$2.90 a week. That's what it costs to keep a girl from being sold.

In the first episode of the new Partner Highlight series on ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker sits down with Michele Rickett — Founder and CEO of She Is Safe, a survivor of childhood abuse who has spent the last 24 years building one of the most effective gospel-centered anti-trafficking ministries in the world.

In one of the most honest conversations about money and ministry you will hear this year, Michele walks through how She Is Safe keeps girls in high-risk communities safe for less than the cost of a venti latte a week — and how that work has cut trafficking in pilot villages by 85%. She shares the story of one woman sold at age 4 for a case of beer, the husband who later said "we don't allow that here anymore," and the men who ended up donating land, baking bricks, and building the school themselves. She also opens up about her own past, the forgiveness that set her free, and the moment she looked over a fence in Africa and saw a girl being sold — and heard God say: "What are you going to do for these children of mine?"

This is the first Partner Highlight — sit-downs with the leaders of the ministries on the ROI Ministry Top 10. If you have ever wondered what a vetted, gospel-centered, auditable, impact-per-dollar ministry actually looks like in practice — this is it.

She Is Safe served 100,502 women and girls in their last audited year. They are ready to scale from 11 countries to 14 — but not without partners.

To give directly: sheissafe.org To support the work through ROI Ministry's National Christian Foundation platform (no fees, no skim): roiministry.org

Know you're making a difference.

0.33%. 30,000×.

Two numbers. One question: what kind of steward are you going to be?

In 2001, the Gordon Conwell Center for the Study of Global Christianity published the number. In 2025, they updated it. In 24 years, total Christian giving nearly tripled — and the percentage that reaches the world's unevangelized barely moved. That's the 0.33% problem.

The 30,000× is the upside. When a dollar flows to a faithful, fruit-bearing ministry serving the poorest and least reached, the same dollar can produce 3,000 to 30,000 times the eternal impact of where the average gift goes today.

In the season-one recap of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker walks the entire series in a single pass: the global giving crisis (Episode 1), the words of Jesus on the poor and the lost (Episode 2), the framework for wise generosity (Episode 3), the free due diligence tool (Episode 4), and the kingdom-advisor litmus test (Episode 5). Then he lands the question that holds the whole season together: are you inspecting the fruit of where your dollars go?

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The 2025 update: $677 billion in Christian giving, 0.33% to the unevangelized, 0.1% to unreached peoples
• The 30,000× upside: the maximum EROI measured across 100+ ministries reviewed
• Why "follow your heart" is the worst stewardship advice in the Bible (Jeremiah 17:9)
• The 1 Timothy 6:17–19 framework: God first, family, local church, strategic kingdom investments
• The fruit-inspector test: how to evaluate any ministry in 60 seconds
• The kingdom-advisor litmus test: 100× the world's best charities while sharing Jesus
• Why ROI Ministry never touches a dollar — and the donor-advised funds that make it possible

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/

100×.

That's how much ROI Ministry's top 10 ministries outperform the world's best charities in cost per person served — meals, clean water, shelter, medical care, housing, and protection from sex trafficking — while still sharing Jesus and making disciples.

So why do most Christian wealth advisors still point their clients elsewhere?

In Episode 5 of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker names the litmus test of a true kingdom advisor — and tells the story of the Christian wealth-management book that cited the parable of the talents to defend an "all in the family" legacy approach, then blocked him when he pointed out the verses on the poor the book had skipped.

This is the episode for the financial advisor, the wealth manager, the kingdom-advisor candidate, and the donor who wants to know the difference between wise kingdom advising and the bigger-barn version.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The 100× litmus test: how to tell a real kingdom advisor from a Christian brand on a wealth-management brochure
• The parable of the talents as Jesus actually used it — and the book that used it wrong
• Ron Blue's vision: "Help Christians steward money biblically, live generously, and direct resources towards eternal purposes"
• Hugh McCulloch, Ron Blue, and David Wills — the three who said yes when no one else would
• Why "retirement" is not in the New Testament — and what that means for kingdom investing
• The donor-advised-fund trap: bigger barns, smaller grants, wealth managers earning fees on money that should be deployed
• The parable of the rich fool: Luke 12:20 — "This very night, your life will be demanded of you."
• The ECFA / Ministry Watch / Candid / Charity Navigator due diligence stack — and why all four still aren't enough

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/

What does $10 do when you give it through the right ministry?

$10. Two people see a doctor and discover Jesus. Three people learn the skills they need to prevent human trafficking. Seven people get clean water for a year in Jesus' name. Twenty people make indicated decisions for Christ. Seventy-six hand mills in Africa.

