Current Research | The Lake Institute on Faith & Giving

News & Media | FAQ | Contact Us

Center Overview 20th Anniversary Celebration Annual Report Board of Visitors Director's Monthly Letter Media Contact Open Positions Senior Staff Staff Directory Strategic Plan

Academic Programs Millennium Philanthropic Services Research The Fund Raising School The Lake Institute Women's Philanthropy Institute

Giving Opportunities Donate Online Gift Form

Events Alumni Association Subscribe to E-Newsletter Link to IU Alumni Associations

Lake Institute

Welcome

About the Institute

Programs

Offerings

Research

Suggested Reading, Resources

Books

Event Calendar

Contact Us

Current Research

Click here for archived research.
Click here for suggested resources and reading.

Geography and Giving: The Culture of Philanthropy in New England and the Nation

was enthusiastically received by the Boston community. Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO of The Boston Foundation, asserted, "Based on the superb research conducted at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, led by Director Paul G. Schervish and Senior Associate Director John J. Havens, this report identifies and analyzes the mosaic of cultural, historical, demographic, and socio-economic factors that shape the giving patterns in greater Boston, Massachusetts and New England - adding dramatically to the understanding of our distinctive regional culture." The Boston Foundation, Grogan notes, published this report in order to provide important new knowledge, to stimulate a conversation about the practice and power of philanthropy, and to strengthen Greater Boston's nonprofit sector.

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid. Read the report here...

Bank of America High Net Worth Study. Bank of America Study on High Net-Worth Philanthropy

High Net-Worth households, those with incomes of greater than $200,000 or assets in excess of $1,000,000, represent 3.1 percent of the total households in the United States. This very small number of households has an enormously disproportionate impact on charitable giving – they are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all household charity in this country. The Bank of America Study of High Net-Worth Philanthropy is the most in-depth quantitative study of those households aimed at understanding not only their charitable practices, but also the motivations behind them. Bank of America, one of the leading providers to both philanthropic individuals and institutions, partnered with the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, one of the nation’s leading academic centers for the study and practice of philanthropy. Based on a random survey of over 30,000 households in high net-worth neighborhoods across the country (1,400 responses), this landmark study has major implications for the philanthropic sector: those who donate, the nonprofits that benefit from those donations, and the financial institutions that support them. These are the initial findings from the study. There are some very interesting findings relation to religion in this report.

Click here to download the report (printer-friendly version in PDF format)

The Nature and Causes of the U-Shaped Giving Profile

The U-shaped income-giving profile, where those in the lower and higher income brackets give higher percentages of their income to charity, has been the subject of much dispute. This article from NVSQ, Vol. 36, No. 2, June 2007 (pages 218-238) from a study using data from 16,442 households, supports the presence of the U-shaped relationship, while showing how findings contradicting the U-shaped profile suffer from selection bias that systematically deflates reported lower-income giving levels. Nonetheless the paper goes on to state that the U-shaped profile does not reflect typical household behavior. Instead it is driven almost entirely by the 5% of households that contribute one tenth or more of their after-tax income. Traditionally, the presence of so many highly committed, low-incomes households has been attributed to religious sect affiliation by the poor. The authors find that an additional explanation is that these highly committed, lower-income households are dramatically wealthier than other members in their income classifications, in part reflecting the presence of lower-income, higher-asset, retirement-aged households.

From: The Nature and Causes of the U-Shaped Charitable Giving Profile, by Russell N. James III (University of Georgia) and Deanna L. Sharpe (University of Missouri-Columbia), in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, June 2007 218-238. DOI: 10.1177 / 08997640006295993

Insuring Consumption and Happiness Through Religious Organizations

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) and the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this paper finds that households that contribute to a religious organization are better able to insure their consumption against income shocks and that individuals who attend religious services are better able to insure their happiness against income shocks. Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone (2000), argues that community (and hence also religious) organizations play an important role in providing social capital and in fostering norms of mutual aid and reciprocity among individuals. Others (Iannaccone 1992 and Berman 2000) show that many of the costs of religious participation, such as adherence to religious strictures, can be rationalized as mechanisms to prevent free-riding on benefits provided by the religious group; in other words, religious organizations have mechanisms to limit adverse selection. Moreover, the monitoring of fellow members of the organization is likely to reduce moral hazard. One would therefore expect religious organizations to be well positioned to provide consumption insurance against income shocks, which is one of the hypotheses that this paper investigates.

From: Insuring consumption and happiness through religious organizations, by Rajeev D ehejia (Tufts University, NBER), Thomas DeLeire (Michigan State University, Congressional Budget Office), and Erzo F.P. Luttmer (NBER, Harvard University), in Journal of Public Economics, Volume 91, Issues 1-2, February 2007, Pages 259-279

Read the paper here...

From Piety to Professionalism – and Back? Transformations of Organized Religious Virtuosity

“Patricia Wittberg’s From Piety to Professionalism – and Back? Transformations of Organized Religious Virtuosity provides a rich, well-researched addition to the literature on the dynamic between faith communities and their nonprofits. Wittberg explores the impact on the religious orders of changes in the relationship between nonprofit organizations founded by religious orders and women’s organized virtuosi – Catholic nuns, Protestant deaconesses, and mission society members. Wittberg’s book is particularly valuable as one of a few studies that examine how nonprofits build and sustain religion, addressing an often-overlooked critical issue for scholars and practitioners of religious identity and mission-driven service. Weaving together historical documents, she generalized her findings to other religious institutions and Christian denominations.” Review by Jo Anne Schneider, in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 4, December 2007 730-755

GIVING USA (The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2006)

In 2006, an estimated $96.82 billion was giving to religious organizations. This is an increase of 4.5 percent (1.2 percent adjusted for inflation) from 2005.
Giving to religion has increased over time, but at a slower rate than giving to other subsectors.
As a percentage of total giving, religion’s share has fallen from roughly half (45.7 percent) in 1966 to just under one-third (32.8 percent).
An overview of the growth in giving to religion from 1966 to 2006.

