How Falwell Raises His Millions: The Fund-Raising Technique

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- There is a story told here -- although not in front of the Rev. Jerry Falwell or his supporters -- about the day Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and Falwell died and went to hell.

The three evangelists had hardly settled in before Satan called God and said, "You've got to get these guys out of here."

"Why?" God asked.

"Because," Satan replied, "Billy Graham's saving everybody, Oral Roberts is healing everybody and Jerry Falwell's raised enough money to air-condition the place."

Falwell would probably appreciate the compliment.

"Every preacher of the gospel is a successful salesman," says Falwell, who raises more than $1 million a week, primarily through "The Old-Time Gospel Hour." The weekly Sunday morning show is taped at his Thomas Road Baptist Church here and appears on 392 television and 500 radio stations around the country.

But critics say that while Falwell is an undeniably brilliant salesman, his fund-raising techniques and audits commissioned by his own church raise troublesome questions about what happens to the money he raises.

"The tradition in religious fund-raising is that donors give on faith and ministers are accountable to God," said Nancy DeMarco of the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Washington, which receives 1,000 inquiries per year about Falwell's mininstries. "Our feeling is that everyone, secular and religious charities, should be accountable by the same standards," said DeMarco. Because of Falwell's refusal to disclose certain financial information, his ministries do not appear on the bureau's list of charities that meet its standards of financial accountability.

That doesn't concern Falwell. "Our donors feel like they have a good, healthy control over us," he said. "They trust us. Our letters are very, very honest and specific."

Falwell says he composes a new fund-raising letter each week, one week for the Gospel Hour, the next for Moral Majority, the right-wing political lobby he founded two years ago.

Falwell says he spent too much time on Moral Majority, which has a $5 million budget of its own, last year so he is now focusing on the Gospel Hour, which like his church will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year.

Since the early days of his ministry Falwell has been an ardent proponent of what he calls "saturation evangelism" -- a philosophy he once defined as "preaching the gospel to every available person at every available time by every available means." Among the means Falwell mentions are "telephone evangelism" "cassette evangelism", "Sunday school bus evangelism" and, of course, television evangelism.