Where does tithing come from? (Geographically)

I have always been interested in how the church collects and uses its money. There is very little information out there and since the church is a non-profit, the government does not require it to release all of its earnings to the public. So, I decided to do a little bit of sleuthing on my own.

Step 1) Determine the active membership in each country. I found this blog post that lists estimated member activity rates in each country. and also, I was able to get the reported membership in 2009 by the church (# of members * Activity Rate=# of active members)

Using this information, I noticed that the world activity rate average is about 30%. There is a 40% activity rate in the US and significantly lower for the rest of the world. These numbers are consistent with other estimates determined through census data and Pew research surveys. So in 2009, total membership was 13.8 million, but only 4.2 million active members.

Step 2) Now that I had the estimated active membership in each country, I looked at the GDP per capita in each country to determine how much Tithing was paid. (Tithing = Active membership * GDP per capita * 10%)

This equation makes two big assumptions: 1) All active members pay a full tithe (this is probably not true, I would guess it may be more like 50% of "active" members actually pay tithing) and 2) The LDS community is a representative sample of a nations GDP (In the US, I feel that this is probably a pretty close approximation. We have the super rich; Stephanie Meyer, Mitt Romney, the Huntsmans, Eric Weddle who just signed a $50 million contract with the Chargers, etc... and we have members who are very poor and trying to just get by. I would say an average LDS male earns more than the national average, but once you factor in additional kids and a wife that stays at home or works part time, then we are pretty close to the national GDP.

Using all of this information, I calculated that if all active members paid Tithing, the LDS church would collect $13.6 Billion dollars a year in tithing and that $11.5 Billion (84.5%) would come from the United States.

Other estimates based on what each ward in the US collects in Tithing each year puts the estimate around $5 Billion to $8 Billion. This is based off figures from ward clerks who reported how much tithing their wards collected.
US Ward in a poor neighborhood or a student ward($250,000/year)
US Ward in a average neighborhood ($500,000/year)
US Ward in a affluent neighborhood ($1,000,000/year).

11,401 Wards * $500,000 + 2,073 Branches * $200,000 = 5.7 Billion from wards + 0.4 Billion from Branches = $6.1 Billion a year in the US which is 53% of the theoretical amount if 100% of active members paid Tithing. This seems like a pretty reasonable approximation.

So if we assume that the ratio of active members who pay tithing is constant across the globe, the Church brings in approximately $7.2 Billion a year worldwide from Tithing.

So lets take a look at some of the data.
Pie Charts


And here is a bar graph comparing the top 20 countries by membership


Anyway, I thought all of this was very interesting. It shows that even though we have more members outside of the US than inside the US, there are still more active members in the US than the rest of the world combined. Even more surprising than that, was that 85% of the church's funds likely originate from the US. It's important to remember that the US does have a quarter of the worlds GDP, so this is not surprising that a church based out of the US to have a profile similar to this one.

So, I have read a number of comments on articles and blog posts that talk about how the LDS church is a giant corporation and it just wants your money. These arguments make me a little irritated for a few reasons, 1) The general authorities don't have anything to gain if you pay your Tithing or not, and 2) They rarely address the issue of Tithing, maybe one talk a conference will deal with this issue, they seem a lot more concerned about our behavior and salvation, and 3) There are a lot of places the church could earn money that it doesn't. They could charge for weddings or tickets to conference or they would advertise on their website or they would charge for their family search website. Clearly, they do not seem to be very concerned about the finances of the church. There is a simple way to test this hypothesis. People spend their money where their heart is. We can test whether the church's spending patterns reflect where the tithing is originating from or whether they reflect where active members are. If they care about money they would reinvest all of their money in the areas that are earning the most, if they care about saving souls, their spending patterns will reflect the locations of active members. Temples are a large expense for the church and one of the things that Tithing is used for, by looking at the distribution of temples around the world, we can see where the heart of the church lies.

Membership vs. Tithing vs. Temples

As you can see, the temples track much more closely with the active membership than they do with the tithing money. Ok, Europe and Oceania are a little favored by the church :) but I'm guessing that is a result of the fragmented nature of those two regions. The church wants to make sure each country feels like they have a temple and that they have equal access to all of the blessings. Africa is slightly underrepresented only because the church is relatively new there, I imagine that over the next decade, many of the new temple announcements will be in Africa as its church membership expands rapidly.

I'm happy to be a member of a church that is such a wise steward of funds. I am reminded of the Parable of the Talents. I am fine trusting that the church leadership is using its funds wisely and carefully, always remembering the widow's mite (Democratic Republic of Congo 23,615 members, GDP- $186. That's $1.50 a month per member) Their faith strengthens mine and I am glad that my Tithing money can subsidize theirs so they too can experience all of the blessings of full membership in the church.

I know this is only a snapshot of the churches funds, there are a number of other aspects here that were not considered. The church owns a number of businesses, more land than McDonalds, and other donations like fast offerings, the perpetual education fund and missionary funds, but I guess it does give an idea of the scale of the offerings that the church operates with. I'm sure my $7.2 Billion estimate is correct to at least an order of magnitude, but I would be shocked if it were outside of the range of $3 Billion to $20 Billion a year.