Franklin Graham has turned down an eye-watering $300 million from the US government-and his explanation is guaranteed to get Christians talking.
Samaritan's Purse, the evangelical humanitarian organization led by Graham, has withdrawn from a two-year State Department agreement that would have placed it in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars in international disaster assistance. The funding was intended to provide immediate, life-saving help following natural disasters and sustain relief operations during prolonged humanitarian emergencies.
The organization did not lose the grant. It deliberately walked away.
"After prayer and discussion," Graham announced, Samaritan's Purse decided that it would not accept the money. He then delivered the line that has transformed a complicated foreign-aid story into a major faith headline: the ministry has "always relied on God, not government, for funding."
That declaration is particularly striking because Graham has been one of President Donald Trump's most prominent evangelical allies. However, the decision does not appear to represent a political break with the administration. Graham praised Trump's changes to America's foreign-aid system and commended Secretary of State Marco Rubio's work. He also said Samaritan's Purse remains willing to cooperate with the federal government during future emergencies-just not through this enormous "macro grant" arrangement. Christianity Today
In other words, Graham rejected the money without rejecting Trump.
The proposed $300 million award formed part of a much larger State Department initiative directing nearly $2 billion toward faith-based and community organizations involved in global health and humanitarian work. The new program follows the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID and its effort to redirect portions of American foreign assistance through selected Christian charities and religious healthcare providers.
Of the larger package, $538 million was designated for disaster response. Samaritan's Purse would have administered $300 million over two years, while a consortium involving World Vision, Compassion International and the Accord Network is expected to oversee the remaining $238 million.
World Vision has not followed Graham's lead and has characterized its portion as separate from the award rejected by Samaritan's Purse. The unanswered question is what the State Department will now do with the $300 million. Officials have acknowledged the withdrawal but have not disclosed whether the money will be offered to another Christian organization or redistributed elsewhere.
Graham has not publicly identified any objection to the grant's conditions, reporting requirements or proposed relief work. His statement instead framed the decision as one reached through prayer and the ministry's preference for support from private donors.
That explanation may raise eyebrows because Samaritan's Purse has accepted government funding in the past. Christianity Today reports that the organization has received approximately $220 million in federal contracts since 2020, much of it through USAID. It has also received separate government awards this year for work connected to crises in Congo, Venezuela, Lebanon and Cuba.
Those arrangements, however, are far smaller and more targeted than the sweeping $300 million program the ministry has now declined.
Samaritan's Purse is hardly a small charity struggling to survive without Washington's help. The North Carolina-based organization has an annual budget exceeding $1 billion and operates a formidable international relief network that includes aircraft, emergency field hospitals, medical teams and disaster-response specialists.
Its recent work has included providing food, clean water, medical care and shelter in major crisis zones. The ministry says its mission extends beyond physical relief to sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with suffering communities.
That evangelical identity remained central to Graham's statement. Even while refusing one of the largest government awards ever offered to his organization, he promised that Samaritan's Purse would continue responding to disasters "in Jesus' Name."
The $300 million decision is therefore less a rejection of humanitarian work than a dramatic declaration about who should finance it. Graham is betting that Christian donors-and, as he puts it, God's provision-can sustain the ministry without placing this massive federal grant at the center of its operations.
For most organizations, turning down $300 million would be almost unthinkable. For Franklin Graham, it became an opportunity to draw a very public line: Samaritan's Purse may work with Washington, but it does not want to depend upon it.
