Disaster Relief - Used to Beg For Money/Charity

thedepressedsoul

For a organization that "doesn't ask for money" they sure do ask a lot.

I've been noticing that over the last few months "disaster relief" has been brought up in almost everything JW. WT, congregation study, Broadcast, special updated video, etc...

& I've noticed two things every time it gets brought up, which is a lot lately.

They talk about giving physically and how much money will be needed for the disaster relief work. That we should be generous. I bet a small fraction of donations goes to that. Yet, they are using these tragedies as a opportunity to fleece the flock making them think they need to donate a ton to help brother X on some island. Yet, they have no idea what portion of their money if used to actually help them. There isn't even a way to donate directly to the relief fund.

The 2nd thing I noticed is that that are touting this as a reason they are a charity to keep their tax free status.

road to nowhere

Note that they always ask that you do not designate the donation for any set disaster fund, but rather to general use, so they can do what they danm well please with it.

I figure that if I sent in money tagged for "whatever" they would just subract the amount they would have sent otherwise to help others.

From what I can tell the relief is done by nearby congregations with THEIR funds and manpower. The most the borg does is keep track of who is doing what where and then taking credit. I have never seen an actual check or recepit for anything the bigwigs did.

WTWizard

If you are going to donate anything, donate directly to those in need. Not some church-run group that is going to hijack 90% to further push that damn LIE-ble and its curses on humans. If you know someone that is affected in the area, you can donate directly to those people. You can also donate directly to affected towns and groups in those areas, or even donate directly to a food bank (donate the food itself).

And for sure, not going through the washtowel. Absolutely nothing will reach those in real need if you donate through the washtowel, and even those jokehovian witlesses that do receive anything will receive it through Worldwide Damnation Fund donations. The people will probably get nothing, aside minimal assistance in getting rags and littera-trash distributed in the area. Which is the last thing people need, anywhere.

Island Man

It's just absolutely disgusting the way they tell JWs to donate money to the World Wide Work box, to help JW disaster victims. There's no way for any JW to know exactly how much, if any, of his money donated for disaster relief purposes, is actually used for that purpose. A very hypocritical tactic for the organization to be engaging in considering that they have in the past, cast doubt on the effectiveness of donating money to charities by saying that only a small portion of donated money actually gets to those that need it. How is the Watchtower method any better? It seems to me that the organization can now use "show Christ-like love to your JW brothers in disaster affected areas by donating to the World Wide Work" as a ruse to guilt JWs into giving them more and more money with not a shred of accountability as to how much of that money actually gets used to help victims.