Samaritan's Purse has pulled people out of war zones, famines, and hurricanes for more than 50 years without taking a dime from Washington.
The Trump administration just changed that offer – and made it worth $300 million.
Franklin Graham's answer is the last thing anyone in the State Department expected to hear.
Samaritan's Purse Rejects $300 Million State Department Grant After Prayer and Discussion
The State Department announced on August 6 that it was directing nearly $2 billion toward faith-based and community organizations as part of the America First Global Health Strategy – the largest single allocation of U.S. global health assistance to religious groups in more than two decades.
Samaritan's Purse was named as a central partner, tapped to receive $300 million over two years to lead disaster relief and emergency response operations worldwide.
Then Franklin Graham walked away.
"While we deeply appreciate the confidence that the State Department has placed in Samaritan's Purse, after prayer and discussion, we have withdrawn from being a recipient of these funds," Graham said in a statement.
He offered no further explanation beyond the one sentence that said everything: "Throughout my history leading Samaritan's Purse, we have always relied on God, not government, for funding."
The State Department confirmed it received Graham's decision and said the relationship with Samaritan's Purse would continue.
Graham made clear this was not a break with Trump.
"I am thankful for the changes President Trump has made to America's foreign aid program and appreciate the tremendous efforts Secretary of State Marco Rubio has put into this," Graham said in his statement.
He added that Samaritan's Purse remains willing to work alongside the U.S. government in future emergencies – "just not through this macro grant program."
How Samaritan's Purse Built a $1 Billion Ministry With No Federal Funding
Samaritan's Purse is not a struggling nonprofit that needs a government lifeline.
The North Carolina-based ministry runs on annual revenues exceeding $1 billion, sustained almost entirely by private donors and the trust Graham has earned over 47 years leading the organization.
Graham took the helm in 1979 at age 27, and what was then a modest relief operation has grown into one of the largest faith-based nonprofits in the United States – ranking alongside the American Red Cross in scale.
That growth came through earthquakes, epidemics, and combat zones – and it came without the ministry ever becoming dependent on the government bureaucracy it was designed to operate outside of.
The $300 million offer would have nearly tripled the federal money flowing into Samaritan's Purse – the organization took roughly $220 million in government contracts since 2020, most of it through USAID before Trump dissolved that agency.
Even those contracts came with strings.
The concern with a "macro grant" of this size – the term Graham used specifically to describe what he was declining – is that it creates a funding dependency that reshapes how a ministry operates, what oversight it accepts, and whose priorities it ultimately serves.
Graham has watched that dynamic play out with other organizations for decades.
Franklin Graham on Faith-Based Foreign Aid and Why God Not Government Still Wins
The Trump administration's $2 billion faith-based initiative represented a genuine break from the left-wing NGO infrastructure that consumed foreign aid dollars under Biden.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had described the old model as an "NGO industrial complex" – one where Washington intermediaries absorbed the majority of U.S. funding before a dollar reached anyone in need.
The new model routes money directly to faith-based hospitals, clinics, and relief organizations with track records in conflict zones – organizations like Samaritan's Purse.
World Vision, another billion-dollar Christian humanitarian operation, accepted $238 million in its own slice of the package.
Graham said no.
That distinction matters because it reveals something about what Graham believes Samaritan's Purse is actually for.
Faith-based organizations that take government money at this scale tend to drift – slowly, quietly, over budget cycles – toward the priorities of whoever is writing the checks.
Government money comes with strings attached.
Graham's decision is a statement that Samaritan's Purse will stay answerable to the donors who built it and the God it was built to serve.
He closed his statement with the line that anchors everything the ministry does: "We will continue sharing the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – His death, burial, resurrection, and coming return – always responding to crises in Jesus' Name."
Washington offered him $300 million.
He chose the mission instead.
Sources:
- Franklin Graham, statement to Devex and multiple outlets, August 28, 2026.
- Stephanie Martin, "Samaritan's Purse Withdraws From State Department's $300 Million Grant Offer," ChurchLeaders, September 1, 2026.
- Mariya Gyurcheva, "Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse Turns Down $300 Million State Dept Grant," Newsmax, September 1, 2026.
- "Samaritan's Purse Declines $300M From Trump Funding Package," MinistryWatch, September 3, 2026.
- "Franklin Graham's Organization Declines State Department Grant," American Faith, September 1, 2026.
- "State Department Turns to Faith-Based Groups in Major Shift on US Foreign Aid," CBN News, August 31, 2026.
- "Inside what replaced USAID: Trump's America First Global Health Strategy," Fox News, February 4, 2026.