A researcher is sounding the alarm after new data shows a troubling decline in evangelical giving to churches and charities more generally.
“The takeaway is that there has been a change over the last three years in terms of the generosity of the evangelical community, both toward church and toward nonprofit organizations or charities,” Mark Dreistadt said. “We’ve seen a drop in giving across the board.”
Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research found the “proportion of evangelicals giving to church fell 13 percentage points from 2021, constituting a 17% decrease in giving,” according to a press release.
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While 61% of evangelicals gave to their local church in the 12 months before the study, this was down from the previous timeframe, when 74% of evangelicals had done the same. The same happened with giving to outside ministries or organizations, which decreased from 58% in 2021 to 50% in 2024.
Dreistadt said these changes are “concerning” for churches and ministries:
“It’s something that is of concern, certainly, for every church and every nonprofit organization that depends on donor dollars,” he said. “This becomes a very critical thing because … in some cases, the giving is down as much as 15%. And if you’re working with a tight budget, a 15% loss of revenue can be critical.”
But Dreistadt also pointed to a “deeper concern” reflected in some of the research he’s done—something he referred to as “a secularization of the church” and of the evangelical community.
Under this dynamic, he said spiritual practices are becoming “less and less significant to a greater number of people within that community.” Ultimately, it’s spiritual engagement that drives everything else in the faith space.
“When we find people who are truly spiritually engaged—they read their Bible, they’re in a home group or a study group, they go to church regularly, they regularly pray—[for] those folks the giving has stayed much closer to the norm,” he said. “So, I do think that there’s a deeper spiritual problem driving some of this as well.”
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