A growing UK church was found in breach of the fundraising code last month after accepting a big donation from a vulnerable person and has been criticised by three former members.
The UCKG HelpCentre is a registered charity in the UK with 18 locations in London and has more than 10,000 active memberships.
Former members have expressed safeguarding concerns about the charity’s fundraising practices and the coercive control the church has wielded against it’s members, including instances of psychological harm.
Spencer, a former member whose name has been changed to protect his identity, claimed: “They showed us pictures of people who had died in hell to scare us into staying.”
The UCKG is the UK branch of a global Pentecostal church called the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which was founded by Brazilian billionaire Edir Macedo in 1977.
The church is now active across over 100 countries worldwide. They also run the Children Biblical Centres (CBC), with children aged eight to ten, the Universal Teen Force (UTF) for 14 and 15-year-olds, and the Victory Youth Group (VYG) for 14 to 25-year-olds.
Concerns about fundraising practices:
Back in December 2022, the Charity Commission opened an ongoing regulatory compliance case into the church regarding safeguarding concerns but made ‘no finding of wrongdoing’ and refused further comment at the time.
However, the UCKG has been found in breach of the Fundraising Code on two separate occasions in the last four months – more than any other charity in the last year.
In October 2025, the church was found in breach of the code for not having a clear and publicly available complaints procedure, on top of not meeting all legal requirements relating to data protection, but was cleared of failing to comply with rules regarding the contact of former members.
But last month’s case summary by the Fundraising Regulator found the charity in breach of the code for accepting a large cash donation from a member with a history of mental health problems, and have suggested that the charity refund the donation.
A UCKG spokesperson said: “UCKG is a registered charity with 38 branches across the UK, operating with full financial transparency under the oversight of the Charity Commission.
“Our members are free to live their lives as they choose, and our safeguarding policies are designed to protect and uphold that freedom.”
UCKG advised the regulator that many of its congregation have experienced vulnerable circumstances as these are the people it seeks to include in its membership.
But the regulator also found the charity’s fundraising activity to be high risk, as it ‘currently lacks systems to consider, identify or support donors who may be vulnerable.’
UCKG accepted that it must make changes to their fundraising work by implementing policies and procedures to comply with the Code of Fundraising Practice.
But the criticisms of the former members interviewed by SWLondoner are not limited to UCKG’s fundraising practices.
The three interviewees recount pastors’ fearmongering and attempts to control every aspect of their lives, including their finances, health, and relationships.
Surviving Universal UK:
Rachael Reign, ex-member and founder of Surviving Universal UK, charity and community that helps UCKG ‘survivors’ overcome their experiences at the church, claimed: “They control who you date, when you marry, they even chastise women who want to have children.”
After she became a member, Reign was sent out in the streets of West Croydon, her hometown, to collect donations for more than seven hours a day in the blistering cold, at only 14 years old.
She said: “I felt like I was slipping into madness, we were out in the cold, holding the bucket, and had to keep singing.
“If we didn’t sing and dance, we would be ‘rebuked’, as they call it, it’s like being punished.
“What the public doesn’t see, is how much coercion goes into being a UCKG fundraiser: you are basically publicly humiliated in the church if you refuse to.
“You are not allowed to question the UCKG’s authority. There is absolutely no complaints procedure.”
According to Reign, each person fundraising had a target budget to collect, which sometimes exceeded the thousands of pounds.
As stated in their financial statements, the church collected £714,644 through fundraising alone in 2023/24.
Their annual report also adds that regarding fundraising ‘there were no formal complaints received during the year.’
But a Freedom of Information request put to the Fundraising Regulator revealed that between February 2023 and February 2024, two complaints regarding fundraising were submitted to the regulator, not the charity, one of which focused on ‘concerns about children asked to fundraise.’
Another recent complaint, submitted 31 March 2025, concerned ‘aggressive tactics when collecting in public at Christmas.’
Yet fundraising represents only a small part of UCKG’s revenues: they collected a staggering £13.7 million only in donations from church services and appeals, accounting for more than 87% of their total UK income of £15.6 million last year.
