The Voice of the Martyrs
EIN 73-1395057
VOM serves Christians in places where following Christ is dangerous: Bible and literature distribution into restricted nations, support for front-line workers, emergency aid to persecuted families, and mobilising prayer.
Ethiopia · Iran · Nigeria · Syria
We read the ministry’s own pages and accreditations. We have not found published numbers we can divide, so no cost per outcome is shown.
We cannot tell you what $1 buys here
The Voice of the Martyrs has not published a spending figure and an outcome count that can be divided into each other. Any number we printed would be invented, so there is none. The specific documents we looked for are listed further down.
Why this is the church’s work
Hebrews gives this one as a command, not a suggestion, and gives the reason: the imprisoned believer is not someone else’s problem but your own body. Supporting a widow in Nigeria whose husband was killed for his faith is the plainest reading of it.
“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”
Hebrews 13:3
“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”
1 Corinthians 12:26
“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
2 Timothy 3:12
Our reservations
- Work in closed countries cannot be reported in detail without endangering people. That is a real constraint and not an excuse — but it means nothing here is checkable by us or by you, and the trust has to rest on the ministry’s reputation instead of its numbers.
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 Syria is about 123× below the United States.
Aid goes to believers already in place, through networks already built, in countries where a family’s monthly needs are a small fraction of the Western equivalent — Nigeria and Ethiopia sit near the bottom of the cost-base table below. The same structure that makes the money go far makes it impossible to audit: no cost per outcome is published, and we would be suspicious of one that was.
What creates the leverage
- Local workers, not sent staff — The work is done by believers who already live there. No relocation, no expatriate salary, no home-country cost of living to cover.
- 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.
The cost base, country by country
| Country | Income per person | Below United States |
|---|---|---|
| Syria (2022 — latest available) | $720 | 123× |
| Ethiopia | $1,110 | 80× |
| Nigeria | $1,360 | 65× |
| Iran | $4,650 | 19× |
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
7 of 15
- Gospel centrality
- Serving the persecuted church for the sake of the gospel is the entire mandate.
- Is the gospel named and central, rather than implied by the ministry’s history?
- Local leadership
- Work is carried out by front-line believers inside each country. Unverifiable from outside, partly by design.
- Is the work led and staffed by believers from the place it serves?
- Financial transparency
- ECFA member with a public EIN, so the 990 is obtainable. Nothing linked from the site itself.
- Can an outsider find audited statements, a Form 990, and accreditation?
- Evidence of outcomes
- No counts published on the site — not Bibles delivered, families supported, or workers funded.
- Does the ministry publish counts of what was delivered, defined clearly enough to check?
- Cost per outcome is computable
- Neither a spending figure nor an outcome count is published, so nothing can be divided.
- Are both a spending figure and an outcome count published, so cost per outcome can be divided out?
What we have not verified
- Every outcome figure. Nothing countable is published on the site we read.
- Security is a real reason to withhold detail about hostile countries. It is not a reason to withhold aggregate totals, and the difference between the two is the question to ask VOM directly.
- We have not pulled the Form 990 for EIN 73-1395057. That would give spending; the denominator would still be missing.
Accreditation seen
- ECFA member
- International Christian Association affiliate
Displayed by the ministry on its own pages. We have not re-checked each seal with the accrediting body.
Worth knowing
- Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who were imprisoned in Romania.
- Listed here because the need is real and the ministry is long-established — not because the numbers check out. They currently cannot be checked.
Sources
- Homepage
Ministry website · The Voice of the Martyrs · read 2026-09-18