non-profit / churches

The Hill - Thousands of Catholic churches received PPP loans: report

I get that churches have bills (like rent and utilities), and obviously they employ people, so sure, they need money too. plus, I imagine many of their donations come from passing around the "hat" every week. so if they're closed, they aren't getting their usual donations. so i don't really have an issue with them getting ppp money.

that being said. i do have an issue with it. as someone who works for a non-profit in fundraising, i know pretty well what our revenues and expenses are. our biggest expenses are salary and programs. our salaries take up about 30% of our total expenses, which sounds like a lot, but isn't (we each get under $65k a year and we have NO benefits). of course there are other expenses like rent, utilities, insurance, office supplies, stamps (nearly $1000 a year!), but the majority of our expenses are on programs which go directly back to the community we support. we mostly spend on teachers and students. we get audited every year, we have our annual reports on our website, easily found public 990s, and grantors regularly request our financial information going back several years. they generally also limit our overhead expenses to a max of 18% of our total grant money because they want us spending their money on our programs, not on our people (and while I get that, I also very much don't get that, but that's a conversation for a different day).

but, like, what are churches spending on? I feel like (honestly, this is based on nothing other than feeling) the majority of money is spent on their own parishioners, and not on the outside community. basically, it's a social club you pay dues to, and you get snacks every meeting, and occasionally you invite the homeless dude down the street. I doubt many of their parishioners ask what their money is going to, what percentage on the programs and what on operations. 

it's funny because the other day, this topic came up. g was upset so much PPE money went to churches. I agreed but was also more cautious. but as I said this, t gave the example of how the church of scientology is getting a lot of money that isn't spent on programs but I wanted to ask her about if she know what percentage her tithe is spend on programs at her church? it took a minute to find her church's EIN (it's not listed on their website), and even with that EIN I can't find their 990 (apparently churches aren't required to have them public) or any sort of financial information, and they don't have anything resembling an annual report on their website. like... wtf knows what they're spending their income on? and how much income do they even have? and the biggest thing is, NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE. not even t who so quickly tried to throw scientology under the bus. 

I get that services to your own congregation are services. it just seems really unfair that regular non-profits are expected to provide free services to pretty much anyone who asks, without getting nearly anything financial in return from that same group. we're held to pretty high standards, especially by anyone who is offering to give us money. even for individual contributions we generally have to prove that we're helping people. I guess churches are different in that the proof is in you. if you feel good, you're happy to give money, even if it doesn't help anyone else. which also seems really weird somehow.

conclusion - I don't think churches should be considered non-profits. I do think they should be taxed. any entity that wants to be tax exempt should have a certain level of transparency. the public loses out on your tax money, so you should be able to justify WHY. regular non-profits do. churches don't. that's completely unfair.