Just three weeks ago, the U.S. State Department announced it had a plan to provide health and humanitarian assistance around the world through a pledge of $2 billion to faith-based and community organizations.
But now those plans have hit a snag.
Late last week, Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian humanitarian relief organization that was supposed to receive $300 million as part of the State Department grant, turned down the money, saying it will rely on God and its private donors instead.
“While we deeply appreciate the confidence that the State Department has placed in Samaritan’s Purse, after prayer and discussion, we have withdrawn from being a recipient of these funds,” Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, said in a statement Aug. 28.
Graham, one of President Trump’s most stalwart evangelical allies, did not offer any other reasons for rejecting the federal funds, which would have included “immediate life-saving assistance to people affected by natural disasters” and support for relief efforts in long-running emergencies. Graham noted that Samaritan’s Purse will continue to be available to partner with the U.S. government in the future — but not this time.
Your tax-deductible gift supports our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church. Donate $50 or more to The Roys Report, and you can elect to receive our featured offer, “When Shepherds Prey: Confronting Abuse in Church Leadership—A Call for Reformation” by Ron Cantor. – click here.
The State Department funding was part of a tranche of money, some for healthcare in 20 different countries and some for humanitarian relief following natural disasters.
Both pots of money were intended to realign foreign funding after the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was defunded last year.
President Trump, on the day of his inauguration, issued an executive order freezing foreign aid and development work. His administration then moved to shut down the 60-year-old USAID and fire thousands of workers.
More than a year and half later, the administration’s new approach appeared to be to partner with a select group of Christian charities and faith-based hospitals working in suffering countries around the world.
The humanitarian relief component included $538 million in aid to be administered by a consortium of Christian groups: World Vision, along with Accord Network, Compassion International and Samaritan’s Purse.
A spokesperson for the State Department said it was aware that Samaritan’s Purse had turned down the grant but suggested the government’s approach of working with Christian relief organizations, including Samaritan’s Purse, would continue.
“Faith based organizations play a key role in global disaster response and we look forward to continuing our productive and collaborative relationship with this important faith-based organization,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The spokesperson did not say how the money might be reallocated.
Samaritan’s Purse provides food, water, sanitation, medical care and emergency shelter in response to disasters around the world. It has disaster-relief specialists on the ground in Nepal following devastating flash flooding last week. It opened an emergency field hospital in Venezuela following the earthquake and an Ebola Treatment Center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo following an outbreak of the deadly virus.
In the past, the Boone, North Carolina-based operation has taken relatively little government funding for its programs, preferring donor support to government assistance. From 2020 to 2024, according to IRS financial disclosures, the nonprofit received $296 million in government funding grants, or less than 5% of its budget, which averages more than $1 billion a year.
Also, as Roys Report previously reported, Samaritan’s Purse has consistently spent less than it’s received in recent years, enabling it to amass more than a billion dollars in reserve. According to the organization’s latest 990 tax form, its reserve was nearly $2.5 billion at the end of 2024.
By contrast, World Vision, another billion-dollar Christian humanitarian group, received more than $2.2 billion in government grants, or about 30% of its budget during a similar time frame. According to its latest 990, it had less than $500,000 in September 2025.
World Vision said its State Department funding of $238 million for disaster relief was separate from Samaritan’s Purse’s pot.
While faith-based organizations have contracted with the government to deliver aid before, what’s new is that the government is selectively choosing them now.
“There was no request for proposals, which is something that was completely standard practice at USAID,” said Mark Hetfield, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. “The change really is that there used to be a process to it. Non-governmental organizations were selected based on their competencies and their expertise, not based on their ideology or their political relationship with the government.”
The Roys Report contributed to this article.
Yonat Shimron is a national reporter and senior editor for Religion News Service.
Bob Smietana is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
11 Responses
I think Samaritan’s Purse made the right decision not accept the government gift.
It’s not a gift. It was money designated for foreign aid. The idea was that it would be “better handled” through established Christian ministries than through the previously constructed government channels.
So if king Herod offers
$ 300m to a Christian charity to distribute to the poor, and it’s turned down? HOW EXACTLY DOES THAT BENEFIT THE POOR?
That sounds logical enough. But before we go there, please explain to me how Samaritan accumulating 1-2 billion $$ is benefitting the poor? Maybe, when they have found ways to spend that billion (or more) doing good, they can go back to the US Government. If World Vision has used its funds wisely, then it seems like it is doing something better with that money than accumulating it.
What does King Herod want in return?
2.5 billions in reserve ,while people are diying from hunger around the world? Are they waiting for the great tribulation.
The United STates is 40 trillion dollars in debt. Don’t you think it’s time for the country to stop playing Santa Claus and using US tax money and borrowing money for
bribes, kickbacks, and fraud? How and when is this debt going to be repaid? The Bible says the deptor is slave to the lender and me thinks we are in trouble.
You’re not wrong. However, governments intake money by taxing the citizenry.
The reason why we are 40 trillion dollars in debt is because the Republican administrations keep giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and corporations (where the government should be raising most of its money, and some of whom are paying zero dollars in taxes).
Choosing NOT to collect taxes is fine (…ish) as a policy if that is what you choose to do. But these administrations then go on to spend just as much or more than their Democratic colleagues while simultaneously collecting less money or giving out “tax rebates” to the public.
You can’t have a policy that “taxes are bad” and then go on to spend money you don’t have and don’t intend to make. That’s like the episode of Friends in which Rachel consoles herself for not finding a job by buying new boots.
The single most expensive thing a government can do is wage war. Each tomahawk missile we shoot can cost 2 MILLION dollars. The Iran war has, so far, cost 40 BILLION dollars. And there is no sign of it ending anytime soon.
The Patriot Games prize pool was 1/4 of a million dollars. The event itself was estimated to cost about 12 million in production..
President Trump wants to make a decorative arch in Virginia for no particular reason. Tax Payers are designated to pay 15 million of its estimated 100 million price tag.
The point of all of this being: The money exists. 300 Million dollars is NOTHING compared to what America spends on other things. Some for no particular reason.
It is and has always been merely a matter of priorities.
Taxing the rich to solve problems was a means to stir up the upheaval of the govts and dictatorship used by Soviet Union and China and cuba and other gullible countries. U doubt Brandon that you being very litterate would want to live under those controls. Now I am not against taxing… I do not want to join a bunch of gullibles fired up to destroy. I am against the taking of tax money and funneling it off to fraud and corruption and throwing in some gullible christians to try and make the skam seem legitimate.
There has to be a reason they turned it down. Gov funding isn’t always the great gift they try to make it look like. It always has string attached and control involved.
Hey wealthy American evangelicals. How about putting some of your over the top wealth and hire a security force to protect our brothers and sisters In Haitia and parts of Africa and India and Pakistan who are being slaughtered on a daily basis. I’ll bet if those prosperity grifters reduced their net worth by half an army of Christian security guards can be hired since the local police and military have proven to be useless. How about it graham and Copeland and the dude in Louisiana who has a 30k square foot “parsonage “ and other mostly Texas multi millionaire evangelicals. Nahhhhhh.