening trying to give the reason for the bethel closures to an elder friend of mine who was also the accounts servant. His comments were telling. Here is how I remember the conversation.
"it doesn't surprise me what your saying. You want to see the literature that comes in and honestly I'm only sending them a few hundred bucks. I actually get embarrassed by it as I know it isn't covering the cost.".
Interestingly I live in a 1st world country, and the brothers congregation who made the above comment was also situated in a very wealthy up market area.
It confirms to me that their business model of giving away literature isn't economically viable. If most of the growth is in poorer nations that can't contribute enough to cover the costs something has to give sooner or later.
Hoser ... Was this a begging for money talk, green handshakes, welcomed??? lol
lol Just because someone says something... Back it up with facts, Bethel speaker guy... Show us the accounts. or or is he too embarrassed because he knows JW.org is a billion dollar enterprise.
LL
Wow! That's quite a disclosure - was he speaking officially? It would be hard to imagine the GB approving the publicizing of this level of detail.
It is a real catch-22. They want to boast about growth, but can only realise it amongst the poorer less educated areas. Ideally they should only print Bibles, put everything else online and push for more donations, but that only works for the rich countries. Poorer ones need the cost and labour intensive methods from last century that cannot be afforded anymore.
Now, if they had only instituted the practice of tithing in their earlier phase, they'd be home and hosed. They draw upon the Mosaic Law Code to bolster most of their teachings, so had some enterprising early "father" of the religion - such as Rutherford - called forth the practise of tithing, it would now be part of the fabric. If you look at not dissimilar groups such as Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and 7th-Day Adventists, they do not have funding "issues" because their members give 10% of their in-hand salaries, wages or "benefits".
Not sure if it is still the case but I know for a fact that the British branch was sending millions of pounds abroad annually to support other branches not that long ago.
