Some quick math for yearly earnings

by BathroomServant1 2 Replies latest jw friends

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  BathroomServant1

  **This is not meant to be the definitive basis or way of calculating the society's earnings each year, but just an observation.

  From my congregations accounts, I averaged the last six months of what is sent to the Society just out of curiosity. That amount is approximately $620 per month. Now, my congregation is located in what is known as a relatively poor town in the U.S. I understand that many congregations will give much more than this and many congregations will give much less. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the figure listed above is approximately an average of what the Society receives per congregation.

  Multiplying that number by the 103,267 congregations worldwide.... $64,025,540 PER MONTH.

  Yearly that would be $768,306,480. And that is not including donations sent directly to the society or received at assemblies or conventions.

  Of course, again, this should not be looked at as a be all, end all number for seeing what they rake in just from a congregational stand point...

  And I'm sure someone could locate a financial earnings statement online somewhere, but I thought this would be at least an interesting perspective on things.
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  teel

  I didn't work as accountant, but sometimes helped pick up the money. In our congregation in average I would say it was around $20 per meeting, meaning around $200 per month - by this I mean the total, including money given for local needs that is not sent to the HQ. Now, I live in a relatively poor Easter European country, but according to CIA World Factbook we're still better than more than half of the world. Using your number and my appreciated number of donations compared to the CIA's list of GDP - per capita (PPP) it seems the monthly donations of a congregation could be around 1/70th of the PPP value of the country. One could take that number and collate with the number of congregations in each country, multiplied by the PPP/70 of that country, and could come up with a more exact number - but still a very rough estimate. However I think the total amount is lower than what you got.
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  sir82

  The order of magnitude of that number is probably more or less accurate.

  Of course the calculations are far more complext than that. Most of those 100,000+ congregations are in poor, or even 3rd world countries. and the monthly contributions from typical congregations there might not even exceed $10.

  On the other hand, assemblies and conventions are huge money makers, and don't forget estates willed to the Society and the income on their investments