Follow the Money - What Drives the WTBTS

by Band on the Run 3 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Band on the Run

  Most people here report that the Society's main focus in accumulating money. Like Deepthroat, I say follow the money. I just don't understand how they make substantial money. The books are offered at low cost. JWs are generally poorly educated so they don't have millionaires and billionaires to fund the work. Their overhead is lower than business paying a fair salary to their workers.

  I also believe that most Witnesses are not venal. If they were interested in money and other worldly things, it would have interfered with their recruitment in the first place. Do the Witnesses publish any financial information? I do note that for a group that criticizes offertories in church and the highly polished silverplates, the Witnesses push harder for money than any church I've ever attended. Stewardship in churches generally lasts a few weeks at most. Tithing churches may be different. I visited a fundamentalist church and before they said "Good Morning," I was shepherded to a special room where a financial planner was available for me to tithe on my first visit.

  Thanks for my enlightenment concerning this.
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  recovering

  one method is the way building at kingdom halls are funded.

  another is the vast amount of money older witnesses leave to the society in their wills
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  wobble

  The whole huge organization is self-funding at almost every level. Each Congregation pays its own way, pays for the C.O and his car, and funds the conventions, which always make a profit.

  Bethel homes have to be paid for true, but often families will contribute more because one of theirs is serving in Bethel, the literature is cheap to produce with free labour, and congregations send seperate donations to cover its cost. It probablystill makes a not insignificant profit for the WT.

  Their huge property portfolio, paid for by the rank and File, but owned and sold for profit by the WT is a milch-cow.

  They are still a huge corporation in profit. How long that will last remains to be seen, but they are pretty well set to survive for many more years.
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  GOrwell

  I would say the property and people bequesting even medium sized estates are the true money maker. A popular anecdote that you've likely heard of McDonalds is that it isn't the worlds largest fast food restaurant business, but instead a monster property management business. The true wealth of the WTS is hidden in plain sight, in the thousands of kingdom halls, branches and farms, with mortgages all paid for by the rank and file.