Faith-based organizations have been on the front lines of responding to humanitarian crises and natural disasters for decades. Now, they’re taking on a more prominent role in global relief as the Trump administration restructures U.S. foreign aid and moves funding away from large international aid organizations.
On Aug. 6, the Trump administration announced nearly $2 billion in U.S. foreign assistance for faith-based and community organizations. The package includes a consortium led by Compassion International and World Vision, as well as a separate award to Samaritan’s Purse.
The administration said the new arrangement is meant to reduce overhead costs associated with large international organizations. Officials called this commitment the largest of its kind in more than two decades and an effort to “responsibly steward taxpayer dollars.”
The move comes after the administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and disrupted and cut funding of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the program credited with saving over 26 million lives since 2003.
Elevating the role of faith-based groups could mark an important change in how the United States plans to deliver health and humanitarian aid overseas.
“It’s a good thing to begin to infuse some funds into this work, even if it’s a small piece of what USAID would oftentimes use to work through these organizations just a few years ago,” David King, director of the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, told the Deseret News.
This work is especially needed after the losses that came with gutting USAID last year, King said.
King described the administration’s $2 billion commitment as “a small step forward,” yet questions remain about how effective and impartial this new structure will be in delivering aid to the communities that need it most.
USAID cuts
In March of 2025, the administration terminated 83% of USAID-related programs. By that summer, the U.S. government’s foreign aid agency was absorbed into the U.S. State Department.
After the cuts, faith-based organizations expressed concern, and many lobbied for funding to be reinstated. Last year, World Vision said it was “very concerned about the impact (of) further delays in restarting lifesaving aid programs.” One effect of this drop, according to a World Vision report, is that nearly 60% of households across Africa, Asia and Latin America reported that at least one family member had gone to bed hungry in the previous month.
In July, a group of faith-based organizations, including Bread for the World and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, submitted a letter asking the White House to release funding for HIV/AIDS prevention abroad that Congress already approved.
“These funds are urgently needed now,” the letter read. “Without them, children will die of preventable diseases, HIV+ mothers will infect their babies during childbirth, tuberculosis will spread: these are the ‘least of these’ to whom our Lord calls us to respond.”
Turn to localized relief
The turn toward faith-based organizations, or FBOs, has been gaining momentum in the 21st century. It’s partly tied to aid localization efforts and the view that faith-based organizations can serve as bridges between communities and international donors.
While the involvement of faith-based groups in humanitarian aid isn’t new, the new aid strategy concentrates funding in the hands of a few Christian organizations.
According to the Aug. 6 announcement, a significant portion of the funding — $1.4 billion — will go toward global health services provided by faith- and community-based hospitals and clinics in over 20 countries.
Of that $1.4 billion, up to $850 million will be provided over five years through the Faith and Community Initiative, “subject to the availability of funds,” per State Department announcement. This funding will go to support more than 2,500 faith-run hospitals and clinics and help train over 30,000 community health workers.
The remaining $570 million will go directly to faith-based and community hospitals and clinics through funding agreements with foreign governments.
As part of another award, $538 million will go toward Samaritan’s Purse and the consortium for humanitarian response. This portion is expected to reach 7 million people.
With these changes, at least 80% of funding is planned to directly reach patients through front line health services, which is roughly double what historically made it past administrative overhead in previous State Department grants.
The State Department said the investment reflects the reality that in many countries, faith-based health providers run around 40% of health facilities.
“By leveraging faith-based and community-run hospitals and clinics, the Department of State is strengthening health service delivery that prevents illness, saves lives, and ensures a path toward self-reliance,” the memo said.
Although all the organizations in disaster relief networks are faith-based, the funding is not limited to one type of organization, according to a State Department spokesperson. Organizations outside the existing network that have the ability to reach local communities can apply. The priority is to ensure an effective and timely disaster response, the spokesperson said.
Government partnerships with faith-based organizations
Some of these Christian organizations have been recipients of government funds in the past, but the funding has decreased in the past year. World Vision received $511 million in government grants last fiscal year, RNS reported, and $636 million the year before, prior to the government cuts.
The decision to partner with faith-based organizations is consistent with Trump’s political strategy, Elizabeth Ferris, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, told the Deseret News.
“It really cements the administration’s desire to bolster support among their base, which includes evangelical communities,” said Ferris, who has studied faith-based organizations and their shift toward professionalization.
She recalled being in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and hearing from pastors that large international agencies weren’t taking advantage of the networks on the ground that would have benefited the relief efforts.
“One of the advantages of faith-based organizations is that there is an incredible network of local churches, mosques — all kinds of groups, from the YMCA to seminaries,” Ferris said. “But the extent to which you’re really building up local capacity to respond is critical.”
For the government, the pull toward faith-based organizations is both practical and economical. Faith-based organizations are able to leverage in-kind and private donations to keep overhead costs low, a State Department spokesperson told the Deseret News.
But some experts aren’t sure that the new system is going to be much more cost-effective. “There is a risk that we are simply replacing one group of large intermediaries with another,” Jirair Ratevosian of Duke University told Devex, noting that faith-based organizations have similar administrative costs as other large international NGOs.
According to a State Department spokesperson, the accountability mechanisms will not be different from other large department-funded programs and will include reporting requirements, site visits and independent audits to ensure the funds are distributed in an effective and transparent manner.
Balancing religious identity and need
For some experts, the fact that all the organizations receiving funding are Christian raises questions about humanitarian neutrality. Could religious affiliation influence how or to whom aid is delivered?
“Some faith-based organizations are excellent at humanitarian delivery, some others are not,” Abby Stoddard, partner at Humanitarian Outcomes, a consulting group that works with humanitarian aid agencies, told the Deseret News in an email. “But when a government shows preference for an organization based on its professed religion … it signals that it is serving objectives beyond humanitarian ones, which means it is not optimizing for the best outcomes for people in need.”
One of USAID’s strengths, before the cuts, was that it engaged with a diverse set of partners, including those from various religious traditions, David King said. Relying on a more narrow pool of faith-based groups could limit the pool of organizations able to provide services.
Foreign aid grants should be awarded on merit, Stoddard said. “If just a handful of the most capable organizations were to receive funding for any given context, it would in reality be a diverse group: faith-based and secular, U.S.- and non-U.S.-based,” she said in an email. “At its best, aid work is a profession, not a spiritual mission.”
Both World Vision and similar faith-based organizations have grown more professionalized over decades of work with complex systems while still preserving their religious identities as part of their missions.
The World Vision website notes that faith is “central to who we are,” but its religious identity doesn’t impact eligibility for aid. “Our faith calls us to serve children in need — of any faith or none.”
On the website of Samaritan’s Purse, the organization’s statement of faith says aid is given without regard to “race, creed, gender, religion, or ethnicity.”
The question of how the religious mission of faith-based organizations influences their humanitarian work is an important one, King noted.
“I think that’s a question that we need to continue to examine,” he said.