Evangelical Giving Is Down
Among evangelical Protestants in the US, giving is down.
Giving is down to churches, as well as to ministries and charities outside of church. The amount of money given has declined. So has the generosity of evangelicals (the proportion of household income given away). Donations have decreased among almost all types of evangelicals.
Since we measured evangelical giving in 2021’s report The Generosity Factor, giving is down.
And it wasn’t that high to begin with.
Our new report The Giving Gap: Changes in Evangelical Generosity is from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts. The study unearths data from over 1,000 American evangelical Protestants on how they give.
If they give.
Fewer Evangelicals Giving
Giving is down in a variety of ways. For one thing, the proportion of evangelicals giving money to church declined. The same is true for giving outside of church – fewer evangelicals are supporting ministries and charities today than in our 2021 report.
Givers Giving Less
Even among those who continue to give, the amount they give (adjusted for inflation) decreased. So did their generosity, meaning the proportion they give away.
In fact, 31% of evangelical Protestants gave no money to church or charity in the past 12 months. That’s up from 19% the last time we measured.
The average evangelical donor gave away 3.3% of their income to church and/or charity. This declined 17% from our 2021 study.
One Exception
Lower giving is true for nearly every type of evangelical: different age groups, both genders, all income groups, etc.
One consistent outlier is race/ethnicity. Evangelicals of color (Latino, Black, American Indian, Asian-American) have been significantly more steadfast in their giving than White evangelicals. Evangelicals of color are the only subgroup experiencing an increase in generosity among those who are giving. And while some did stop giving since our 2021 study, total generosity among all evangelicals decreased 6% among people of color. Generosity fell 34% among White evangelicals during the same time.
There’s much more detail and nuance in the full report. The Giving Gap is free by request – just e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.
Some Things Are Still True
There are three critical points we uncovered in The Generosity Factor. All of them are still true in 2024.
First, many churches and ministries continue to emphasize tithing. But the proportion of evangelicals who even approach a tithe makes this goal irrelevant for most. Just 10% of all believers give anything close to a tithe (8% or more). Maybe it’s time to reframe short-term goals for donors to increase generosity.
Second, there is a clear and incontrovertible link between giving to churches and giving to charities or ministries outside of church. The more generously people give to church, the more generously they give outside of church. It’s also true in reverse: the more generously they give outside of church, the more generously they give to church. Some churches look with suspicion on parachurch ministries, assuming anything a Global Christian Relief or a Precept gets, the church won’t get. What we found instead is simple: greater generosity means everyone benefits.
Third, there is also a clear and undisputable connection between generosity and spiritual engagement. Generosity is 228% higher among evangelicals who read the Bible daily than among those who read it less than once a week. It’s 434% higher among weekly churchgoers than among those who rarely or never attend. It’s much higher when believers consume Christian media, study the Bible regularly, and attend small group. Spiritual engagement and generosity rise and fall together.
Get the New Report
Learn all the details in our new report The Giving Gap: Changes in Evangelical Generosity, from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts. It’s a study of 1,039 evangelical Protestant adults. (For a free copy, simply e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.)
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