Franklin Graham gives up one of two nonprofit salaries

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Evangelist Franklin Graham wants to give up one salary

Evangelist Franklin Graham told his staff on Friday he wants to give up his pay as head of the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, saying his calling to the ministry "was never based on compensation."

Graham's decision to ask the BGEA board of directors to stop paying him came a day after an Observer report raised questions about the size of his compensation from the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse, the Boone-based international relief agency that Graham has led since 1979.

In 2008, his two salaries, two retirement packages and other payments from the ministries totaled $1.2 million. That included $669,000 from BGEA, where, in February, 55 employees were laid off - more than 10 percent of the staff. Revenue at BGEA dropped 18 percent last year; at Samaritan's Purse, it climbed 11 percent.

Evangelist agrees to reduced benefits from charities

Concerns about his rising financial compensation during tough economic times have prompted evangelist Franklin Graham to temporarily give up future contributions to his retirement plans at the two charities he leads.

As president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, he receives two full-time salaries and two retirement packages. Last year his total compensation from the two Christian ministries was $1.2million.

The size of Graham's total 2008 compensation -- $535,000 from Samaritan's Purse and $669,000 from Charlotte-based BGEA -- drew questions from nonprofit experts interviewed by The Charlotte Observer. They doubted that one person -- even the energetic, globe-trotting Graham -- can do two full-time jobs leading organizations that employ hundreds and spend hundreds of millions around the world.

1999: Franklin Graham

The Honduran village of La Fortuna is almost impossible to reach by road, so Franklin Graham flew in by helicopter instead.

On the ground, Graham met the mayor and, tracking muddy bootprints and children behind them, set off to learn what his relief agency, Samaritan's Purse, had done to help the village recover from Hurricane Mitch.

The schoolhouse was the biggest problem. When whole, it had only two classrooms, and Mitch had washed one of them down the mountain. More than a year later, the hole still gaped.

CEOs profit from nonprofits

In Cornelius, a nonprofit set up to help people in debt paid its chief executive more than $5 million - nearly everything it had.

In Durham, the leader of a charity that employs the blind takes home more than $700,000 annually.

In Anson County, a charity that worked to keep troubled children in school paid its leader about $300,000 a year, roughly twice as much as the county superintendent of schools.

Graham reaching 91

Billy Graham, born in Charlotte four days before the end of World War I, will turn 91 on Saturday.

He'll celebrate quietly this weekend, his son Franklin says, surrounded by a few friends and family members at his mountaintop home in Montreat.

"I've experienced God's gracious love in a personal way all these years," Billy Graham said in a statement. "Today, my heart is filled with gratitude to the Lord for all he has done for me, and for all the prayers from so many people over the years."