Mind Your Own Spiritual Business

So, SRF has launched several businesses. Bill Duby frequently announced that he is a businessman - a businessman who was also a church pastor, spiritual teacher, wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

Well, I guess the harmless as a dove part may be up to considerable debate given what is revealed in Steve Sanchez's book. But the businessman part is unquestionable.

Somehow, SRF went from its humble founding to a "company" with real estate investments, publishing operations and other money making ventures. That SRF "owns" companies that create revenue isn't an issue. It's where the seed money came from and who actually owns it that is the issue.

Bill Duby was fond of telling us that he was considered "insane" by the U.S. government and was drawing disability payments.  He was also fond of having "rescued" his partner and co-founder of SRF, Angela Silva, from a mental health facility. The exact details of how she wound up there was never revealed but he did occasionally say that she is "brain damaged" and had a long history of drug abuse - even after she received a leadership position within SRF.  Bill would also speak about tying her to a chair and beating her to unconsciousness, supposedly to keep her from obtaining drugs.

Once SRF was established, Bill, like any faithful partner, became more and more concerned about Angela's support. To accomplish this, he strongly suggested that she be "elected" president of SRF. And as new for-profit companies were formed from SRF's coffers, he was sure to appoint her as president of those new companies.

Bill proudly said that his women are "well taken care of." while exhorting his male followers to do the same.  Of course, given the environment where every spare nickel (and even nickels we couldn't spare) was dropped into the Spiritual Rights Foundation's coffers..

Now, one of the policies of these companies was to tithe. And tithe big. Companies such as Patagonia, Ben and Jerry's and others would donate a percentage of profits to independent charities. SRF's for-profit companies would donate a percentage of revenues to non-profit SRF and no one else.

The difference there is that a percent of revenues is bigger than a percent of profits and profits exist after you pay expenses like employee wages and health care.

Paying donations based on revenues creates tremendous pressure on the business to control costs in order to survive, grow and re-invest in itself.  In fact, the tithe amounted to an amount greater than many businesses would reserve for capital improvements, or growth opportunities or things like taking care of employees with health insurance.

To the knowledge of all involved, no SRF-owned company ever provided employees with health insurance - forcing some to use public health hospitals. Not that these companies couldn't afford to provide health insurance, though.

The president of the SRF owned companies got a cut of the revenues and she wanted to maintain that as much as possible. The company's tithe also supported the president's church stipend.  Why reduce your already-big cut to, you know, take care of the people making your cut possible?

That greed, and that desire to maintain secrecy on the financial affairs of the Spiritual Rights Foundation explains why the SRF for-profit companies were:
1) operated and "managed" only by Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin - no one else could come near.
2) donating up to 30% of revenues to the Spiritual Rights Foundation, so more of the company's money could be "shielded" from state and federal income tax, and could be retained by the Spiritual Rights Foundation to be spent on Bill Duby and his two sister wives.
3) always operating on a shoestring, unable (or more likely unwilling) to spend money on real marketing, hiring employees (outside of "employing" Robin Dumolin and Angela Silva), and where employees were hired (at Liberty Construction) they were not offered basic, simple benefits such as paid time off or simple health insurance.
4) never open to scrutiny or debate.  There were no transparent practices supervised by the congregation as other ethical churches would conduct.  Nope, the practices there were as opaque as those fucking black window shades those paranoid bitches installed in the premises.  (you know, black-out window shades are NOT black - they are just made with an inner layer that blocks light, such as aluminum foil.  The shades themselves can be an attractive color and do not need to be black.)

In fairness, the tithe would be spent on Spiritual Rights Foundation facilities (sort of) and for the living expenses of the leaders.  Things like expensive luxury motor homes.  I recall Rev. Bill Duby and Angela hauling me out to an RV show to look at a brand-new luxury motor home.  Bill borrowed my phone to call an SRF board member.  After that brief discussion, Bill drove the motor home back to SRF headquarters.  It was his new toy and his alone.

If a fair and equitable stipend were paid to Angela Silva, Robin Dumolin and whoever the fuck else, there would be no real controversy.  However, that those two appear to be living well in excess of the average standard of living of their followers and that the net wealth of those two are well in excess of any one of their followers (in excess of their living follower, at least) you would have to think there is something a bit out of line with not only their stipends but with whatever else they are dipping their gnarled fingers in.

Oh right, they say the Bethel Island farm they own is an "SRF Farm" despite that the county recorder says otherwise.  But when caught, they say they are just holding the property for the benefit of the congregation - and all the "businesses" SRF operates is really for the congregation anyway, even if those two reap all the benefits.  I think I heard that one before.  Oh yeah, it sounds like my 14-year-old niece saying the marijuana we found in her backpack belonged to a friend and she was just holding it for her.

Uh, yeah...

Anyway, the way the tithe works is: money goes to SRF which would then pay Angela and the other leaders a tax-free stipend. This was in addition to Angela taking a cut of the for-profit company's proceeds as a payment for her "management" position.  No matter how much or little work or management she provided for the for-profit companies owned by SRF, this kind of payment may have violated generally accepted accounting principles and is absolutely not an ethical manner to operate a business.

This kind of double dipping arrangement is generally not considered acceptable in the business world. Making tax free money from the church as its leader and making money on the side from church businesses is not only unethical, it make you wonder if the real purpose of SRF is for the spiritual enrichment of the members or the financial enrichment of its directors.

As for where the capital to start the SRF for-profit enterprises came from, much of it came from non-profit SRF's revenues. While no person was told where their donations, tithes, and other payments were being spent for, I believe that the federal government takes a dim view of soliciting donations by leading the donors to believe they are supporting the work of the non-profit then spending that money on for-profit companies.

Ask Jim Bakker and Dr. Gene Scott. They found out the hard way.

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