Most Christians give and hope. This episode shows you how to give and know.

In Episode 4 of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker walks you live through the free, no-ads, no-commission resource his team built over the last decade: a top-10 list of the most impactful ministries in the world, vetted by a third-party auditor, gift-receipted by the National Christian Foundation, and updated every year. He shows you what $10 does. He shows you how to nominate a ministry. He shows you why free due diligence is the missing piece the research keeps pointing to.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The $10 calculator: what every dollar produces through 10 of the most impactful ministries in the world
• The Jesus Film Project: $5.30 per indicated decision for Christ — the lowest cost per soul in the dataset
• The Calvin Edwards third-party vetting process: the same due diligence wealthy givers use before writing six-, seven-, or eight-figure checks
• How the National Christian Foundation's donor-advised funds let ROI Ministry never touch a single dollar
• The Lausanne Covenant 1974 standard every vetted ministry must subscribe to
• How to nominate a ministry for the top 10 list

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/

The parable of the talents ends in darkness.

Not metaphorically. Literally. The third servant — the one who buried what he was given — is cast into outer darkness. There is weeping. There is gnashing of teeth.

Jesus told this story to make a point about what we do with what God entrusts. Two servants got to work. They traded, they invested, they doubled what they were given. The master called them good and faithful. The third servant played it safe. He buried the talent. He called it prudence. The master called it wickedness — and laziness.

This is not a story about getting rich. It is a story about getting to work.

In Episode 3 of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker walks through the full parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and lands the framework the rest of the show builds on: faithful stewardship of money, time, opportunities, influence, and the actual dollars.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The full parable of the talents, end to end
• Why Jesus used two gold carrots and one big stick — and what each one teaches
• The $5 million per bag of gold: what the third servant actually buried
• "Faith uses what is given. Unbelief buries it." — and what that looks like in a stewardship audit
• The 1 Timothy 6:17-19 framework: God first, family, local church, strategic kingdom investments
• $30/week average Christian giving — and why it isn't enough on its own
• The $6 billion lost annually to fraud and the $100 billion given with no measurable fruit

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/

Twice.

That's how often Jesus talked about the poor compared to the Great Commission. We have built entire movements around the Great Commission. Most Christians have never heard the rest.

In Episode 2 of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker walks through the research his team did on the words of Jesus — how often He spoke about the poor, the lost, generosity, money, and the kingdom — and what shows up when the data is laid out side by side. The episode reframes the modern Christian's mental list of Jesus' core teachings, exposes the verses we skipped, and lands on a single, hard question: if Jesus said it twice as often, why don't we teach it twice as often?

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The verse-count research: how often Jesus actually mentioned the poor, the lost, generosity, and money
• Why the Great Commission gets preached and the "least of these" doesn't
• The 3,000× to 30,000× result when giving is directed to the poorest and least reached
• What "bear fruit that will last" actually means in stewardship terms
• Why motivation matters — Jesus attached rewards, not guilt, to wise generosity
• The parable of the talents, and what the third servant's "buried coin" actually represents

This is not a guilt trip. It is a re-ordering.

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/

Most Christian giving doesn't produce a single soul saved.

In the very first episode of ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast, host Tim Barker opens the books on the largest untapped opportunity in the modern church. The Gordon Conwell Center for the Study of Global Christianity tracked where every Christian dollar actually goes. After 25 years and a near-tripling of total giving, the share reaching the world's unevangelized hasn't moved. Less than one-third of one percent. The rest stays close to home.

This is not a guilt trip. It is a stewardship audit.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• The 2001 vs. 2025 research — and why the percentage hasn't moved
• Where 99.67% of every Christian dollar actually goes
• Why the prosperity gospel skipped the verses that mattered most
• The 3,000× to 30,000× upside when giving is directed to the most faithful, most effective ministries
• Tim's own story: the dangerous prayer, the collapse, the research that changed everything

Tim Barker is the founder of ROI Ministry, a free resource that reviews over 100 ministries each year and publishes a top-10 list of ministries that beat the best charities in the world on cost per person served — while still sharing the gospel and making disciples. Every one of Tim's dollars from every copy of his book, BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You, goes straight to vetted gospel + compassion ministries. No fees. No overhead. No skim.

Subscribe to ROI Ministry: The Don't Bury It Podcast and know you're making a difference.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The top-10 ministry list and 90+ reviewed ministries: roiministry.org
• BOOM: What to Do When Life Blows Up Around You: https://www.amazon.com/BOOM-What-When-Blows-Around/dp/1646459016/