No. People give what they feel like giving. Asking anyone to give more would be uncouth. The truth is that most of us could giuve more, so we're all guilty. +5

This is what the Church as a legal entity has given. And it represents primarily disaster relief when massive and immediate reaction has been needed if I am not too badly mistaken. . The church encourages all its members to love their neighbors and to give aid as they are able where it is needed. . I believe what the members of the church have given is by far the greater amount both in dollars and in our time and efforts. I don't have figures for other members to verify that this is general, but for me and my family it is definitely true.

Not to be nasty at all, but just to get this out of the way: please don’t use the slur “the Mormon church.” The name of the Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or simply “the Church of Jesus Christ,” for short. Any title that doesn’t include His name is pretty offensive, IMHO. Thank you! Now that that’s out of the way… First of all, you’ve got to remember that in 1985, there were only 5,920,000 members of the Church, so if you average those two numbers (which isn’t good math, but it’s as good as we’re probably going to get), you’re down to 9,714,255 members, or $5.42/person/year—still not great, but better. Secondly, you’ve got to remember that not all members of the Church are active; the usual numbers hover anywhere between 40-50%. Even if we assume the high end, we’re down to an average of 4,857,127 active members, or $10.85/person/year. Again, still not great, but getting better. Third, you’ve got to remember that a significant percent of Church members are children—about 100,000 born per year, that the Church knows about (in other words, mostly children of active members). So at any given time, you’ve got over 1.5 million active Church members under the age of sixteen. Let’s ignore them, as well. That drops us to an average of 3,057,127 active adult members, or $17.23/person/year. Fourth, you’ve got to recognize that a significant percentage of those people are living in Third- and Fourth-World countries, so their ability to donate is significantly lower than others. Let’s guesstimate that 75% of the donations come from the USA and Canada. (We may be way off, but that seems logical enough.) Now we’re up to $24.61/person/year, in the USA and Canada. Fifth, let’s be brutally honest: not everybody gives. It’s been estimated that the average Church member in the United States (including inactive members) tithes only 4%. Using our previous 50% figure, that would mean that at least 20% of active members don’t pay a full tithe. If they’re not even tithing, do you really think they’re going to be donating to the humanitarian fund? Let’s be generous and say that only 80% of the US & Canada Saints are donating, at all. That bumps it up to $30.77/person/year. Finally, edndori had an *extremely* good point in that that figure only includes disaster relief. I know from my own personal standpoint, I usually donate a lot more to fast offerings than I do, to humanitarian aid. Any particular reason? No, not really; that’s just the way it usually turns out. If we assume that I’m an average Latter-day Saint, we donate 10-15 times as much to feeding the hungry as we do to disaster relief. Let’s compromise and say 12.5×. That would put our fast offering donations at $384.65/person/year for feeding the hungry. That’s in addition to the $30.77 already mentioned, plus: • donations to support local missionaries • donations to support other missionaries • donations to build temples • donations to print free scriptures and other materials, for non–Church members • donations to help people in Third- and Fourth-world nations go to college or trade school …and all that, in addition to the 10% tithe we already pay. Is it probably still too low? Indubitably. Most of us North Americans live a lifestyle reserved for only the richest of the rich, in some other nations. However, I think we’re doing a *lot* better than $3.75/person/year. HTH!

The money the Church spends on disasters comes from fast offerings and the humanitarian aid fund. Individual members donate to those funds; this money is kept liquid so it is available at a moment's notice (The Church does not grow these funds). Over $1 billion used is a testament to individual members and not the Church itself. The Church is to be commended in dispersing that money in an efficient manner. In these hard economic times, I can't afford to donate as much as I used to. The industry my company is in saw a 90% decrease from June 2008 and June 2009. I'm helping the poor by not adding myself to the list of people needing assistance.

Yes, they SHOULD be doing more given the small percentage of outlay that this represents relative to income.