Individual churches that are members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) were the worst performing fundraisers during 2021 of the 35 organizational categories analyzed by ECRA officials.
On a positive note, ECFA members collected on average 3% more cash during 2021 than 2020. The data comes from analysis of 1,800 financial statement of the ECFA’s roughly 2,600 members totaling $19 billion in annual donations.
Cash giving to ECFA member organizations increased during both pandemic years, as well as across the last five and 10-year inflation-adjusted intervals. Cash giving of $19 billion was 74% of income with “other” income at $11.3 billion (22%) and non-cash giving of $4.7 billion (4%).
The reason only cash was calculated is that cash giving is what every ECFA member has most in common, ECFA officials Warren Bird and Jake Lapp wrote in the new report “2022 State Of Giving.” Cash giving makes up more than half of total income for 80% of organizations analyzed. ECFA considers gifts of securities and cryptocurrency as part of “cash” gifts.
Funding models vary widely among ECFA’s 69 types of members. The best performers of the 35 categories were foundations, of a 65.8% increase and anti-human trafficking at 28.9%.
Cash at individual churches declined 6.6%, the worst performing category. Annualized income for individual churches declined 3% between 2018 and 2021. Other poor performers were alcohol and drug rehabilitation, which declined 2.7%; and student and youth ministry, down 2.9%
The pandemic had a significant impact on churches, according to the report’s authors. Churches were not able to meet or met with limited capacity during early pandemic months and congregants have been slow to return. Some churches have reported that they are still only at 50% of attendance compared to pre-pandemic, according to data in the report.
Median fundraising expenses as a percentage of total expenses have stayed consistent during the past five years. Total fundraising expenses stayed at 5.7% during both years of the pandemic. In the two years leading up to the pandemic, fundraising expenses were at 6%.
Organizations less than 10-years-old have experienced double-digit annualized growth during the five years studied (11.2%), including growth from 2020 to 2021 at 12.8%. This is more than double the growth rate of older organizations. Organizations between 50 and 99 years old experienced the slowest annualized growth since 2016 with an increase in cash giving of only 0.7%.
For more of the data, go to www.ecfa.org.
