Donations to Sean Feucht groups via B.C.-based charity add to financial transparency concerns raised in Canada
A non-profit watchdog says Canadians have no way of knowing how much money is being donated to an evangelical group founded by an American who is making headlines across the country for event cancellations and questions about his views.
Permits for Sean Feucht's summertime worship concert events organized by his Burn 24/7 group in major cities across Canada — including Winnipeg, Halifax, Charlottetown and Abbotsford, B.C. — were cancelled recently amid public backlash.
The Canadian arm of Feucht's Burn 24/7 organization accepts some donations via the Great Commission Foundation, a B.C.-based registered charity that provides tax receipts on behalf of hundreds of unregistered Christian organizations.
Charity Intelligence says the foundation's finances are opaque, and the only way to get audited statements is through access-to-information requests.
"This charity is not financially transparent," said Kate Bahen, Charity Intelligence's managing director.
"When charities are not transparent and are not accountable and they're not open and disclosing where the money goes, that opens them up to these questions."
MAGA-affiliated musician and preacher Feucht has drawn condemnation over comments he's made online and in past interviews about abortion, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, critical race theory and gender diversity.
Charity Intelligence's criticism of the foundation comes as others note that news articles about Feucht's cancelled worship concerts have likely raised his profile among potential donors.
"The attempt to censor has backfired in a way that's … brought him attention that $1 million in advertising would have never brought him," said James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Burn Canada Ministries previously held registered charitable status in Canada, but it was revoked in 2021 over a failure to file required documents. Then in 2024, the Great Commission Foundation announced Burn Canada was one of its projects.
Canadians can also donate directly to Burn Canada without receiving any tax receipts.
In a 2024 annual report, the organization says broadly how it's spending funds on such things as recruitment, worship events and Feucht's Let Us Worship tour, but there is no detailed breakdown of its spending.
CBC reached out to the Great Commission Foundation and Burn Canada for comment, asking them how much money the foundation processes on behalf of Burn Canada. They did not respond.
Miles Howe, a Brock University sociology and criminology professor who studies charities, said oversight in the Canadian charity sector is too lenient, and the Great Commission Foundation should be scrutinized.
"Any time that you have a Canadian charity operating in this fashion of … an amped-up GoFundMe campaign for dozens of other intermediaries, be they qualified or non-qualified donees, it's certainly cause for further investigation," he said about the foundation.
Audited Great Commission Foundation financial statements from 2022 obtained by Charity Intelligence through an access to information request show only consolidated results. There was $31.1 million in total agency program costs, but no disclosure of which organizations got the money.
The foundation does break down how much it spends on individual international programs in publicly available filings.
CRA not doing enough audits: LawyerToronto-based charity lawyer Mark Blumberg wouldn't speak about specific charities, but he said public filings usually have more information on foreign activity than on what charities manage inside the country.
Guidance from the Canada Revenue Agency says while registered charities can use intermediaries or make grants, they cannot act as a conduit "that merely funnels resources to an organization that is not a qualified donee."
The CRA says charities must keep adequate records showing that's not the case. But Blumberg said most of the time, charities don't make it clear enough to the public that they're following the rules.
A charity may be publicly talking about doing certain work, he said, "but is there all the backup for it? Did they do the due diligence?"
Blumberg says transparency is an issue because Canadians may question why some charities get special tax privileges. He believes the CRA does not do enough audits, saying they only perform about 200 a year, even though there are about 86,000 registered charities.
The CRA said in an email that its enforcement is based on the risk of non-compliance, and a charity may be chosen for an audit based on things like public complaints and media coverage.
"The CRA claims to have checks in place," Howe said, "but to me … there's a lack of even baseline reporting there that the CRA appears comfortable with."
Ex-Feucht volunteers urge cautionQuestions are also being raised in the United States about some of Feucht's charities.
Burn 24/7 is only one of several charities led by Feucht, whose main organization — Sean Feucht Ministries — was given a "withhold giving" rating by U.S.-based Christian charity watchdog MinistryWatch, which gave it an "F" grade for transparency.
Sean Feucht Ministries changed its Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt status to church in 2022, exempting it from filing some documents that provide financial information to the public. Another Feucht charity, Let Us Worship, is also exempt from disclosing that information because it has church status.
Two other organizations, Burn 24/7 and Light a Candle, do file the U.S.-based tax Form 990, which can increase financial transparency. But for Burn 24/7, the most recent annual filing available is from 2021.
In 2020, the last year in which Sean Feucht Ministries, Burn 24/7 and Light a Candle all reported publicly available financial details, the disclosed compensation for Feucht himself is listed as $167,000 US, $17,500 US and $37,467 US respectively. That equals over $221,000 US a year.
Earlier this year, a group of former employees and volunteers who worked for Feucht called on the U.S. government to formally investigate Feucht's financial practices.
"I was someone that believed in his cause," said Richie Booth, who worked as an administrative staff member for Burn 24/7.
"Sean was like a hero in the worship and prayer movement."
He cautioned people who may agree with some of Feucht's views about donating to his ministries.
The group of former supporters raises concerns about real estate owned by Feucht and his ministry, asking why a charity needs such expensive real estate.
Public records say Sean Feucht Ministries is owner of a residential property in Washington, D.C., that was purchased for $967,000 US in 2022; a mansion in Orange County, Calif., that, according to real estate site RedFin, was bought for $3.5 million US in 2024; and a cabin and 40 acres of land in Montana with a market value of over $1 million US purchased in 2023.
The Washington property is home to Camp Elah, which Feucht has described as his "ministry headquarters" in D.C.
Public disclosures from the D.C. licensing department show the non-profit status for Sean Feucht Ministries — which would allow it to operate in the U.S. capital — was revoked in 2023, though no reason why is given.
CBC News could not reach Feucht for comment.
Feucht unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in California in 2020. Documents say the singer's campaign made two contributions to Burn 24/7 despite U.S. regulations barring electoral committees from making donations to charities that have previously compensated candidates.
The contributions to Burn 24/7 totalled $22,844 US in 2020 and 2021 — both years when Feucht received compensation as president of Burn 24/7, tax filings say.
More than half of the donated money ended up being returned to the campaign after regulators told the campaign committee that a number of prohibited contributions had to be refunded to donors, U.S. Federal Election Commission documents say.
Christy Gafford, who served as a national director for Burn 24/7 at the time, said she did not have any information on the campaign, but that she has "serious concerns" regarding how Feucht operates through his organizations.
"He's very charismatic. He is very influential. But I also believe that he utilizes his platform to dictate a narrative that is going to be beneficial to him," she said.
"I believe that he uses that platform to increase the controversy, instead of actually using the platform to properly tell the gospel."
Gafford said that the controversy in Canada has played into Feucht's hands.
"He creates a narrative that is going to, in the long run, make him look as though he is persecuted and utilize that to increase his own enrichment," she said.
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