The story criticized the Mormons for owning farms and ranches and orchards that produce food sold on the open market, but it paid no attention to the fact that those operations also provide food that is distributed and stored by the Church specifically to support families in need. In a hypthetical time of financial collapse, the Church could use actual food it already produces to sustain much of its members throughout the US. In addition to the paid staff on each project, Church members contribute labor, both to grow food and to package and distribute it. As shown in the recent Rock Center program on NBC, it is distributed to dedicated “stores” where it is given at no charge to families in need as certified by their local pastors (called bishops in the Mormon Church). In the meantime, the commercial aspects of the food projects sustain the charitable ones, including food aid provided to disaster areas.

The Church was criticized for redeveloping some 25 acres in downtown Salt Lake city adjacent to the church headquarters at Temple Square, into a modern residential–office–retail center. The Church has owned this land since the city was settled in 1847, and for many years it was the site of Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, a Church-owned coop that retailed goods made within the Mormon community. It was the first department store in the US. Existing retail stores were not doing well because shoppers were living more in suburbs and didn’t want to drive back into the city to shop, so the new development includes condos and apartments to provide a complete community served by the retail stores. The construction put over 1,000 people to work during two years of the recession, and the businesses now there will employ hundreds of people. The Mormons believe that having a job is superior to receiving aid, especially over the long haul.

Mormons help to fund their charitable work by asking members to fast for two meals the first Sunday of each month, and donate the food money saved to the Fast Offering fund to aid the unemployed, disabled and otherwise needy.

One of the major costs for the Mormons is building and maintaining meetinghouses for Sunday worship and weekday activities (open to the public). Tithes completely support these costs, with no additional contribution asked for each congregation. Since Mormon pastors are all unpaid parttimers who support themselves in full time careers (farming, medicine, lawyers, businesses, professors, engineers, soldiers, etc.), there is no expense for personnel, and whenever possible a single building serves two to four different congregations (whose boundaries are defined geographically; a Mormon does not get to choose which building to attend).

Mormons support some 55,000 missionaries around the world at any given time. Since it is about a two year period, that means that over 30,000 new missionaries are going out each year. Most are supported by their own savings and family members.

Brigham Young University and its affiliated campuses in Idaho and Hawaii are also supported by Church funds, helping to ensure that tuition is affordable at about 4,500 a year, compared to twice that for many state universities. The campuses are entrepreneurial, spinning off new self-sustaining businesses based on research at the campuses.

The Church maintains the Perpetual Education Fund, a low interest loan program that helps Mormons in developing nations to get additional education that supports their ability to sustain their families.

The Church used to own a hospital system in Utah, developed originally to meet a need for better medical services, but decided a couple decades ago to spin it off as an independent not-for-profit enterprise. Intermountain Health Care is one of the largest hospital systems in the region. Primary Childrens Medical Center in IHC is a special hospital that cares for children regardless of ability to pay, and is supported partly through fund raising campaigns at church in which children contribute.