A top leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has defended how the faith handles its money in the face of criticism that the Salt Lake City-based church should be more transparent about its finances and more generous with its wealth.
In a Q&A with Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, apostle David A. Bednar told an audience at last week’s Silicon Slopes Summit in Salt Lake City’s Delta Center that the church’s assets are “primarily income-consuming. They are not income-producing.”
Bednar said the church’s assets, which are worth an estimated $200 billion, according to a recent Widow’s Mite Report, include 20,000 “meetinghouses and facilities,” 335 existing or planned temples and a handful of “major institutions of higher education.” (The church owns and operates Brigham Young University in Provo and its sister campuses in Idaho and Hawaii, as well as Ensign College in Salt Lake City and its global online campus, BYU–Pathway Worldwide.)
“You’ve got fixed costs in the maintenance, the utilities, all of those things for all of those buildings,” Bednar said. “You don’t have to be an accountant to figure out those are some big dollars.”
The church’s worth also includes billions of dollars in stocks, bonds and other investments managed by its primary investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors.
Bednar emphasized the billions the church spends on philanthropy and education. The faith reported spending more than $1 billion on humanitarian aid last year.
“It’s necessary to maintain the mission of this church, which is to bless the lives of individuals and families,” he said. “That’s what we do.”
The church has come under increased scrutiny in recent years for its accounting practices and financial disclosures — or lack thereof. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined Ensign Peak Advisors and the church a total of $5 million in February for failing to properly disclose past stock holdings and going to “great lengths” to “obscure” the faith’s investment portfolio.
Church officials responded that they “regret mistakes made.” An auditing report released at the faith’s April General Conference did not mention the SEC fine or offer any dollar figures.
As to the church’s substantial reserves — whistleblower and former Ensign Peak employee David Nielsen alleged in late 2019 the church had a $100 billion fund it was supposed to spend on charity but didn’t — Bednar referenced an Old Testament story in which Joseph interprets a dream for Egypt’s pharaoh as “seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.”
“And in the years of plenty, you’d better prepare for the years of famine,” Bednar said, emphasizing the church’s philanthropy. “I think it would be imprudent and unwise not to have a reserve.”
Church officials have described that fund as a “rainy day account” that also helps pay for operations in poorer parts of the world — such as Africa, where the faith is booming — where member donations can’t keep up.
The Window Mite’s Report, released last summer, predicted the 17 million-member church could be worth at least a trillion dollars by 2044.
Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
