TRINITY FOUNDATION INC
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Mission Statement
To promote the public interest; investigate and expose religious fraud and excess; and call for transparency, accountability, and stewardship of donor funds at home and abroad.
About This Cause
Trinity Foundation began in 1972 as a religious, charitable and educational non-profit foundation for promoting the public interest in the State of Texas by producing Christ-centered communications projects. An early skepticism about the way religious programming was bought and sold prompted Trinity to conduct a controversial research project on the audience demographics and ratings of religious broadcasting. This preceded the scandals that rocked the religious television industry in the 1980’s. In 1987 after supplying testimony to congressional hearings about the religious TV industry, the foundation began full-time monitoring of religious programming and reporting abuses of the public trust. By the 1990s Trinity had become the leading “watchdog” of religious media, conducting investigations and providing information used to expose fraud and abuses committed in the name of God. The foundation regularly provides assistance to print and electronic journalists investigating suspected fraud or other abuses of the public trust by members of the religious media. The foundation has worked with news organizations such as ABC News Prime Time Live, CBS News 60 Minutes, NBC News Dateline, CNN Special Reports, ABC News 20/20, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (now over 35 1/2 million views), Inside Edition (we helped Lisa Guerrero obtain interviews: with Kenneth Copeland in 2019, and again in 2020 helped get an interview with Marcus Lamb), British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Russia 1” television—about religious charlatans there and here, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Economist, London Independent, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Dallas Morning News (among many others). The foundation has regularly provided testimony and investigative reports to various state and federal agencies. From 2005 through 2011, the foundation worked closely with the US Senate Finance Committee on their investigation of religious non-profit organization abuses. The committee sent letters to six ministries in November 2007 seeking to determine if they were abusing their non-profit tax status. In a letter to the Senate committee, Trinity Foundation President Ole Anthony told the committee, “In some cases it is difficult if not impossible to tell the not-for-profit from the individual’s personal piggy-bank or from the for-profit entity.” Others have agreed religious fraud is a growing problem. Deborah Bortner, former president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, told the committee, I’ve been a securities regulator for 20 years, and I’ve seen more money stolen in the name of God than in any other way.” The usual government oversight procedures have not been able to keep up. In a 2005 letter to Senator Grassley, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson admitted the IRS has not been able to properly confront the problem. Unfortunately for the public, many of the huge organizations Trinity investigates are legally disguised as churches—literally disguised, as in invisible funds, no accountability whatsoever. Churches (and $100M plus/year televangelist ministries) do not have to file the IRS 990 showing top salaries and where the money goes. To top things off, in 2009, the IRS suspended all investigations of churches including the most egregious offenders—congressional legislation has not kept up with IRS organizational realities. And even as the problem has increased, news media across the country have reduced their investigative budgets, allowing most of these abuses to continue unreported. During the six-year period the Trinity Foundation was working with the Senate Finance Committee, we refrained from assisting with major news exposés at their request. During that period our membership and donations declined drastically—we never imagined that this would affect our donor base so adversely. We ask that you consider becoming a monthly or otherwise regular supporter, small donations are welcome.