Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==History== In 1977, Senator [[Mark Hatfield]], who since 1973 had been a member of the board of [[World Vision]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://dcommon.bu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2144/1337/vanderpol_gary_thd_2010.pdf? |title=Gary F. VanderPol: ''The least of these: American evangelical parachurch missions to the poor, 1947-2005.'' Boston University School of Theology, 2010, (Dissertation) page 106 |access-date=2011-05-19 |archive-date=2011-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719154338/http://dcommon.bu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2144/1337/vanderpol_gary_thd_2010.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> told evangelicals that they needed to formalize some means for financial accountability or government legislation would be required. At the same time, Texas Congressman [[Charles Wilson (Texas politician)|Charles Wilson]] had drafted a bill{{fact|date=June 2023}} that would have required ministries to disclose{{what|date=June 2023}} "at the point of solicitation." A group of representatives from more than thirty evangelical groups met in December of that year to formulate a plan. At that meeting, Hatfield's chief legislative assistant told them that "a voluntary disclosure program" would "preclude the necessity of federal intervention into the philanthropic and religious sector."<ref name="Jeffrey K 1981">Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann, ''Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism'' (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1981), 123.</ref> The call for more regulation was also a reaction to public pressure caused by several media reports about scandals related to misuse of funds in charities.<ref>R. Chandler: "Pressure on Charities" Los Angeles Times, Apr 10, 1978, p.2</ref><ref>Louise Cook: "Religious Charities Ponder Disclosure of their Finances", The Dispatch, Lexington, KY, Dec. 1977, p.5</ref> In 1979, the ECFA was founded by the [[Billy Graham Evangelistic Association]] and the [[World Vision United States|US branch of World Vision]] ([[World Vision International]] is not a member of ECFA).<ref>[http://www.ecfa.org/MemberProfile.aspx?ID=5968 See description of World Vision U.S. as charter member of ECFA on "www.ecfa.org"]</ref> World Vision's president Stan Mooneyham stated, "There is no denying that this threat of government action was one of the stimuli" for the founding of the ECFA.<ref name="Jeffrey K 1981"/> ECFA was founded with the establishment of seven standards of accountability that covered board governance, the requirement for audited financial statements, the requirement for public disclosure of the audited financial statements, the avoidance of conflicts of interest, and standards regarding fundraising activities. It was believed that the proposed standards of accountability generally exceeded the requirements of law. Charities that met those standards and paid the membership fee were granted a seal of approval. Membership fees were based on donated income. Evangelical charities could apply for accreditation and were required to submit information that would be reviewed and evaluated against those standards. Those meeting the standards would be accredited and granted a seal of approval. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page