Where does Mitt's charitable giving go?

[Indy Texas]

We know how much Romney donated to charity in 2011 ($4 million, or 29% of his income). But where did that $4 million go?

I ask this because:

(1) Mormons are required to donate at least 10% of their income to their church. Did Mitt meet this threshold? Did he exceed it?

(2) Did Mitt's charitable giving go to groups that actually help less fortunate people (i.e. homeless shelters, scholarship programs for underprivileged children), or did he basically just give a bunch of money to things he happens to enjoy (i.e. art museums, colleges he attended)? 

[Lief 🗽]

The vast majority of it was no doubt to the Mormon church, which essentially means that most of his "charitable donations" are really political donations to an anti-gay marriage hate organization.

[Politico]

Classy, Lief.

[Mister Twister]

Classy, Lief.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Classy, Lief.

Is there an answer to the OP's question?

[RI]

On his 2011 tax return, Romney gave the following in cash:

The Church of Latter-Day Saints - $1,115,484
Tyler Charitable Foundation - $214,516

Romney also donated an additional $920,573 in stock via trust to the Tyler Charitable Foundation for a total of $2,250,772 in claimed gifts to charity. Romney gave a total of $4,020,772 to charity, but did not claim deductions for $1,770,000. This $1.77 million was not specifically reported by recipient as it was not claimed.

The Tyler Charitable Foundation is Romney's personal charity that mostly donates to the Church of Latter-Day Saints and Brigham Young University (along with a few other Mormon-affiliated groups and schools) plus organizations such as The United Way, the US equestrian team, the George W. Bush Library, the Center for Treatment of Pedriatric MS, and Harvard Business School. The only remotely controversial thing I can find relating to it is that it supposedly donated about $10,000 in 2006 to a group advocating for ex-gay therapy in Massachusetts.

[Mister Twister]

ex-gay therapy in Massachusetts.

ex-gay therapy in Massachusetts? That's like ex-hispanic therapy in Mexico

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

On his 2011 tax return, Romney gave the following in cash:

The Church of Latter-Day Saints - $1,115,484
Tyler Charitable Foundation - $214,516

Romney also donated an additional $920,573 in stock via trust to the Tyler Charitable Foundation for a total of $2,250,772 in claimed gifts to charity. Romney gave a total of $4,020,772 to charity, but did not claim deductions for $1,770,000. This $1.77 million was not specifically reported by recipient as it was not claimed.

The Tyler Charitable Foundation is Romney's personal charity that mostly donates to the Church of Latter-Day Saints and Brigham Young University (along with a few other Mormon-affiliated groups and schools) plus organizations such as The United Way, the US equestrian team, the George W. Bush Library, the Center for Treatment of Pedriatric MS, and Harvard Business School. The only remotely controversial thing I can find relating to it is that it supposedly donated about $10,000 in 2006 to a group advocating for ex-gay therapy in Massachusetts.

So (with the exception of the pediatric MS, which is genuinely very admirable) distinctly middle-to-upper-class, stuff-Romney-himself-enjoys-type things, but nothing too offensive. That's about what I would have expected.

[Politico]

The Mormon Church helps a lot of poor people. Furthermore, those funds Romney contributed to BYU and Harvard help enable the schools to offer scholarships to underprivileged students.

Attacking Romney over charitable giving in the millions!?!? How low can the left go?

[© tweed]

How low can the left go?

towards a full-frontal criticism of charity itself.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/index.htm

[Politico]

How low can the left go?

towards a full-frontal criticism of charity itself.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/index.htm

Being free to choose trumps force every day of the week. Philosophically, there is little difference between trying to force a gay person to be straight, and trying to force somebody to contribute the fruits of their labor towards endeavors that are not unarguably in the public's interest. Force is force, and freedom is freedom. I'll always side with the latter.

[Indy Texas]

The Mormon Church helps a lot of poor people. Furthermore, those funds Romney contributed to BYU and Harvard help enable the schools to offer scholarships to underprivileged students.

Attacking Romney over charitable giving in the millions!?!? How low can the left go?

The Mormon Church helps a lot of Mormon people. Offering someone food and clothing on the condition that they accept your religious doctrine isn't really charitable so much as it is effective marketing to a captive audience. Most of the money congregants give their churches goes to running the church - keeping the lights on, paying the clergy, etc. Nothing wrong with that. But the gaping hole in the conservative argument that cutting taxes and social programs doesn't matter because people will give charitably anyway overlooks the fact that most charitable giving is "taking care of your own."

I grew up in Harris County, one of the Bible Belt's many buckles. Most conservative-leaning suburban churches put their resources into missionary activity in other countries (the missions trip to Central America is an obligatory rite-of-passage for many an evangelical teenager around here). The churches that devote significant time and energy to actually feeding and clothing the poor are usually black churches in poor neighborhoods, whose own relatively poor members are making a much bigger sacrifice in making the contributions they do. So basically, poor black people help other poor black people. Rich white people help non-white people that they don't live anywhere near. That's why private charity as a sole means of a social safety net doesn't work.

[opebo]

Force is force, and freedom is freedom. I'll always side with the latter.

But it is precisely the point that we on the left believe you to be entirely mistaken about what is force, and what is freedom.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Mormon Church helps a lot of poor people. Furthermore, those funds Romney contributed to BYU and Harvard help enable the schools to offer scholarships to underprivileged students.

Attacking Romney over charitable giving in the millions!?!? How low can the left go?

I, at least, wasn't so much attacking or even necessarily criticizing him as you are obsessed with kaleidoscopically refracting the universe to make it look like 'the left' is somehow 'lower' even than Mendacious Mitt and Lyin' Ryan, as I've heard them called of late.