Many of us who have made significant donations to the church have wondered how the money is spent. The silence since the church last released detailed accounts in 1959 is concerning and leaves people to speculate on all sorts of things.

I was pleased to find that in the UK, the Charities Commission publishes basic accounts for all registered charities including the church. (These can be found here: http://bit.ly/1iL7Fc7)

The accounts are quite detailed in places, and it is difficult to extract details. Summary reports are given as well as the full accounts. I compiled all the key data available into a simple spreadsheet which is here:

http://sdrv.ms/1hL3MGh

Some things I noticed:

1. Net growth has slowed significantly in the last 5 years to the point that last year membership increased by less than 500.

2. Total number of units has been falling for 5 years, but rose slightly in 2012.

3. For the last 2 years, missionary work has been paid for by the UK arm of the church rather than directly from SLC. This cost is close to £7m per year.

4. The church in the UK regularly receives large transfers of money from “the parent charity”. This seems to have increased in the last 2 years to help cover the costs of missionary work.

5. The UK church donated £5.4m to “the parent charity” in 2011. This was “restricted funds which had accumulated.” These restricted funds are things such as Humanitarian Aid, Book of Mormon fund and Perpetual Education fund which had be accumulating over many years rather than being used for the purpose stated.

5. Genealogy and CES each cost £5-6m a year. This seems extraordinarily large.

6. Large donations were made to the Irish church in 2008 and 2009.

Ultimately, it’s difficult to read too much into these figures, but I thought it was interesting and worth posting.