Last Updated by: Chris Ridgeway | February 29, 2016
We like to sayallof your gift goes to support your missionary—and this really is true! Reliant's mission and purpose is to be a hub between local churches, financial partners and the missionaries they support. We do not use funds for other purposes.
However, often financial partners want to know about the percentage of administrative costs. Most Christian missionagencies use between10 to 20% for missionary support services.Reliant is very efficient, using 12% of gifts from individuals for missionary support services. For our annual budget overall we are evenmoreefficient, averaging only 10% of all gifts.
Even as we are very attentive to administrative cost, we have joined other nonprofits nationally in seeking to educate our financial partners on how to evaluate charities.Administrative cost is usually not the best measure of a nonprofit's effectiveness. For Reliant, the missionary support services portion of incoming gifts is crucial to missionary care and our mission. It provides the personnel who make sure your gifts are received securely, missionary health insurance is administered correctly, and churches are partnered efficiently, and much more. These services are part of what makes a mission agency valuable, and why we know that financial partners can be confident that theirentire gift is being used powerfully to keep missionaries focused on their ministry.
These numbers can be verified via our Annual Ministry Reports and our membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), which requires an extensive external audit.
Our internal financial controls, outside audits, annual reports and professional memberships ensure good stewardship and prudent business practices. While we are vigilant on the latest legal and regulatory standards, we know our challenge is even higher than laws can provide: excellence and integrity as an offering to our Lord and witness to the world. (Deut 25:13-16; Matt 25:21; 1 Pet 2:12-17; 1 Tim 3:3,7). See ourMission & Values
