Transparency for the Great Comission
Whether we DOGE or Die?
An Address to Southern Baptists on the dire need to secure greater financial transparency in the SBC.
An Open Letter to
Southern Baptists
Dear Fellow Southern Baptists,
As we mark 100 years of Great Commission ministry through the Cooperative Program, we stand at a crossroads. Our shared mission to reach the whole world with the Good News of Jesus Christ depends upon our trust and cooperation, both of which are in danger. I’m writing to urge your support for increased financial transparency in the Southern Baptist Convention, a vital step to reinvigorate the Cooperative Program, restore trust across our Convention, and revitalize our Gospel work together.
My name is Rhett Burns, and I have the honor of serving as pastor of First Baptist Church of Travelers Rest (SC). At each of the last two annual meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention, I have offered motions to amend the Business and Financial Plan to give churches and messengers “990-level financial transparency.”
What is 990-level financial transparency? It is the standard level of financial disclosure that nonprofits report to the public. It includes information like program-level financials, top 5 executive compensation, information about conflicts of interest, top contractors, and legal expenditures.
Many of our state Baptist institutions already file a 990 with the IRS. My motion simply asks our entities to share this same level of disclosure with you—the churches and messengers who fund our mission. No federal filing required, just openness with our people.
I continue to offer these motions because I see a crisis of trust in our Convention that threatens our Great Commission cooperation. The Cooperative Program is in a multi-decade decline. Churches are leaving the SBC. Entities seem to be planning for a post-CP future. Mismanagement at various entities have cost Southern Baptists millions of dollars and led to bringing home nearly a thousand missionaries from the field. The Executive Committee spent $15 million dollars on lawsuits, consultants, and lawyers without doing much to make the Convention any safer. In Dallas, they will ask for an additional $3 million off the top of the Cooperative Program. No wonder trust is eroding.
I believe 990-level financial transparency is crucial to restoring trust in the SBC and jump-starting the Cooperative Program back to life.
As a former IMB missionary in Central Asia, I’ve seen our CP dollars fuel Gospel proclamation in global cities and remote mountain pastures. I love what we do together for the glory of King Jesus all around the world. But if trust continues to wane, our mission funding will falter, and our witness among the nations will suffer.
Last year, the Executive Committee dismissed my motion, promising to bring a plan to Dallas to “enhance transparency.” Instead, they are recommending an entire rewrite of our Business and Financial plan that is actually less transparent than our current plan, which already falls short of basic nonprofit accountability. It shifts from Baptist congregational principles to a “just trust us” Presbyterian model, undermining the same transparency we need to rebuild trust. Brothers and sisters, we can do better. And we must!
My proposal is simple, normal, biblical, and baptistic. It is simple because our entities already have the data; no complex accounting is needed. It is normal because 990-level transparency is not radical but a reasonable, industry-standard disclosure that nonprofits owe their stakeholders. It is biblical because it reflects the call in 1 Corinthians 4:2 that stewards must be found faithful. And it is baptistic, embodying the best principles of congregationalism in SBC life as applied to the Convention as a whole.
For the sake of our Great Commission partnership and the health of the Cooperative Program, I urge you to come to Dallas as a messenger prepared to act:
1. Reject the Executive Committee’s proposed Business and Financial Plan as currently written.
2. Vote for motions to secure 990-level financial transparency, including appeals to bring referred motions to the floor for debate.
3. Support motions for a financial transparency task force or study group.
Visit sbctransparency.net to dive deeper. You’ll find articles, podcasts, an entity scorecard, details on 990-level transparency, and answers to common questions. Please share this website with other messengers and would-be messengers, encouraging them to come to Dallas ready to act to secure increased financial transparency.
Together, we can rebuild trust through transparency in our Convention. I look forward to linking arms with you in Dallas for the health of our Convention and for the glory of Jesus.
