{"id":223103,"date":"2026-09-04T20:55:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/samaritans-purse-declines-300-million-federal-contract-for-disaster-response-christianitytoday-com\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T20:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:55:02","slug":"samaritans-purse-declines-300-million-federal-contract-for-disaster-response-christianitytoday-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/samaritans-purse-declines-300-million-federal-contract-for-disaster-response-christianitytoday-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Samaritan\u2019s Purse Declines $300 Million Federal Contract for Disaster Response – christianitytoday.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t\t\tAdvancing the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God.\t\t\t\t
Emily Belz<\/a>
The news comes as the State Department responds to flooding in Nepal.
\t\t\t\tWorld Vision CEO Edgar Sandoval speaks at the White House announcement of funding for Christian aid groups. \t\t\t
\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSamaritan\u2019s Purse Declines $300 Million Federal Contract for Disaster Response\t\t\t\t<\/a> \t\t\t
\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tAfter Aid Cuts, US Announces $2 Billion for Christian Groups\t\t\t\t<\/a> \t\t\t
Samaritan\u2019s Purse told CT it is withdrawing from a $300 million award from the Trump administration to provide aid after natural disasters.
The money was part of $2 billion in awards the US State Department announced earlier this month for a consortium of Christian groups working in global relief and development. 
Of that funding, $538 million was set aside for Christian organizations responding to natural disasters. World Vision and Compassion International will oversee $238 million for one year of disaster response. North Carolina\u2013based Samaritan\u2019s Purse would have overseen $300 million to provide \u201cimmediate life-saving assistance to people affected by natural disasters and sustain humanitarian operations in protracted emergencies\u201d over two years, a State Department spokesperson told CT on August 10.\u00a0
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Samaritan\u2019s Purse CEO Franklin Graham said on Friday in a statement to CT,
Samaritan\u2019s Purse was invited by the US Department of State to participate in a recently announced macro grant funding agreement of $300 million over two years. We were honored to be a part of this proposal. While we deeply appreciate the confidence that the State Department has placed in Samaritan\u2019s Purse, after prayer and discussion, we have withdrawn from being a recipient of these funds. 
Throughout my history leading Samaritan\u2019s Purse, we have always relied on God, not government, for funding. We thank God for the incredible donors he has led to be a part of upholding this ministry. As we have done for decades, we will continue sharing the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ\u2014his death, burial, resurrection, and coming return\u2014always responding to crises in Jesus\u2019 Name.
We are grateful for our working relationship with the State Department and will continue to be available to partner with the US government in response to emergencies, just not through this macro grant program. I am thankful for the changes President Trump has made to America\u2019s foreign aid program and appreciate the tremendous efforts Secretary of State Marco Rubio has put into this. I\u2019m grateful that the US government remains the global leader in providing life-saving aid around the world.
The announcement comes as the government is responding to a major disaster in Nepal<\/a>. The State Department said this week it will provide $500,000<\/a> in assistance through Catholic Relief Services, which is also part of the new Christian aid consortium.\u00a0
Samaritan\u2019s Purse is a $1.8 billion nonprofit<\/a> specializing in disaster relief both overseas and domestically, responding to Hurricane Helene<\/a> in its own backyard, for example.\u00a0
Since<\/a> 2020<\/a>, Samaritan\u2019s Purse has received about $220 million in federal contracts, mostly through USAID. 
This year it has already received federal contracts to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Congo ($3 million), the Venezuela earthquakes ($15 million), violence in Lebanon ($10 million), and the humanitarian crisis in Cuba ($40 million). 
Those are separate from the proposed $300 million award.
After making deep cuts in global health, food assistance, and other foreign aid based on allegations of fraud and abuse in USAID<\/a>, the Trump administration announced<\/a> $2 billion in humanitarian-aid funding for faith-based groups, with a consortium of US Christian organizations overseeing $1.4 billion. 
World Vision will oversee one US-funded consortium providing health services and will co-lead another doing disaster relief with Compassion International and the Accord Network. Samaritan\u2019s Purse has a separate $300 million award over two years for natural disaster response and other humanitarian responses to \u201cprotracted emergencies,\u201d according to a State Department email to CT. Another pot of $570 million in funding will go to local faith-based hospitals and clinics through countries\u2019 own infrastructure. 
Margaret Schuler, the chief impact officer at World Vision, has worked on this consortium idea behind the scenes with the administration for the past year. 
\u201cOur number one interest from the beginning was to get resources flowing back out to communities that need it,\u201d she told CT. \u201cIt was hard to see those resources stop.\u201d 
Other members of the consortium are World Relief, ADRA International, Catholic Relief Services, HOPE worldwide<\/em>, International Care Ministries, and LifeNet International. Compassion International will work in both the health and disaster relief groups. The State Department had separately announced $240 million<\/a> in funding for Catholic Relief Services earlier this summer. 
Representatives from the Christian organizations involved said this funding would not replace programs hit by USAID cuts but would go to new channels. 
For example, World Vision\u2019s US-government funded work with orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya was cut last year and has not been restored, Schuler said. The new funding will reach populations affected by the cuts, but \u201cthere are not programs we cut that are now going to be funded again.\u201d 
\u201cIt\u2019s an evolving funding approach by [the State Department],\u201d she said. 
In general, Christians working in relief and development welcomed the news as a turnaround from the USAID cuts last year that affected many faith-based organizations. But privately, they brought up a variety of questions about how this will be worked out.
