Ryan McKnight, founder of TTF, was interviewed by The New York Times about his YouTube channel Mormon Leaks, and this led to contacts from Reddit who asked him for a secure way to send files.

The submission process ensures confidentiality, including erasure of IP addresses, asking leakers to use the privacy browser Tor, sending documents via SecureDrop, and additional encryption methods.

The site's intent is to increase transparency of LDS Church leadership, and would not leak names of lower-level employees, instead focusing on the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency.

University of Tampa professor Ryan Cragun said scholars were interested in finding out what documents would be revealed, noting there was a dearth of information available about the finances of the LDS Church.

Mormon scholar and columnist Jana Riess gave a mixed assessment, criticizing their tactics regarding privacy while saying it could help to increase LDS Church leadership transparency.

Ryan McKnight, the site's founder, had previously gained attention in October 2016 when he was interviewed by The New York Times about his YouTube channel Mormon Leaks, which released videos of top LDS leadership executive discussions.

[11] Additional topics discussed by the high-level LDS Church leadership in the videos included marijuana, Islam, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a debate over the sexual orientation of Chelsea Manning.

[2][1][12] LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins provided an official response, which stated: "In these committee meetings, presentations are routinely received from various religious, political and subject matter experts on various topics.

[19] Since his increased attention from the October videos and the November policy change leaks, McKnight has been contacted by 25 sources inside and outside of the LDS Church with potential material to release.

[5] MormonLeaks takes steps to protect confidentiality of their sources, including erasing all IP addresses from submissions and removing watermarks from submitted materials.

[5] The site's intention was to avoid publishing specific lists of names of membership, and instead focus on economic information and internal organization policies and procedures.

[23] The first documents publicized by TTF included memos about legal procedures, a letter to the temple department's executive director regarding unsanctioned materials on the Internet, and an organizational chart for the intellectual property division of the LDS Church.

[24] TTF asserts to have been offered documents from two separate individuals who were employees of the LDS Church concerning tithing information of famous Mormons, including American football quarterback Steve Young.

FaithLeaks was hoped to help highlight cases of corruption by religious organizations, and was particularly concerned with issues of finance, policies, procedures and sex abuse settlements.

[7] University of Tampa professor Ryan Cragun said academics were excited to discover more information about the economics behind the LDS Church, as members tithe 10 percent of their earnings and there was not much in the way of transparent documents available to research their holdings and finances.

[6] Utah attorney and Mormon blogger Steve Evans called TTF (then "MormonLeaks") "a rebranding exercise of McKnight's existing practice of posting various confidential items.

"[6] Evans said TTF had "an added layer of cybersecurity, which won't necessarily protect the leakers, depending on their methods of obtaining the various stolen documents, videos, etc.