Any discussion of church tithes and offerings practices usually includes both a pat on the back and a criticism. First, in regard to the normal Sunday offerings I can say to most churches, “Way to go!” In fact, when I ask a client if they have taken any fraud prevention steps, the first thing usually […]
Churches tend to have only one motivation for staying in compliance with the tax laws. And that is staying out of trouble. Churches practice compliance with the Internal Revenue Code primarily to avoid unnecessary penalties and interest, protect their tax-exempt status and stay out of the news. The prevailing attitude is “We do these things […]
Another practice of many churches plays right into one of a fraudster’s strengths, the ability to withhold information. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid interminably long finance committee meetings brought on by micro-managing members, or more likely, fearful that the messenger is going be killed, some church administrators tend to hold back on the financial […]
Until the 1960s, perhaps into the 1970s, churches were rather slow to pick up on new ideas, particularly in regard to technology. (If you have a hard time believing this, think back to the first time someone wanted to bring an electric guitar into your sanctuary!) But that is no longer the case, especially when […]
Let me be blunt. The fact that a church has never had an incident of fraud is due to one of two things: luck or planning. Needless to say, the odds of successfully avoiding fraud are much higher with the latter approach. If a church has been relying on the first approach and has never […]
Financial “bad behavior” is becoming rampant in the church. You would have to be living in a cave to not recognize this. There is not a week that goes by without another headline appearing that tells the sad story of a “trusted” church employee “gone bad”. The good part of this, if there is a […]
“We set up a separate bank account for each special fund to make sure the money goes where it is supposed to go…” Over the years, we have seen many churches take this approach. Rather than using their church accounting software to take care of measuring and tracking the restricted funds, they either open separate […]
News stories about church funds being embezzled by an employee or clergy are common, but embezzlement by someone charged with oversight is rarely reported in the media. A Michigan based news site, www.mlive.com reported the following story on September 16, 2010: Former Birch Run church leader charged with embezzling more than $100k from congregation The […]
“Our bookkeeper has been a member and served our church for many years. We trust him/her completely…” Church’s Secretary accused of embezzling $1.5 million Former pastor guilty of stealing from church Church’s former secretary jailed on fraud charges Priests get jail for stealing from church Church secretary accused of stealing thousands Woman accused of stealing […]
In recent years there has been an alarming upward spike in the number of church fraud and embezzlement incidents. But surprisingly, given this epidemic, few churches are taking proactive steps to ward off predators. The reasons given are many and varied but most offer no more protection than the Peanuts character Linus’ security blanket. Each […]