The State Department said this new funding \u201crepresents the largest announcement of global health foreign assistance to faith-based organizations in over 20 years.\u201d 
A large portion of this newly released funding would be spread over five years, so it\u2019s not clear whether the amount is actually larger than the grants Christian organizations were already receiving before the shuttering of USAID. Catholic Relief Services, for example, had about $700 million<\/a> in federal grants in 2024, before the closure of USAID wiped that out. 
Of the $2 billion in this new initiative, $1.4 billion will go to health care, mostly in Africa. 
That includes an $850 million pot of funding over five years that could go to a World Vision\u2013led consortium called the Faith and Community Initiative. The money will be awarded one year at a time, pending availability of funds, according to the State Department, so for now World Vision will oversee the first year\u2019s award for $250 million. 
Then $538 million will go to Christian groups leading mostly disaster response but also the provision of food and clean water in areas of crisis. Of that, $238 million will go to World Vision and Compassion for one year, according to a State Department spokesperson. 
Another $570 million will go to faith-based hospitals and clinics through memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that the US has been working on with local governments. The MOUs are a new aid structure where the US agrees to give money directly to a country\u2019s government instead of contracting with charities. Kenya signed a $2.5 billion MOU with the US<\/a> late last year. 
Though the funding is going to all Christian organizations, Schuler said World Vision will work with on-the-ground partners of any faith.
\u201cThis grant aims to work with any partner in any location, whether Christian or Muslim whatever their faith-based affiliation is, and to serve all people regardless of faith,\u201d she said. 
This announcement is happening against a backdrop of aid groups fighting to unfreeze already appropriated global-health money, particularly for the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which treats millions with HIV around the world. 
Last year Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, withheld $3 billion<\/a> from PEPFAR. Sen. John Cornyn recently placed a hold<\/a> on two of President Donald Trump\u2019s nominees until the administration agreed to release PEPFAR funds. One mission hospital has seen a 50 percent cut<\/a> in its PEPFAR funding. 
Christian nonprofits like World Vision lost a lot of aid funding overall last year. 
World Vision CEO Edgar Sandoval told CT last year that the charity expected to lose $170 million<\/a>, or 10 percent of its annual budget, after the Trump administration cuts. He said the organization had laid off 11 percent of its US staff. 
\u201cWhat makes these cuts very challenging is that we\u2019re not talking about, call it, one-off programs, like installing a water well or a clinic. We\u2019re talking about massive programs at scale,\u201d Sandoval told CT in July 2025. \u201cReplacing that funding doesn\u2019t happen overnight.\u201d 
In this new initiative, some groups might receive more funding than previously\u2014Samaritan\u2019s Purse, for example, is one of the lead recipients for the $538 million disaster response fund and previously received about $19 million in grants<\/a> in 2024.
The White House held a private event last week announcing the funding, with remarks from White House Faith Office leader Paula White-Cain about the Christian calling to serve \u201cthe last, the least, and the lost.\u201d 
According to her prepared remarks, provided to CT by an attendee, White-Cain cited the long leadership of the United States in fighting malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV\u2014through PEPFAR. She also cited the US funding for programs to address malnutrition and to vaccinate children. 
\u201cThat\u2019s 108 million more birthdays every year worldwide because of our commitment and generosity,\u201d White-Cain said about the HIV and malaria program. 
Last year Trump administration leaders and Trump himself characterized<\/a> USAID\u2019s work as fraudulent. Then\u2013Trump ally Elon Musk, who bragged about feeding the organization \u201cinto the wood chipper,\u201d said it was<\/a> \u201cbeyond repair.\u201d
This year the State Department\u2019s press release about the Christian nonprofits highlighted that \u201cSamaritan\u2019s Purse, World Vision, and Compassion International exemplify the Administration\u2019s commitment to partnering with faith-based and community organizations that responsibly steward taxpayer dollars.\u201d 
While the prime grant recipients are large nonprofits like World Vision, smaller faith-based groups might receive some funding as sub-grantees. 
Mary Beth Powers, CEO of the Catholic Medical Mission Board, attended the White House announcement although her group is not part of the consortium. 
\u201cIt\u2019s such an important statement to continue this work globally \u2026 showing the compassion America has long shown,\u201d Powers said. She hopes the groups can recreate some of the work USAID did with faith-based partners before it was shuttered. 
Powers added, \u201cI\u2019m happy World Vision and others are taking a leadership role with local faith-based groups.\u201d 
Christian Connections for International Health is another significant faith-based organization that is not part of the consortium but partners with many local Christian health institutions globally. Executive director Doug Fountain said the organization appreciated the \u201cUS government\u2019s recognition of faith-based organizations as essential partners in global health and humanitarian response.\u201d 
\u201cWe are especially encouraged by the emphasis on local organizations and by the broader commitment to partnership with country governments,\u201d he said in a statement to CT. 
Kent Hill, a former top official at USAID who also used to work at World Vision, welcomed the news. 
\u201cApparently, the administration is trying to resurrect some of the good USAID did before its harsh and very unwise dismantling of it,\u201d he wrote in an email. \u201cThe needs are great and a great and good country would generously seek to meet those needs.\u201d
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SAVE 30% + GET ACCESS TO 9\/9 LIVESTREAM: HOW 1976 CHANGED EVANGELICALISM9\/9 MEMBER LIVESTREAM: HOW 1976 CHANGED AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM Advancing the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Emily BelzThe news comes as the State Department responds to flooding in Nepal. World Vision CEO Edgar Sandoval speaks at the White House announcement of funding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}