(The Center Square) — A Detroit pastor who last year admonished a parishioner for her inadequate church donation of $1,235 was paid a salary of $538,955 that year by a taxpayer-funded nonprofit he leads that is separate from the church, according to federal records.
That salary for Marvin Winans Sr. — the pastor of Perfecting Church and a Grammy-winning gospel singer — accounted for about 61% of what the nonprofit spent toward its stated mission of “community development,” its recent report to the Internal Revenue Service shows.
His role as president for the nonprofit — Perfecting Community Development Corporation — is a half-time job, the report says, which means he was paid about $518 per hour.
Winans’ salary has increased substantially in recent years and coincided with a $500,000 government grant the state awarded the nonprofit. Grant application guidance indicates the award was funded with federal pandemic relief money.
“I don’t know whether there were better recipients for this cash, but it doesn’t look like it was supposed to go to pay for the salaries of an organization’s director,” said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a prominent conservative think tank in Michigan.
Winans did not respond to repeated requests from The Center Square, including a visit to his church, to comment for this article. The Center Square also sent him an email that summarized the article’s findings.
The salary Winans receives from the church itself, separate from the nonprofit, is not publicly disclosed because churches are generally not required to report their spending to the federal government.
His salary increases also come amid his vigorous fundraising campaign to finish work on an enormous church that has been under construction for more than 20 years.
‘That ain’t what I asked you to do’
Perfecting Church operates in a large building on the east side of Detroit that was a former charter school, according to real estate listings. It has three stories and about 60,000 square feet of operating space.
The church hosts worship services, morning prayers and Bible studies on Sundays and Tuesdays.
The building, on Detroit’s east side, is nestled among residential areas dense with small houses with typical values of less than $70,000. Many unoccupied and blighted houses nearby — the result of Detroit’s immense population collapse over decades — have been dozed.
Yet in the early 2000s, Winans proposed a brand new church complex for his congregation about 5 miles away that he estimated might cost about $60 million. Work began in 2004 but stalled during 2008 financial crisis.
It had stood unfinished for years with chain link fence surrounding it.
In 2023 the city of Detroit sued Perfecting Church for not finishing the project. The suit — part of the city’s efforts to rejuvenate blighted properties — sought to force the church to finish the project or to relinquish the property.
‘Y’all not listening’: Pastor under fire for ‘scolding’ church member over $1,200 donation
