are working to help end the starvation in Niger. This intrafaith cooperation on aid gets much less publicity than it should (at least out where I live). It’s pretty common for my sophisticated secular friends to bash religion in general, and then of course I mention relief efforts like this and ask them what they’ve done lately to help the poor and oppressed. Usually, they mumble something like, “well, I guess churches do some good things.”
The Millennial Star
I’m so happy to hear specifics about what the church is doing in Niger. In addition to tithing and fast offerings, I give monthly donations to other non-church related charities who are targeting specific problems – Niger, malaria, etc. If I knew that what the church was working on, specifically, and if they had specific funds set up for specific things, I would be much more inclined to give ALL of my charitable contributions directly to the church.
I wonder how much the PR dept of the church is doing to get the word out. It seems to me that these types of activities should be better publicized.
Newspapers are always looking for good stories. When the church helps others, especially in cooperation with another church to help stop the effects of famine, or earthquake or whatever.
Maybe they are getting the word out and the newspapers are just ignoring us because of who we are. Maybe not.
I’d like to see more of the church in the news doing good things like this.
Don, I actually work in Church Public Affairs locally in South Florida. The Church sends out press releases all the time, either from SLC or locally, and there are literally thousands working on public affairs worldwide. Sometimes you send out a press release and the local press just ignores it. Sometimes it will eventually find its way into a bigger story. If you go to this web page you will see some of the favorable stories that get published about the Church on a daily basis. You can actually get the stories e-mailed to you (I get at least three a day). But still, despite a tremendous amount of effort, I agree with you that we don’t get as much publicity as we should and there is still a huge amount of ignorance about the Church out there.
The church does post some of information about their humanitarian aid efforts on http://www.providentliving.org/
Geoff, why doesn’t the church have a page on its website for this type of information? All the press releases? Or do they, and I’m just not paying attention?
Sue:
The welfare/humanitarian leaders of the Church frown on re-inventing the wheel; i.e. they openly admit that they usually give what they have to Catholic Aid, who has a better world-wide distribution network than they do. Take a tour of welfare square (if you live nearby or take a short vacation out to zion).
Wow, I feel like an idiot, he posted the link in #3 and everything – ignore me ;>
Sue: unless you had hunted it down…how would you know? nothing to feel idiotic about…
Sue M
The tithing slips have a line for “Humanitarian Aid,” don’t they? And the money we give to that goes specifiically to disaster relief and other humanitarian aid.
“they openly admit that they usually give what they have to Catholic Aid,”
Lyle, where do they admit this? Beyond isolated stories like this one, I’ve never seen anything about the overall shape of what they do or don’t do.
I think that it places where the Church has an organization in place, then it does its humanitarian aid through the local priesthood organization. Which may include the Area Presidency or missionary couples who are welfare missionaries.
But where the Church has no organization in place, then they tend to team up wtih Catholic Charities because through the years they have found that it is the most effective way to help the poor in those countries.
Whether the press pays attention or not, does it really matter?
Matthew 6:1
Matthew 6:2
3 Nephi 13:4
After all, we don’t do it for the glory. At least we shouldn’t. No matter how much favorable press helps our image, that cannot be a motivator for this work.
Proverbs 28:27
Deuteronomy 24:19
Exactly the sort of thing I wish I heard about more often. Thanks, Geoff B.
I do all my charitable giving through the church. They are the only ones I trust. And when I give, I don’t get swamped with phone calls and mail with little address stickers.
LOL, annegb. The phone calls are hard. You give once and then suddenly once a year they ask again and again.
Once a year? Heh, the Sierra Club and the Democratic National Party have each sent an average of 12-16 letters to my stepmother annually since she made donations to them (Sierra Club was sometime in the late 1990s, the DNC was for the 2000 election; sometime after the fourth or fifth phone call from each she said she wasn’t going to send them any more money with her name on it, just to cut down on the waste and annoyance factors.)
The link from the main site is called “Newsroom for News Media” and is located underneath the link for Temples and above the link to the Provident Living site. I suspect that no one covers this much because “Churches help poor, starving people,” stories don’t win Pulitzers or improve circulation numbers or cause 35 hand-written letters to the editor to arrive in three days’ time.
When giving anywhere outside of church, my donation is either a money order w/ Jane Doe as the purchaser or a check accompanied by a letter telling them if they call or mail me they will never get another donation.