Billy Graham Association and Samaritan's Purse Quit Financial Accountability Group Over New "Leader Care" Standard
Franklin Graham, president and CEO of two of the largest Christian ministries in the United States, has withdrawn his organizations from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), according to a Religion News Service report carried by Baptist Press. Graham leads both Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
The withdrawal follows ECFA's new "leader care" standard, which requires member organizations to develop a care plan for their senior leader, including regular communication with a board-led spiritual team and dedicated time for rest, retreats and physicals. The standard becomes a requirement for accreditation on January 1, 2027. ECFA, which requires members to have audited financial statements and make them public, counts about 2,700 members, including the Salvation Army, the American Association of Christian Schools, Cru, Young Life and many megachurches. The new standard was endorsed by the presidents of the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.
In a letter to ECFA's president this past summer, Graham wrote that the new standard "puts ECFA into the role of trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world," arguing that leader care "deals with personal spiritual maturity and behavior matters clearly outside the scope of ECFA's expertise." Mark DeMoss, a retired public-relations executive who once represented Graham, concluded in an independent analysis that the compliance standard is perfunctory and will not prevent moral failings. Theologian Scot McKnight said he favored leadership standards in theory but believed a care team should consist of trained spiritual directors rather than board members. ECFA President and CEO Michael Martin said in a statement: "While we are disappointed that the leaders of BGEA and Samaritan's Purse have decided to withdraw from ECFA, we honor their legacy. We wish them well as they continue to pursue their missions." Jake Lapp, ECFA's vice president of member accountability, said the group's 2025 membership retention rate was 97 percent, with 140 new applications so far this year.
The departure ends an era for the Graham family: Franklin's father, the late evangelist Billy Graham, was instrumental in founding ECFA in 1979 alongside the U.S. branch of World Vision. Samaritan's Purse, the humanitarian relief organization based in Boone, North Carolina, posted net assets of $1.4 billion in a publicly available audit last year. The BGEA, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, no longer files an IRS Form 990 since changing its tax status to an "association of churches" in 2016; according to the MinistryWatch database, its annual revenue exceeds $224 million.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 富兰克林·葛培理在Decision America巡讲中演讲，Matt Johnson摄，CC BY 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）；Franklin Graham speaking on the Decision America Tour, photo by Matt Johnson, CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)
