Samaritan’s Purse Lawsuit: Kidnapping, Discrimination, and ECFA Exit

The only major lawsuit filed against Samaritan’s Purse was a 2011 federal negligence case brought by kidnapped aid worker Flavia Wagner, which settled out of court in 2012 on undisclosed terms. Beyond that single suit, the Samaritan’s Purse lawsuit record is thin, but the evangelical relief organization led by Franklin Graham has faced a discrimination complaint over its New York City field hospital, church-state warnings aimed at schools that hosted its Operation Christmas Child program, and sharp criticism from nonprofit watchdogs over its finances and leadership accountability. It has also stepped into the Supreme Court as an advocate for religious hiring rights.

The Flavia Wagner Kidnapping Lawsuit

Flavia Wagner, a relief worker Samaritan’s Purse deployed to the Darfur region of Sudan, was abducted and held captive for 105 days before her release in August 2010. She reported enduring mock executions and threats of gang rape and torture during captivity.¹

In May 2011, Wagner sued Samaritan’s Purse and Franklin Graham personally in federal court in Manhattan. She alleged the organization had failed to adequately train security personnel, ignored the growing threat to foreign workers in Sudan, and sent her into an area it knew was unsafe.² She also claimed Graham refused to use an available insurance policy to pay a ransom for her release.¹

The case never reached trial. Wagner settled with Samaritan’s Purse on March 30, 2012, and the remaining defendants settled within a few months.³ Settlement terms were not disclosed.

The Central Park Field Hospital Discrimination Complaint

In April 2020, Samaritan’s Purse put up a 68-bed emergency field hospital in Central Park’s East Meadow to treat overflow COVID-19 patients in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital.⁴ The organization required all staff to sign a “statement of faith” declaring that marriage is “exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.”⁵

Activist A. Timothy Lunceford-Stevens filed a complaint with the New York City Human Rights Commission after being denied a volunteer position for refusing to sign the statement.⁵ City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called Graham “notoriously bigoted” and pressed the city and Mount Sinai to monitor the facility for discrimination.⁶ Attorney General Letitia James said her office would “remain vigilant to ensure discrimination does not occur.” Mayor Bill de Blasio called the group’s views “very troubling” but did not order the facility closed.⁴

Graham said the organization does not discriminate in patient care: “We provide our services to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation.” He said the hospital closed in May 2020 because infection rates were falling, not because of political pressure. The facility treated more than 300 patients. A planned second site at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was scrapped, reportedly in part because the Episcopal-affiliated cathedral’s leadership had not realized Samaritan’s Purse would be involved.⁶

Operation Christmas Child and Public Schools

Operation Christmas Child, the organization’s signature shoebox gift program, has faced legal pressure over its distribution through public schools. In November 2013, the American Humanist Association sent warning letters to East Point Academy in West Columbia, South Carolina, and SkyView Academy in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, alleging that participation in the program violated the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. The AHA argued the program included “pledges to Christianity” for recipients and that schools used incentives like pizza parties to boost student participation. East Point Academy dropped out to avoid the cost of defending a lawsuit.⁷

A Samaritan’s Purse representative acknowledged that the program’s stated mission is to “demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way” and to “generate participation in and through local churches and like-minded groups.”⁷

Supreme Court Advocacy on Religious Hiring

Samaritan’s Purse has also taken the role of legal advocate. In February 2026, it filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Youth 71Five Ministries v. Williams (No. 25-776), a case testing whether states can condition access to public grant programs on religious organizations abandoning faith-based hiring.⁸

The case originated in Oregon, where Youth 71Five Ministries challenged a state rule denying public grant funds to organizations that require employees to be coreligionists. The Samaritan’s Purse brief argued the “church autonomy doctrine,” grounded in the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, protects religious groups’ right to set faith-based employment standards, and said Oregon’s rule created unconstitutional “favored and disfavored classes” of religious institutions.⁹ The petition was distributed for the Court’s April 17, 2026, conference. As of mid-2026, the case remains pending with no disposition recorded.⁸

Financial Accountability Disputes

Not every fight Samaritan’s Purse is in ends up in court. Some of the sharpest challenges have come from nonprofit watchdogs and the accreditation body the organization once belonged to.

