Missionary Donations Outside Of Ward

[jeffwest80127]

A member asked me if a family member or friend living in another Ward can make a specific donation for a Missionary in our Ward. Is this possible and if so, how?

[russellhltn]

Yes. The process is documented in the donation help link

Scroll down to "Donating Funds to the Ward Missionary Fund in Other Wards or Branches".

Note that this only works for donations in the same country.

[garystroble]

It used to be that it could only be done by the member who is the donor using the online donation system. Not sure if with all the recent changes it can be processed as an in person or mailed donation or not, even with the unit name where the missionary is serving from and the missionary name.

[russellhltn]

My answer was based on the on-line donation system.

As far as I know, it's not available when handing it in physically to one's own ward. But if they could get a stack of envelopes for the other ward, it can be mailed in (until the bishop gets released).

[garystroble]

My answer was based on the on-line donation system.

As far as I know, it's not available when handing it in physically to one's own ward. But if they could get a stack of envelopes for the other ward, it can be mailed in (until the bishop gets released).

Hopefully distribution gets envelopes sent out quicker soon. Our ward has a new bishop and envelopes were ordered on-line 6 weeks ago today. I emailed last Friday and got a prompt answer Saturday, they are behind on production due to some new equipment. As of today the order is still not shipped.

[russellhltn]

Our ward has a new bishop and envelopes were ordered on-line 6 weeks ago today. I emailed last Friday and got a prompt answer Saturday, they are behind on production due to some new equipment. As of today the order is still not shipped.

And they haven't sent any pre-printed address labels so you can use the old ones?

I always found that a bit amusing as I suspect the self-stick labels cost about as much as the envelopes.

[lajackson]

And they haven't sent any pre-printed address labels so you can use the old ones?

I believe they stopped doing that a long time ago. The last time we requested them we were told just to print a few of our own until the new envelopes arrived. As russellhltn suspected, printing new envelopes is cheaper than printing new address stickers.

[garystroble]

Our ward has a new bishop and envelopes were ordered on-line 6 weeks ago today. I emailed last Friday and got a prompt answer Saturday, they are behind on production due to some new equipment. As of today the order is still not shipped.

And they haven't sent any pre-printed address labels so you can use the old ones?

I always found that a bit amusing as I suspect the self-stick labels cost about as much as the envelopes.

Distribution has never provided stickers in the way suggested above to my knowledge. While we could obviously print our own stickers, at one point in the many times I have been a clerk or in a bishopric there was an urgent bulletin from headquarters that we were not allowed to put stickers over previous bishop's addresses on tithing envelopes, ever. It has been quite a while and I cannot locate the bulletin, but in the past the Church has also pre-printed the U.S. Postal Service bar code on the tithing envelopes for use in the United States, not sure if they still do. Assume that was also a security thing so that the mail could not be redirected with a sticker, as the bar code contains the mailing address.

$37.15 is the current cost for a box of 900 personalized tithing envelopes and donation slips on the Church store web page, 750 Office Depot labels are currently $13.99. If we could just order envelopes it might be less than $37.15 as the shipping cost to the Church would be lowered, but that is not an option on the on-line Church store web page. Meanwhile we are swimming in donation slips which continue to accumulate every time a new bishop is called. I see that blank envelopes with no pre-printed address on them are 2 cents each. Hmm, somewhat of a savings, about half price, though if we add the cost of the stickers hardly any savings at all.

[lajackson]

While we could obviously print our own stickers, at one point in the many times I have been a clerk or in a bishopric there was an urgent bulletin from headquarters that we were not allowed to put stickers over previous bishop's addresses on tithing envelopes, ever.

Good point. I had forgotten that the USPS bar code was also printed on some envelopes. That barcode only includes the ZIP+4 Code, nothing else. But if you put a sticker on the envelope the Postal Service sorting machines will try to send it to the old ZIP+4 code instead of the new address, and then the carrier will have to scratch out the bar code and reroute the envelope.

So if you print stickers and there is a bar code also on the envelope, you would need to take a black marker to it so the sorting equipment will no longer be able to read it.

[garystroble]

Thanks for the clarification. Sorry to have taken this so far off the original discussion topic.