Transparency Center

Every campaign passes fifteen verification checks before it can be published: applicant identity, authority to act, organization standing, Christian eligibility, property ownership, sale status, price and terms, title and legal, zoning, physical condition, budget, funding plan, sustainability, conflicts of interest and media claims. Each check records the reviewer, evidence and outcome; checks expire and must be renewed. Documents live in a private vault; supporters never see them.

Mandatory checks must be verified or conditionally verified, and publication then requires approval by two independent staff — a reviewer can never approve their own work.

Campaigns move through a fixed lifecycle enforced by the database: nominated → triage → invited to apply → application → under review → approved → prelaunch review → live → funding threshold reached → acquisition pending → acquired → restoring → reopened → sustained (6, 12, 24 months). Every change carries a reason and lands in an immutable history. Acquisition, reopening and sustainability each require reviewed evidence — a funded campaign is never called “rescued”.

• Card payments are processed by Stripe; card numbers never touch our servers.
• A gift is recorded only when Stripe confirms it — never from the browser.
• Pledges are intentions and are always shown separately from money received.
• Refunds and disbursements require two different finance staff to agree, and every entry is append-only in the ledger.
• A donation is not an investment, gives no ownership, and does not guarantee acquisition. Tax-deductibility depends on the recipient organization; we do not claim it unless legally approved.

Platform fee retained from gifts: 0%. General Rescue Fund administrative percentage: 0%.

Card processing fees are charged by Stripe at its published rates and are shown in the ledger as fees when payments go live.

Staff declare conflicts before reviewing. The database refuses a reviewer acting on their own organization’s application, an uploader reviewing their own document, and a requester approving their own refund or disbursement. Role combinations that would let one person both do and approve are blocked outright. Volunteers disclose ownership or brokerage interests on their profile.

If a campaign cannot complete acquisition it moves to acquisition failed, cancelled or expired and this is shown publicly. Designated gifts held for that campaign are handled under the campaign’s published terms: returned to donors, redirected with donor consent, or moved to the General Rescue Fund — the choice is recorded per gift in the ledger and reported here.

Anyone can report a listing from its campaign page (Report). Reports are triaged by content moderators, may become investigations, and outcomes are recorded. Formal complaints: complaints@buybackourchurches.com. Open reports right now: 0; closed: 0.

No annual report has been published yet. It will be linked here when it exists — we will not backfill estimates.

We count a church as acquired only with reviewed closing evidence, reopened only with reviewed legal-use evidence and a published account of ministry activity, and sustained only after the elapsed period and a reviewed sustainability report. Prayer counts distinguish signed-in supporters from guests. Money figures come from the ledger, live mode only. See Churches Rescued and the General Rescue Fund.