Student Mobilization Affirms the Recommendation of MinistryWatch: Donors should always “give with caution.”

April 2, 2024

(Update for April 3, 2024 included below.)

Student Mobilization, sometimes called “StuMo,” was recently featured in a MinistryWatch article which recommends that donors “give with caution” when considering our ministry. StuMo affirms this careful approach to giving – not only with respect to our ministry but to any ministry, including MinistryWatch itself.

MinistryWatch gave our ministry an “A” transparency grade and a Shining Light Award in 2019, but then recently demoted us from a 5-star rating to no stars. MinistryWatch made this move for one reason – because our ministry no longer files the federal 990 form, which is an increasingly common choice by trusted ministries which are much larger and more well known than ours. There are pros and cons to such a filing. Student Mobilization concludes that MinistryWatch and StuMo disagree on the necessity of this filing. MinistryWatch relies almost solely on this filing for its ministry analysis, which is limited to a financial assessment.

MinistryWatch correctly reported that StuMo makes our audited financial statements available upon request. Annual audits are a requirement for our ECFA membership and are readily available to MinistryWatch to continue calculating our financial ratios and assigning their “Financial Efficiency Rating” independently of a federal filing. Yet without this specific filing any ministry receives an automatic “C” rating from MinistryWatch.

MinistryWatch also reported that StuMo now has a “Donor Confidence Score” of only 52 (give with caution.) Diving into the details of this score, StuMo was docked 25 points because of the aforementioned disagreement. In addition, StuMo’s current “Financial Efficiency Rating” is shown as following: “This ministry has not been rated.” For this status StuMo receives a 0/10 score. It seems MinistryWatch has decided not to calculate StuMo’s “Financial Efficiency Rating” though our financial reports are readily available to MinistryWatch directly from our annual audit.

MinistryWatch incorrectly reports our ministry as having “zero” board members (screenshot available below.) StuMo has always had a full board and currently has twelve board members, which is one more member than the “three to eleven” members required by MinistryWatch for a perfect score. StuMo appears to also receive a 0/10 score for this oversight by MinistryWatch.

Had MinistryWatch chosen to calculate StuMo’s Financial Efficiency Score from our audited financials, and had MinistryWatch not incorrectly reported StuMo’s board membership, we believe our Donor Confidence Score might be closer to 72 (Give with Confidence).

However, “give with caution” is a proper recommendation for our ministry and any other. Donors should do their homework, rather than rely upon a potentially incorrect score or a scoring system which does not tell the whole story. Missing from this analysis is the real spiritual impact achieved by a ministry being considered for support. Your decision whether to give should be primarily influenced by how God uses a ministry to change the world and the size of this influence. Here are eight ways to assess spiritual impact:

Direct exposure to the ministry through mission trips, volunteering and interactions with frontline ministry staff.
Testimonials from those blessed by and benefiting from the ministry.
The ministry’s adherence to biblical truths, commandments and strategies.
Numbers of impacted lives (confirmed independently when possible.)
Ministry publications which share stories from the ministry field.
Insights from other ministry donors.
Asking questions of the ministry.
Asking the Lord for wisdom and guidance.

A donor’s support decision should also consider the important-but-limited information available from ratios and formulas derived from financial reports, such as those developed by MinistryWatch.

April 3, 2024 Update - "Why is Stumo's Score 48 instead of 52?"

The response above was submitted to MinistryWatch yesterday evening. This morning, we noticed that MinistryWatch had further lowered our Donor Confidence Score from 52 to 48 overnight. A closer look revealed that MinistryWatch had overhauled the Donor Confidence Scores of their entire database with new weightings and calculations sometime the night before. Of the original fourteen factors, one factor was completely dropped, seven factors were weighted less, and two other factors were weighted more. Every ministry in their database now carries a different Donor Confidence Score.

We asked MinistryWatch why this change was made and about the timing. We were told the changes to the ratings were “long planned,” and it was a coincidence that our score decreased again the night after our response. We asked for a link to the announcement of the change, but no response has been received yet from MinistryWatch. Additionally, we searched online for information about this planned change but as yet have not found information about the reasoning why MinistryWatch has more confidence in their new Donor Confidence calculation.

MinistryWatch was gracious to update our board size from zero to twelve. We assumed since twelve is close to the “three to eleven” which MinistryWatch requires that our score would go up with this correction. However, eleven board members receives 10 points, but twelve board members receives 0 points.

We also noticed that MinistryWatch does indeed calculate a Financial Efficiency Score for two large ministries which also do not file the federal 990 form. Neither Compassion International nor Cru file the 990, yet they each have three stars, instead of no stars like StuMo. We hope that MinistryWatch will soon resume calculating StuMo’s financial efficiency rating and award StuMo those stars and 15/15 points. Otherwise, we hope MinistryWatch will explain why they have not yet performed this rating calculation. Until then, StuMo will carry a lower-than-necessary score.

Screenshot from MinistryWatch.com, April 2, 2024 (Page 1)

Screenshot from MinistryWatch.com, April 2, 2024 (Page 2)

Screenshot from MinistryWatch.com, April 2, 2024 (Page 3)

Screenshot from MinistryWatch.com, April 2, 2024 (Page 4)