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Giving to the parachurch
The great unknown in calculating Christians' charitable giving is the explosion of parachurch organizations. Research shows that churches are getting less money, proportionately. Are nonprofit organizations with more sophisticated fundraising methods getting more?

There are 600,000 nonprofit charitable organizations in the United States, and they appear to be growing fast. The number of those required to file returns with the IRS increased 78 percent between 1977 and 1990, while their revenues went up 227 percent in constant dollars. (Churches and organizations with less than $25,000 in income are not required to file.) By contrast, GNP increased only 52 percent. These nonprofits grew to almost 8 percent of the total American economy.

Church-growth expert David Barrett estimates that, worldwide, parachurch budgets are growing far faster than church budgets. He calculates that in 1900, parachurch organizations received $1 billion compared to $7 billion for churches. By 1970, the ratio had changed drastically—$20 billion for parachurches, $50 billion for churches. In 1996, by his estimates, parachurches had outgrown churches in total budget, $100 billion to $94 billion.

That analysis makes it sound as though the church is being submerged by a new species of institution. To some extent, that may be so. From another perspective, however, growth in parachurch giving is at least partly a return to nineteenth-century giving patterns when giving was more independent of denominations and "unified budgets." Missionaries were often sent out by independent or semi-independent boards, such as the American Missionary Association or the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Roving agents visited churches, soliciting funds for a variety of causes. Appeals had to be vivid and urgent in this competitive environment—a fact that led to "donor fatigue" and calls for reform. Beginning in the 1920s, such particular appeals were replaced by unified budgeting, shifting from the concept of designated giving to more general denominational support. As a 1929 study put it, "The faithful few … who had come through the years to visualize specific situations and needs, now had their eyes turned to a 'budget' to be raised."

The rise of parachurch giving may be simply a return to a more graphic, particular kind of appeal. Unlike the past, however, these appeals are not made in church. They are made through the mail or over the airwaves.

Uneasy about money
Considering that Christians are primary contributors, you might expect enthusiasm for giving to bubble out of our churches. Not at all. Robert Lynn, a student of the history of American Christian fundraising, writes that "one of the most familiar refrains in the Protestant teachings about giving involves a mournful recital of statistics. … This lament centers upon the gap between what Protestants can and should give and what they actually contribute." Lynn says there is no golden age we can return to, no time when Christians tithed unstintingly so that all that the church needed was provided. He quotes Dwight L. Moody saying, "Blessed are the money raisers, for in heaven they shall stand next to the martyrs."

Many commentators note the quiet nervousness that seems to afflict fundraising in church circles today. Wuthnow found that Americans almost never discuss their finances with anybody outside their family: 82 percent had never discussed their income, 89 percent had not discussed their family budget, 92 percent had never discussed their giving to charities. And Christians were least likely to talk: about a quarter of those who rarely go to religious services say most of their friends have told them how much money they make, but only one in eight of those who go to church weekly says so. Furthermore, "the least likely group with whom conversations about personal finances had taken place were fellow church or synagogue members. … Nearly as unlikely were members of the clergy." Notes Hugh Magers, "Episcopalians will tell you astounding things about their sexuality but not talk at all about their financial life."

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May 19 1997, Vol. 41, No. 6