Bible League International
Bible League places Bibles and easy-to-read Scripture, runs small-group Bible studies, trains church planters and teaches adult literacy, working through local churches and national partner organisations rather than its own field staff.
Bangladesh · Ethiopia · Ghana · Haiti · India · Indonesia · Kenya · Mozambique · Nicaragua · Rwanda · Zimbabwe
We pulled the spending and outcome counts out of the ministry’s audited statements or annual report ourselves and did the division in public.
Your gift
3 gifts of $10 cover one Bible placed in someone’s hands. Yours is 47% of one.
The division
- per Bible placed in someone’s hands
- $21.22
Every program dollar is charged to this one outcome. We do not divide by the number Bible League leads with. Its headline is 2,015,577 people who studied God’s Word, which against this budget would read $10.36 — but "engaged in God’s Word" is undefined in the report, and nothing says whether a person is counted once or once per study, so the figure may be a count of attendances rather than of people. Of the 4,094,825 items Bible League reports sharing, 984,197 were Bibles, and a Bible placed is the one unit here that is countable and unambiguous, so that is the denominator. It is a high ceiling: the same program dollars also trained 91,622 leaders, supported 1,736 new churches and funded literacy and translation work, and every one of those dollars is charged to the Bible count. It is also the arithmetic that will not reconcile with the ministry’s own advertised price of $2.50 a Bible — even dividing by all 4,094,825 items shared gives about $5.10 each. And a Bible placed is not a Bible read.
Other defensible denominators
- $10.36 each, dividing by people who studied God’s Word (2,015,577) — About $10.36, and the figure the ministry leads with. Undefined in the report, and it may count a person once or once per study, so it is the floor of the range rather than a price.
- $5.10 each, dividing by Bibles and study, literacy and training materials shared (4,094,825) — About $5.10 per item. The wider count puts study guides, literacy primers and training materials alongside the 984,197 Bibles, which is why it is not the figure above.
- $12,032 each, dividing by new churches planted (1,736) — About $12,000 per new church on the same all-program-spend basis.
What the ministry advertises
“$5 sends Bibles to TWO believers waiting for God’s Word.”
Homepage and financial accountability page
Advertised: $2.50 per believer receiving Scripture. Documented: $21.22. The documents imply about 8.5× the advertised figure.
Why this is the church’s work
Scripture in a language someone actually reads is the instrument God says he uses. Paul’s argument is a chain of dependencies — no preacher, no hearing; no hearing, no faith — and a Bible in the hands of a believer who has never owned one closes a link in it.
“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?… So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
Romans 10:14, 17
“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.”
Isaiah 55:11
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
2 Timothy 3:16–17
Our reservations
- The $5-for-two-Bibles figure does not reconcile with the ministry’s own annual report — see the comparison below. A ministry that advertises a unit cost it cannot support from its financials is a ministry to ask questions of before giving at scale.
- A Bible placed is not a Bible read. “People engaged in God’s Word” is Bible League’s phrase and Bible League does not define it.
A judgement about the work, not a measurement of its results. We do not score souls.
Why a dollar goes further here
Income per person in Mozambique is about 156× below the United States.
Printing, shipping and distribution all happen inside the receiving country, and the last mile runs through partner churches and trained volunteers who were already there. Paid coordination is small relative to the unpaid hours it puts to work, so the marginal cost of one more Scripture set is genuinely low — about $21 per Bible actually reported placed, on our arithmetic.
What creates the leverage
- Low local cost base — Wages, rent, fuel and materials are priced to the local economy, so the same work costs a fraction of what it costs in a high-income country.
- Rides an existing network — Delivery runs through churches, schools or clinics that already exist and are already staffed, so the gift is not paying to build the channel.
- Paid staff unlock unpaid hands — A small amount of paid coordination puts a much larger number of unpaid hours to work.
The cost base, country by country
| Country | Income per person | Below United States |
|---|---|---|
| Mozambique | $570 | 156× |
| Ethiopia | $1,110 | 80× |
| Rwanda | $1,150 | 77× |
| Haiti | $2,010 | 44× |
| Kenya | $2,200 | 40× |
| Ghana | $2,630 | 34× |
| Zimbabwe | $2,660 | 33× |
| India | $2,760 | 32× |
| Bangladesh | $2,840 | 31× |
| Nicaragua | $2,850 | 31× |
| Indonesia | $5,120 | 17× |
GNI per capita, Atlas method, current US dollars · World Bank · read 2026-09-19
This is a cost-of-living ratio, not a measure of how well the ministry spends. It tells you what a local wage or a bag of cement costs, and nothing about whether the work is any good — the rest of this page is for that.
Desk review
12 of 15
- Gospel centrality
- Scripture and church planting are the product. Nothing to infer.
- Is the gospel named and central, rather than implied by the ministry’s history?
- Local leadership
- Delivery runs through 46 program partners and 64 licensee partners, and the planters are local — 1,690 newly trained planters started 1,736 churches in FY25.
- Is the work led and staffed by believers from the place it serves?
- Financial transparency
- Full statement of activities in the annual report: $28,211,285 of expenditures, 74.0% program, 10.1% administration, 15.9% fundraising. Seven years of reports online.
- Can an outsider find audited statements, a Form 990, and accreditation?
- Evidence of outcomes
- Counts are large, round and self-reported, and the unit the ministry leads with — people "engaged" — is not defined, which is why the figure on this page is built on Bibles instead. Materials shipped is an output, not evidence that anyone read them.
- Does the ministry publish counts of what was delivered, defined clearly enough to check?
- Cost per outcome is computable
- Both numbers are published and the division works, but the ministry’s own advertised price is roughly eight times cheaper than the documents imply, and it does not say why.
- Are both a spending figure and an outcome count published, so cost per outcome can be divided out?
What we have not verified
- The $5-for-two-Bibles claim does not reconcile with the report. 984,197 Bibles against $20.9 million of program spending is about $21 per Bible; even dividing by all 4,094,825 items shared gives about $5.10 each. Bible League does not state what the $2.50 covers — most likely printing only, excluding distribution, training and overhead. Ask before repeating the claim.
- "People who studied God’s Word in FY25" is not defined anywhere in the report.
- We have not pulled Bible League’s Form 990 or the underlying audited statements; the figures here come from the statement of activities printed in the annual report.
- FY25 shows a $1,675,890 net loss, which the report attributes largely to depreciation and an asset write-off. Not independently checked.
Accreditation seen
- ECFA accredited
- Excellence in Giving certified transparent
Displayed by the ministry on its own pages. We have not re-checked each seal with the accrediting body.
Worth knowing
- Works in 24 of the 25 countries with the worst Bible shortages, per the coalition-built Bible Access List.
- Reports 91,622 local leaders trained in FY25 — on the same all-program-spend basis that is about $228 per leader trained.
Sources
- 2025 Annual Report (Mission Matters)
Annual report · Bible League International · FY2025 · read 2026-09-18
10 MB PDF. Financials are on the 2025 Statement of Activities page; outcome counts are on the numbers and worldwide-impact pages.
- Homepage and financial accountability page
Ministry website · Bible League International · read 2026-09-18