Donating is seen as a core part of being a member, since the church preaches a doctrine of tithing.
Reign claimed: “They say if you don’t give, you’re cursed. Your family is cursed. Your children will die. You will get cancer.
“People believe that if they stop giving, they’ll open the doors to demons.”
Reign explained how what she called ‘brainwashing’ led her to donate big sums of money, selling off everything down to only essential needs, including her clothes and shoes.
She was recruited at a young age and was, at the time, convinced she was joining a youth club to hang out with her peers.
The UCKG disputed Reign’s allegations, a spokesperson said: “The claims made by Rachael Reign – which are historic, previously denied, and remain unverified – are disputed and do not reflect the experiences of the vast majority of our 5,000+ members.
“Many have found purpose, support and healing through UCKG, from overcoming addiction to leaving gang life behind.”
However, Reign is not the only ex-UCKG member to voice complaints about the church’s high control environment.
Spencer was also recruited as a teenager, and claimed that after his local pastor found out he had a girlfriend outside the church, he was subjected to collective mockery and felt pressured into cutting ties with her.
Voicing his own concerns about fundraising, Spencer said: “They make it so that you have to give them money, and if you don’t, bad things will happen to you.
“You have no choice. You can’t say no. If you say no, you could be punished, you could lose your position in the church, you could be isolated.”
Smith, another ex-member whose name was changed, claimed the UCKG recruits vulnerable people because they are less reluctant to leave, and less likely to raise public awareness.
He said: “They know that people that have no hope, want a sense of hope to cling on, so they’re going to feel dependent upon the institution.
“The members are getting blatantly robbed. People have literally sold their cars because they were told ‘God wants it back.’”
Yet these accounts are in contradiction with statutory law, whereby charities must ensure the fundraising does not result in ‘undue pressure being placed on persons to donate funds,’ and the Code of Fundraising Practice, whereby they must have a ‘clear and publicly available complaints procedure.’
The UCKG group:
The church’s finances are part of a wider conglomerate, the UCKG group, worth nearly £65 million in net assets, according to their financial statements.
In 2014, the church completed building the Temple of Solomon in Brazil which cost $300m to construct.
The Temple, which acts as the UCKG’s headquarters, can accommodate 10,000 worshipers, has a built-in conveyer belt for tithes and offerings, and is twice as tall as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
The majority of church founder Macedo’s vast fortune comes from his ownership of Rede Record, Brazil’s second-largest broadcaster, which he acquired in 1989, over a decade after he had founded the UCKG.
According to Forbes, Brazil’s Public Ministry has probed the question of where he got the money to buy the station for over a decade.
Alexandra Stein, Honorary Research Fellow at London South Bank University and world leading expert on the dynamics of cults, said: “It’s a political organisation, it’s a commercial organisation, it’s a property organisation that covers itself as a church.”
She also emphasised similarities she noticed between the UCKG and The O, a political cult she was part of in the 1980s in the United States.
Stein said: “I would definitely call it a cult. They snuggle up to councils and council politicians to try to legitimise themselves.”
Furthermore, Terri O’Sullivan, officer at Faith to Faithless, a charity that helps people leave and overcome high control religious groups, noted that there is a lack of transparency in the UCKG’s recruitment process in dealing with young people.
She said: “They don’t even advertise that it’s a Christian group, so they think they’re just going to a regular youth group.”
When she left Jehovah’s Witnesses as a teenager, she was isolated and alienated from her community, including her family.
She described common traits of high-control religious groups such as the UCKG.
She said: “You’re not allowed to have friends outside of the religion.
“If you do something they consider a sin, you could be disfellowshipped or excommunicated.
“And what that means is when you leave, no one in that religion is allowed to talk to you anymore or spend any time with you.
“That includes your family: your mother, your father, your siblings, and so on.”
The UCKG was contacted for comment, a spokesperson said: “We continue to engage openly with regulators and remain confident in the strength of our policies, safeguarding and pastoral care.
“We take any concerns seriously and are committed to cooperating with the proper authorities as required.”
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