Barnabas Foundation

The Barnabas Foundation is considered a community foundation, and as of 2017, it counted 200 Christian church and ministry member organizations among its contributors. ³ The Barnabas Foundation is partnered with Trinity Christian College, a Christian higher education institution in Palos Heights, Illinois, to help the college’s financial supporters engage in planned giving. ⁴

Financials

In 2017, the Barnabas Foundation reported revenues of $83 million, with roughly $72 million deriving from contributions and grants; $67 million in total expenses, with roughly $61 million being paid out in grants; and ended the year with $225 million in net assets, the highest number its assets reached on record. ⁵

Starting in 2018, the Barnabas Foundation began filing 990-T tax returns, forms for unrelated business income, as its sole form of public tax filing. Its post-2017 returns report little income and expenditures (less than $1 million annually). ^{6 7 8 9}

The most notable of these DAFs is the Barnabas Stewards Fund, which promises to reflect its donors’ “Christian faith[s] and values.” The Stewards Fund program is made up of multiple donor-advised funds for each individual donor, which the Foundation fund refers to as “Stewards Funds” in the plural. In 2025, the Barnabas Foundation reported an “unprecedented” amount of giving, noting that most distributions were made through the Stewards Fund. ^{10 11 2}

Grantmaking

In 2017, the Barnabas Foundation reported that the roughly $61 million in grants it made that year were distributed to Christian or secular education institutions (45 percent); Christan missions, evangelism, and churches (32 percent); human services and relief organizations (seven percent); housing and shelter groups (three percent); health care organizations (three percent); environmental organizations (two percent); and “other,” or miscellaneous religious or secular charities, (eight percent). ¹²

From 2014 to 2017, the Barnabas Foundation donated $100,128 to Tent Schools International (formerly Worldwide Christian Schools), a nonprofit organization that aims to increase support for refugee philanthropy and acceptance by influencing school curricula in the United States. ^{13 14 15 16 17}

From its founding in 1976 to 2025, the Barnabas Foundation claimed to have helped facilitate the transfer of more than $1.5 billion to charitable organizations. ²

The Barnabas Foundation is partnered with Trinity Christian College, a Christian higher education institution in Palos Heights, Illinois, to help the college’s financial supporters engage in planned giving. ⁴

Leadership

As of 2026, the Barnabas Foundation was led by executive director James Bakke, who assumed his role in 2015. He previously worked as the national director of planned giving at World Vision. ¹⁸