Member wants to pay tithing for out of unit member

[steveojohnson85]

Hello-

I’m wondering if anyone knows what to do in the situation I’m in… I’m thinking that I will need to get the membership number of the donor to start with, but a member of our ward wants to pay tithing for her elderly mother who lives in assisted living in another state. I’m not sure how to assist this member. My thoughts are that she will need to get the membership number of her mother as I’m not sure how to search for that and then pay it online for her mother. Any ideas?

[Mikerowaved]

I think the easiest way would be to snail-mail a check to her bishop with her name and membership number on a donation slip.

[russellhltn]

I think the only way to do it online would be to use her Church Account as there is no "in behalf of someone else" feature I'm aware of. But I'm sure that's against the Terms of Use.

The other was is as suggested above - snail-mail a check.

[BrianEdwards]

Just for clarification, it seems like there's no real difference between the O.P., and somebody who has a reason to pay the tithing for a member in their same unit. In both cases the "paying member" needs to get a physical donation to the Bishop of the "payee member", either hand-delivered or via snail-mail, since an online donation isn't possible in either situation. Granted, the in-unit scenario seems much less likely, but just asking.

[russellhltn]

In unit would be simpler since they can just hand the gray envelope to a member of the bishopric in the hallway.

But that does give me an idea. I think it's possible for most clerks to process the tithing of most any member, as long as they have the MRN and it's the same country. That would be more convenient than mailing it. Where that fails (a bit) is for Fast Offerings, since it would probably reflect on the ward it's being donated in. But since FO is all swept to headquarters, it's not that big of an issue. The member is still credited as long as the MRN is attached to the donation.

Another idea is to look into processing donations via philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org. Depending on the situation, it may be possible to avoid paying income/capital gains taxes on income from an investment account that's going to be donated.