Samaritan’s Purse reported $2.5 billion in net assets and $1.9 billion in total revenue for the fiscal year ending December 2024.¹⁰ Between 2020 and 2024, it consistently spent less than it collected, adding an estimated $200 million to $750 million to savings each year.¹¹ By the end of 2021, it held over $1.2 billion in net assets, with nearly half in cash or cash equivalents. MinistryWatch founder Rusty Leonard criticized the “profit margin that rivals the best companies,” and Rutgers associate professor Cleopatra Charles said reserves exceeding six months of expenses raise “red flags” for a nonprofit. COO Ron Wilcox defended the reserves, arguing that disaster relief often requires sustained spending over years or decades and that keeping only a three-to-six-month cushion would be “irresponsible.”¹² CharityWatch gave the organization an A-minus rating in November 2024.¹³

Graham’s pay has drawn its own criticism. In 2024 he received $945,493 from Samaritan’s Purse alone, bringing his ten-year total from the organization to roughly $8 million. The organization also pays for first-class and charter travel, travel for companions, and personal services.¹⁴ His compensation from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is no longer publicly available because the BGEA does not file a Form 990, a practice MinistryWatch has called “unwise.”¹⁵

ECFA Resignation and MinistryWatch Downgrade

On October 1, 2025, Samaritan’s Purse and the BGEA voluntarily resigned from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the self-regulatory body for Christian nonprofits. The dispute centered on new “Leader Care Standards” the ECFA announced in March 2024, which would require accredited organizations to develop care and accountability plans for senior leaders starting in January 2027.¹⁶

In a July 2025 letter to ECFA President Michael Martin, Graham wrote that the ECFA was “straying from its original focus on financial responsibility” and “trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world,” calling the standards a matter “clearly outside the scope of ECFA’s expertise.”¹⁷ Martin responded: “While we are disappointed…we honor their legacy.”¹⁶

MinistryWatch then downgraded Samaritan’s Purse from “Give With Caution” to “Withhold Giving,” dropping its donor confidence score from 56 to 36 and citing both the ECFA withdrawal and the organization’s failure to meet board composition recommendations.¹⁸ Warren Smith of MinistryWatch said that “in almost every case we’ve ever covered where there has been financial or other fraud, a dysfunctional leader and accountability system for the leader was the root cause.”¹⁹

1
HuffPost. Flavia Wagner Kidnapped
2
The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Lawsuit Faults Charity in Aid Worker’s Sudan Kidnapping
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SBS Trains. Standard of Care Rising
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NBC New York. Controversy Swirls Around Central Park Field Hospital
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NBC News. Opposition to Samaritan’s Purse Central Park Field Hospital Grows
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The New York Times. Franklin Graham Samaritan’s Purse Central Park Hospital Tent Coronavirus
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U.S. Catholic. Humanists Warn Public Schools Over Franklin Graham’s Operation Christmas Child
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SCOTUSblog. Youth 71Five Ministries v. Williams
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U.S. Supreme Court. Amicus Brief, Youth 71Five Ministries v. Williams
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Forbes. Samaritan’s Purse
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Paddock Post. 17 Employees of Samaritan’s Purse Took Home $44 Million in Compensation
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The Roys Report. Samaritan’s Purse Amasses Over a Billion Dollars in Assets, Raising Red Flags
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CharityWatch. Samaritan’s Purse
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Paddock Post. Executive Compensation at Samaritan’s Purse
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MinistryWatch. 100 Highly Paid Ministry Executives
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Baptist Press. Franklin Graham Organizations End Membership in Financial Accountability Group
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Church Leaders. Franklin Graham Parts Ways With ECFA
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MinistryWatch. Samaritan’s Purse Falls Into Withhold Giving Category
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MinistryWatch. Conversations