Quote
The Anticult
Don't forget, in every western country, even the US, SGI tells its members that the SGI members from Japan are supporting them, as they don't donate enough money.
You must realize these are lies from SGI.
SGI has almost no expenses. They don't pay almost anyone, everyone works for free..
Hi Anticult,
I absolutely agree with you about this in reference to SGI-USA, but as far as the UK operation goes it is definitely heavily subsidised by Japan. After all Ikeda can afford to pay millions for the fancy historic house near London so that it is available to him in case he ever wants somewhere to stay for a couple of nights when in the UK.
I know that Japan subsidises the UK because SGI-UK is forced to reveal its accounts online for anyone to see. So I took a look at them. It is true that in the 2006 accounts it says:
'The charity received donations from SGI - Japan amounting to £nil (2005: £370,000).'Showing that although in 2005 SGI-Japan had given SGI-UK £370,000 they had not contributed an annual amount in 2006. However in another part of the account there is an item of income amounting to around £25,000,000 called e Expendible Endowment. this is what it says in the accounts for year 2006:
'The Expendable Endowment was established on 21 July 2006 by an initial donation as commemorative fund from Soka Gakkai International on the 75th anniversary of the foundation of Soka Gakkai. The investment income as well as the principal amount of the endowment are available to be spent at any time in promoting its charitable purposes after consultation with the donor.'
So it looks like in 2006 Japan gave a lump sum to the UK, so that the UK could continue to rely on the income from that in the future.
The accounts back to 2006 are available at:
]SGI-UK accounts on Charity Commission web site.They make interesting reading, showing income from donations, shop etc., expenditure on salaries, number of staff etc. The 2010 accounts are particularly detailed and give discussion meeting charts etc!
So although I think the fact that SGI-UK uses the excuse that Japan supports the UK to wheedle more money out of its members is disgusting, in this case it is true. What they don't say is don't bother to give us any money as Japan has already given us enough to keep this cult going because Ikeda has donated enough for years to come.
It is also true that they keep the bare minimum of staff at the UK Headquarters, relying heavily on unpaid volunteers for even quite responsible posts. This gives an impression of ' We're only just managing', whereas the truth is they have access to pretty unlimited funds from the main Japanese organisation!
Again the UK is definitely a vanity project or hobby that Ikea is happy to pay for (with the hard earned donations of members in other countries).