In Utah, maybe other places too, I see billboards saying that DI donations bless many nations.

That's nice!

But wait, is there an ulterior motive for such donations?

My take: The Church continues to be rejected in Europe and in many other 1st world nations. So the Church is looking to boost it's membership rolls by buying the goodwill 3rd world peoples.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great and wonderful that the world's poor are being helped by ChurchCo. But although ChurchCo says it may be providing needed clothing/other items free, it wants something back.

That something, IMHO, is converts. ChurchCo doesn't need poor folks in the fold now, never has. But reflecting upon ChurchCo's original converts, they were all indigent, disenfranchised and or poor. The Smiths were indigent. (BTY, it's interesting to note that ChurchCo doesn't want people like the Smiths). ChurchCo had to start somewhere, and it's better to say that you have lots of converts, even if they're ignorant and poor.

ChurchCo membership compensated poor converts for their lot in life, giving them the mental satisfaction that they would be admitted to Heaven, way ahead of the landed gentry in Europe and the well-to of America's east coast.

These first generation Mo's did nothing for the church except one thing: they bred future generations which became more affluent.

Sending DI donations is (IMHO) is buying converts, hoping that Uchdorf types will then be bred, which will then provided needed dough.

Am I wrong here?

Anybody have an idea where DI donations are sent to - in the 3rd world?

I heard some where that donating clothing to poor countries actually hurts there economy and contributes to keeping them poor. Seems paradoxical, but think about how cheap Chinese product hurt American manufacturing. Similarly local manufactures can't sell their stuff if they are competing against fre or very cheap products. If the church does sell the donates items them the profits are going to SLC not a local company.

...DI is the outlet for the Church's "generous" charitable contributions offerings and over-inflated statistics. The problem is, that "donations in kind" (DI discards) are usually the most unneeded items and have little or no cash value. They still count, as per IRS 501(c)(3), and help the Church claim that it's world-wide giving is among the world's most generous......

told us not to have garage sales or give away hand-me-downs, because the Deseret Industries needed the items.

Thou shalt NOT....

thus saith the LORD God, the Holy One of Israel:

I'm so glad to live in an area where DI isn't around. I donate to Goodwill or another local Catholic charity instead.

I like DI, its a convenient place to unload my crap without going to the dump

ROTFLMAO and spot on

The church does not help its own members a whole lot.
Oaks said in a talk last summer in the Midwest not to look to the church for help.

They don't donate much to other causes either, unless it brings them some publicity.

I go out of my way to avoid DI these days.

I really don't care for the idea of a church that I disagree with so strongly making money off of my things.

I knew a guy who worked at a DI. He was always coming home new stuff that he got from there for free. He said all the price tags had dates on them and if something sat in the store for over a few months they would just throw the item in the trash! So he and his coworkers would just keep stuff that they wanted! That made me so mad. Remember that commercial where a girl gives away her pink lacy dress and it ends up on little girl in Africa? *eyeroll* I doubt any of the clothes people give to DI end up being given to charity. Not when they could make $4 off that old shirt! Why would they pay to ship it somewhere else? Its a fraud just like everything else in the Church.

with ChurchCo, PR isn't an 'Ulterior Motive'....

(rim shot)

it's the Primary Motive

about how TBM I used to be.

Back in the late 90's I had a system. I would keep a box in a closet and when I came across something that I wasn't sure if I needed or wanted, I would put it in the box-if I needed it, i'd retrive it. 6 months later, if it was still in the box, I didn't need it apparently. When the box was full I would drive 28.7 miles (thanks mapquest!) one way to donate that stuff to the DI.

What a MO!!!!!

All growing up, I would ask if we could do a yard sale and my mom always said that we shouldn't do that....that we should donate to the DI. That woman could make Boyd F. Packer look like a crack-whore.

Anyway, so even after I left the morg I would donate there thinking, foolishly, that they were really helping people.

Now there is a little boutique thrift store that is run by Lifelong AIDS Foundation downtown. I donate exclusively there now. THEY really DO help people.

I shop there too. The gays give away MUCH better stuff than the mormons do.

My husband used to drive a truck to pick up ward donations, etc. Here's the real scoop:
--truck loads of donations went straight to the dump, without ever being checked or unloaded. The Provo DIs garbage bill was huge. About every 5th truck was ever unloaded & the things priced for sale, if not taken home by a worker
--the handicapped & mentally retarded would unload some of the trucks & threw away lots of things when they did not know what they were. DH brought home the first half of the BoM in the Deseret alphabet because the person unloading could not read it
--one of the managers was fired for molesting the mentally retarded females & being turned in for that

Some of the donations were pure junk (picture frames with glass missing, clothes that should have been in the ragbag, etc), but there were some that were faithfully donated that were priceless.

When Joplin, Mo., was hit by that devastating tornado in May of last year, you would not believe the donations that came in. Many churches (not the LDS by the way) had huge tents set up for tornado victims to get food, bottled water, clothing, toys, furniture, etc. Volunteers came from all over to donate their time, too. Of course, the Morg volunteers were out in their yellow T-shirts that could only be worn when they were doing volunteer work.

The LDS chapel was leveled & the members are meeting in the Community of Christ chapel. If the roles were reversed, could you see the LDS opening their chapel to the CofC? Not on your life.

A friend who worked at DI told me the high end items get sold at a private auction.

I have noticed in the last few years jewelry, coins, modern electronics and rare books have all but dissapeared from the DI shelves.

The furniture they put out barely rates as kindling.

I also learned they toss a lot of things they don't feel like processing at the end of the day.

I stopped seeing glass grapes so they can't be putting everything out.

After Mom died and we cleaned out the house, we took most of the bedding, linens, towels,dinnerware,tableware to a local homeless shelter. You would have thought that we gave them a million dollars. They were so appreciative for the donation and expressed how many people that have nothing will be helped.

Many years ago when the ex left us my children and I were recieving church welfare and I was asked to help out at DI as a sort of re-payment. I was fine with that.

One assignment was to sort shoes and clothing to piles of what was a better quality to what amounted to rags.

I was assuming the nicer items would stay at DI and the rest was to be discarded. Nope. The rags were designated for DI and the rest was being sold to an agency that sold huge bundles of clothing to Africa and South America to be sold to the extremely poor. I had wondered for years why a child in Africa was photographed wearing a Lakers or Van Halen T-shirt.

I never donated to DI again. Goodwill and Salvation Army do the same thing. However, the SA does have a program that collects women's professional clothing for women to wear on job interviews and I do donate toward that cause.

The Omaha World-Herald published an investigative report on the Omaha area Goodwill just this week. It's not a very charitable charity either.

http://www.omaha.com/eedition/sunrise/articles/no-culture-of-thrift/article_15c6f7c8-f172-5c0b-95a4-b84ac01ac6ac.html

"Federal tax records show that Omaha's Goodwill in 2014 paid CEO Frank McGree total compensation of $933,444. And McGree is far from the only executive at the Omaha nonprofit taking home enviable pay. Tax records show Omaha's Goodwill that year paid salaries of $100,000 or more to 13 of its executives and managers — a number that increased to 14 last year.

It turns out that out of the millions Goodwill Omaha generates each year selling your donated goods, the charity puts more of those dollars into pay for its leaders than it does the jobs programs that are the basis of its nonprofit mission and tax-exempt status."