Largest Christian Ministries In The U.S.

World Vision remains atop the list while three new ministries join top 10.

Below is a list of the 50 largest Christian ministries in the MinistryWatch database based on their revenue, which ranges from $77 million to $1.5 billion.

This list does not include colleges and universities nor Christian foundations. You can find the list of the largest Christian colleges and universities in the United States here.

These 50 Christian ministries represent a total of about $14.3 billion in annual revenue, and is based on revenue from the most recently available Form 990 from the IRS. The column on the far right indicates the most recent year for which we have an IRS Form 990.

Ministries marked with an asterisk do not file a Form 990, and their revenue numbers were gathered from the ministry’s profile with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. This was our first year to seek out the ECFA revenue numbers for groups that don’t file a Form 990.

Failing to file a Form 990 is both dangerous to the ministry itself and a compromise of that organization’s financial integrity. (You can read more about MinistryWatch’s position on this issue here.) Three of the top six Christian ministries — Compassion International, Cru, and Convoy of Hope — have chosen not to file a Form 990 with the IRS.

Next to this year’s ranking is the ranking the ministry held on last year’s list. We generally see little movement on this list from year to year. World Vision once again topped the list with $1.5 billion in revenue.

The top five groups remained essentially the same as last year. Please note that MinistryWatch removed last year’s 4^th largest group, Catholic Relief Services, from the database because it is not an evangelical organization.

Several groups moved into the top 10 this year: Convoy of Hope moved from 11^th to 6^th, Mercy Corps from 12^th to 7^th, and Feed the Children from 13^th to 8^th. All of these fall under the “Relief and Development” category.

World Relief and YMCA of the USA were some of the “biggest movers” this year. World Relief’s revenue grew by about $36 million to over $163 million, moving it up to number 22 on this list from 35 last year.

YMCA of the USA moved 14 spots because its revenue grew from $118.5 million last year to almost $153 million this year.

Three other notable jumps were Wycliffe Bible Translators, which jumped seven spots from 21^st to 14^th and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which jumped 16 spots from 33^rd to 17^th. Gideons International also moved up 10 spots. None of these groups file Form 990s, but we gathered updated revenue numbers from their ECFA profiles, which likely accounts for their large movement.

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Mercy Ships jumped 18 spots last year when its revenue was reported at $213 million, but it moved down seven spots this year to rank 24^th as its reported revenue declined to $155 million.

International Justice Mission (IJM) didn’t make the list last year, but it is ranked 34^th this year with nearly $118 million in revenue. IJM didn’t make the list last year when it had revenue in 2022 of only $28 million — what appeared to be an anomaly in their generally upward-trending revenue that exceeded $105 million in 2021.

MinistryWatch has 19 categories of ministry in our database.  The category with the most representatives on this list is “Relief and Development.” Twenty-three of the 50 ministries on this list fall into that category. In fact, 8 of the top 10 are relief and development ministries.

In February we published a list of the 50 largest relief and development organizations. You can find that list here.

Readers should not interpret this as a list of recommended ministries. They are ranked by total revenue, and not by effectiveness, financial efficiency, or any other measure. The Financial Efficiency rating and the Transparency Grade of each ministry is included in the list.

To learn more about these institutions, click on the ministry’s name and read the complete MinistryWatch profile on this organization.

If you would like to know more about our Financial Efficiency Rating, click here.  If you would like to know more about our Transparency Grades, click here.