MinistryWatch 1000 Database: July 2025 Withhold Giving List

Based on our research, these 169 ministries achieved a donor confidence score of 49 or lower.

In the MinistryWatch 1000 database, 168 ministries earn a donor confidence score (DCS) of 49 or below—a designation we believe warrants withholding donations. The majority of the ministries do not file an informational Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service.

While the list is long, we believe it is important to make our readers aware of the many ministries that fall within this category.

They are listed in the attached tables alphabetically. If there is an asterisk beside the organization’s name, that indicates we updated the revenue based on other documents, such as profiles with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).

Based on what we were able to locate, the total revenue for these ministries exceeds $15 billion. The largest ministry by revenue is Salvation Army USA with $4.775 billion. The next two are Liberty University with $1.56 billion and Baylor University with $1.46 billion, respectively.

While the Salvation Army does not file a Form 990, it is a member of the ECFA. Its DCS is 40. Neither Liberty nor Baylor are members of the ECFA, but they both file Form 990s with the IRS. Liberty’s DCS is 34, and Baylor’s is 36.

There are 18 colleges and universities and six seminaries on the list.

The next largest ministry on the list that is not a university is Convoy of Hope. This relief and development ministry has seen significant revenue growth since it last filed a Form 990 in 2021. Its revenue now exceeds $638 million, up from $435 million in 2021.

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Other noteworthy ministries with annual total revenue exceeding $100 million include the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, ChildFund, Habitat for Humanity, Gideons International, Joyce Meyer Ministries, The Navigators, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.

MinistryWatch implemented the donor confidence score in 2022 as a way of measuring the transparency, accountability, and governance of a ministry.

To learn more about how MinistryWatch evaluates a ministry for its donor confidence score based on a list of 20 questions, read more here.

We encourage donors to use the donor confidence score and other information in our MinistryWatch 1000 database to ask questions of ministry leadership, in order to increase accountability, transparency, and credibility in the Christian ministry world.