Warmly in Christ,
Rhett Burns
Pastor, FBC Travelers Rest
Southern Baptists Exist to Take the Gospel to the Whole World
But our Great Commission Cooperation is in Danger
Trust is eroding. Cooperative Program giving is declining. Our trustee system isn’t working. Our entities don’t play by our rules. And Southern Baptists can’t get straight answers about convention finances.
But we can fix this.
The 990-Level Transparency Solution
What is 990-Level Transparency?
The Form 990 is the industry standard for non-profit financial disclosure. While SBC entities are exempt from filing a 990 with the IRS, we believe our entities should disclose the same scope and detail of financial financial information to Southern Baptist messengers and churches. This type of disclosure is:
NORMAL: We’re not asking for anything outlandish or something that’s not available to stakeholders of secular organizations.
SIMPLE: Giving messengers and churches 990-level disclosure is neither difficult nor complex.
BAPTIST: We’ve given similar disclosure in our Convention historically, and this type of transparency applies Baptist congregationalism to convention governance.
We believe 990-level transparency is a key to restore trust in our convention, increase Cooperative Program giving to fund missions and ministry, and optimize our trustee system.
Check out the RESOURCES page for longer-length articles and conversations, and see below for answers to FAQs.
FAQ
Will this put missionaries at risk?
No, 990-level disclosure does not contain information that would compromise any missionary’s security. Further, this motion specifically allows the trustees to use pseudonyms or withhold information if the majority of trustees determine disclosure of such information would compromise safety.
Don’t we have trustees for such oversight?
Yes, but 990-level information is the industry standard for donors to have. Trustee boards ought to be accountable, too, and 990-level disclosure provides such accountability to the messengers who appoint them.
The Executive Committee is proposing a new Business and Financial Plan. Doesn’t that solve the transparency problem?
No. The proposed Business and Financial Plan that the EC will present to messengers in Dallas is actually less transparent than the current plan, giving messengers and churches even less rights to information than we currently have. Read HERE for a detailed analysis of the proposed plan.
Should we disclose who the donors are?
This motion explicitly excludes the donor schedule in order to protect donor privacy.
What about compensation disclosure?
A laborer is worthy of his wages. No one leading a large organization should be despised for making a large salary. However, executive compensation disclosure is one of the key ways to evaluate trustees, which is in the purview of the messengers who appoint trustee boards. Therefore, churches and messengers should have this information.
But couldn’t salary disclosure lead to unhealthy competition for seminary professors?
No, only the top 5 salaries are disclosed. Further, this is not a problem for the many Baptist universities and other evangelical seminaries that file 990s already.
Messengers can already get salary information, correct?
No. Messengers can (sometimes) obtain a salary scale, but this is only a generic range of possible salaries and does not include total compensation. Further, several entities flat refuse to comply with even this insufficient current rule in the business and financial plan.
What about the cost of the added work?
All SBC entities are already required to audit their financials with outside accountants. So the added cost of compiling 990-level information should be negligible. The information is already there; it’s just not compiled and disclosed.
Isn’t this information already available?
Some of it is, but much of it is not. Further, it is not easy to for churches to find.
One thing is for sure: The answer from convention leadership cannot be that “compiling the 990 information is too costly/difficult” AND “it’s already available” at the same time.
But what about the Ministry Reports?
These reports are insufficient. They do not disclose top compensation, top contractors, conflicts of interest policies, detailed operating costs, and many of the more detailed information of program-level financials that the 990 includes.
Do we really want the federal government involved?
No. The motion explicitly says this information does not need to be given to the government. It says SBC entities should give churches information equivalent to this well-known, public standard.
Doesn’t this contribute to our culture of distrust?
A: Absolutely not. Quite the opposite. If financial impropriety exists, this will help bring it to the light where Southern Baptists can fix it, thus restoring trust. However, if no impropriety exists, then transparency can put those false rumors to rest, thus building trust. The only thing that promotes distrust is operating in the dark.
Photo Credit: imb.org