Mormons Make Utah a Land of Plenty

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The local United Way raised only $8.2-million last year; the average for a United Way in a city of this size is $26-million. Members of the LDS church make up only 24 percent of the local United Way donors who give $1,000 or more, even though they account for half the local population. And the United Way of America ranks Utah 48th in the nation in per-capita giving to nonreligious charities.

"We'd be happy to do even half as well as other communities do," says Ms. Nielsen, who is not Mormon. "We know that a lot of people here are strapped, but there are a lot of other people who use that as an excuse. Of the 50 percent that are Mormon, a lot aren't full-tithe payers. And the non-Mormons aren't tithing at all."

Ms. Nielsen is no newcomer to the phenomenon -- it's been a problem throughout her three and a half years at the United Way, and she had an equally difficult time raising funds during her previous job at the local Red Cross. While she says she wishes she could find ways to encourage more local individuals and businesses to give to nonsecular causes, Ms. Nielsen describes the Latter-day Saints church as a "fantastic" supporter of the United Way and many other charities in the area.

Last year, the church's foundation and church employees who participated in office campaigns (including those who work at for-profit businesses owned by the church) gave a total of about $540,000 to the United Way, roughly 7 percent of its fund-raising total.

And Mormon Church-owned businesses, including a life-insurance company, the Deseret News, Utah's second-biggest newspaper, and eight other companies, "tithe" 10 percent of their pretax profits to the church's foundation. The foundation money (the church declines to release any information about its size or annual spending) goes primarily to humanitarian groups, as well as to some arts and educational organizations. Last year, for example, the foundation made a $250,000 grant to the largest homeless shelter in Utah to cover increased need during the winter months.

Yet even with the church's support, important local needs are still going unmet, Ms. Nielsen says. More than 130 United Way volunteers have identified programs at charities supported by United Way that are worth financing, but the cost of those programs exceeds by about 70 percent what the United Way has available to spend, she says.

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