NASHVILLE (BP) – After years of requests for higher levels of accountability among Southern Baptist Convention entities, letters from them are included in the current edition of the SBC Annual, available as of Sept. 23, joining already-available audit reports.
At the February 2025 Executive Committee meeting, EC President Jeff Iorg proposed a new business and financial plan (BFP) that placed greater emphasis on trustee accountability. Trustees approved the plan the following June at the SBC Annual Meeting held in Dallas.
Section II for “Trustee Responsibility” of that plan instructs the EC and each entity’s board of trustees to approve and submit an “Accountability Letter” signed by the board chair and the entity’s president, certifying compliance with the BFP and SBC Bylaw 5.
That section stipulates that, as a courtesy, the EC will annually provide a sample letter for other entities to consider as they draft their letters to “provide the necessary oversight to ensure their respective organization complies with applicable state and federal laws, their charter and bylaws, the Convention’s constitution and bylaws, and implements operational policies and practices consistent with biblical stewardship and Christian ethics.”
The BFP specifically requires that each letter include the entity’s general certification of compliance, appropriateness of compensation policies, a trustee review of presidential expenses and recognition that the entity had not directly solicited churches for financial support, outside of efforts such as the International Mission Board’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and North American Mission Board’s Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.
“The accountability letters are intended to enhance trust among Southern Baptists,” said Mike Bianchi, chief financial officer for the Executive Committee. “Although the EC has provided its accountability letter as a sample template, entities are free to narrate their compliance efforts in whatever form they believe best reflects compliance with the BFP. By referencing BFP sections, the accountability letters provide a roadmap to specific areas of accountability.”
To Bianchi’s point, there are differences in the letters. All cover the required information but some go into further detail. The Executive Committee’s, for instance, is approximately 1,450 words, followed by the ERLC (1,299) and Southern Seminary (1,128). Reports from NAMB and the IMB – again, which met the requirements put forth in the BFP – are 179 and 156, respectively.
The combination of accountability letters and audits available in the SBC Annual approaches and – in areas such as solvency/liquidity accountability and accounting rigor and verification – even exceeds what is required of an IRS Form 990, the standard brought forward by several motions in recent years by Southern Baptist messengers.
They don’t disclose executive compensation, executive perks and benefits and top contractors and vendors, areas that the SBC Constitution, Bylaws and BFP place in the hands of trustees. Those trustees are approved each year by messengers at the annual meeting after being brought forward by the SBC Committee on Nominations.
In keeping with a stronger push toward the trustee system, Iorg also announced a free trustee training course when he proposed the new Business and Financial Plan last year.
“We are encouraging entity leaders to use this course as part of their new trustee orientation and training,” he said at the time, “and make that the point of accountability for its use.”
Bianchi, a CPA with degrees in accounting and finance from Florida State University who has nearly 40 years of accounting and financial experience working with churches nationally and internationally, said the letters and BFP demonstrate a “significant amount of oversight” on the part of trustees in the financial processes of Southern Baptist entities.
“The accountability letters, taken together with the BFP, and each entity’s and EC’s audits, provide a wealth of information to Southern Baptists,” he said. “I encourage every Southern Baptist to take the time to read the BFP, accountability letters and audits in detail. I believe Southern Baptists will see a great deal of accountability and transparency in these combined documents.”
The 2026 SBC Annual is available online here.
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