Giving To Religion, 1966 - 2006
Year	Inflation Adjusted Dollars	Current Dollars
1966	44.93	7.22
1971	50.12	10.07
1976	50.25	14.18
1981	55.56	25.05
1986	76.66	41.68
1991	74.01	50.00
1996	79.53	61.90
2001	90.92	79.87
2006	96.82	96.82

Over a 20 year span 1987 – 1996 and 1997 – 2006 (adjusted for inflation), giving to religious organizations showed the lowest rate of growth of the various subsectors.
Religious organizations received the largest amount of donations during each of the five-year spans over the last 40 years. During this time, contributions to this subsector have nearly doubled (a 94 percent increase).

THE ROLE OF FOUNDATIONS IN AMERICAN RELIGION – Robert Wuthnow and D. Michael Lindsay

Top 25 Foundations Ranked by Total Grants to Religion, 1999 – 2003
There is a wide range in the percentage of total grant dollars each foundation spends on religion, from a low of 1 percent for the Ford Foundation to a high of 99 percent for the Eagle’s Wing Foundation. The mean is 36.2 percent.
There is also a wide range in the number of grants to religion that foundations make. The Koch Foundation, for instance, gave nearly 3,000 grants between 1999 and 2003, whereas the Florik Charitable Trust gave only 8. The mean number of grants to religion for these 25 foundations was 375, or an average of 75 annually.
Most significantly, the dollar value of all grants to religion between 1999 and 2003 also varies dramatically, ranging from a high of $305 million from the Lilly Endowment to just under $16 million from the Stewardship Foundation. An indication of the skewness of these amounts is the fact that half of the $1.2 billion given to religion by these 25 foundations came from only the top 5.
Wuthnow and Lindsay also report on the volatility of grant making to religion:
- One indication of this volatility is the fact that only 7 of these 25 foundations were among the top-ranked 25 in their respective years for all 5 of the years between 1999 and 2003. When examining the top 50 foundations for each of these years, Wuthnow and Lindsay found that 114 foundations had been among this number at least once.
- In 15 of the 25 comparisons, the amount granted in the lowest years was less than 50 percent of the amount given in the highest year.
- Another measure of volatility is the average of the percentage by which the amount given each year differed from the amount given in the preceding year. In 14 of the 21 instances in which these calculations were possible, the average annual percent change was more than 25 percent (and in an equal number of cases the number of grants given also changed by this much).
- After awarding 18 grants to various groups between 1999 and 2003, totaling more than $33 million, the Eagle’s Wing Foundation was dissolved in 2004. The Florik Charitable Trust, which was dissolved in 2005, followed a similar trajectory.
However, Wuthnow and Lindsay also report that when looking at the organizations that received the most money for religion from foundations between 1999 and 2003, in nearly every case the top donor was the source of at least 85 percent of the recipient organization’s grants from private foundations and in some cases provided all its grants. So, although volatility seems to be in play, there appears to be one major foundation to whom most recipient organizations can look as a somewhat stable source of support.
Small foundations pay an important role in American religion. According to data from the National Center for Family Foundations, family foundations are consistently more likely to give to religious nonprofits than independent foundations in general. Smaller foundations, which have smaller staffs, often prefer to support local initiatives, and religious entities benefit from community ties. Building campaigns at local houses of worship, fundraising drives, and religious festivals in the community have all been supported with funds from small, local foundations.
A survey of foundation philanthropy across the religious landscape reveals the prevalence of a “silo effect”. Religious recipients of grants from a single foundation tend to resemble one another as well as the granting foundation in terms of religious tradition. In an era of significant institutional differentiation (Friedland and Alford 1991), this kind of unifying principle in noteworthy: indeed, this “silo effect” is one of the distinctives of religious philanthropy.
Wuthnow and Lindsay also inquired into what organizations receive money given for religion by the 25 foundations under study. The top 2 recipient organizations are Jewish, and 7 of the top 15 are Jewish. This fact underscores the importance of Jewish foundations and Jewish federations at the national and municipal level. However, it is important to realize that the presence of these organizations among the top recipients of foundation support is an artifact of the federated structure of these organizations as opposed to the more dispersed pattern among Protestant and Catholic organizations.
The total foundation funding received by “Catholic” or “Archdiocese” organizations between 1999 and 2003 was: $464 million. During the same period “Presbyterian” organizations received $275 million; “Baptist” organizations, $219 million; “Methodist” organizations, $200 million; “Christian” organizations, $199 million; “Episcopal” organizations, 149 million; and “Lutheran” organizations, $144 million. The total for all these Christian organizations is $1.6 billion – virtually identical to the foundation support received by Jewish organizations.
The remaining recipients of major religious grants fall into three broad categories. The first involve specific projects such as DeMoss’ support for Power for Living and Templeton’s underwriting of the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences. Second among the remaining grants are those directed to large religious institutions. Roman Catholic Archdioceses such as those in Chicago and Los Angeles have benefited from private foundation grants in recent years. Also among this class of grants are those awarded to faith-oriented special purpose organizations (also called “parachurch” organizations). Campus Crusade for Christ, Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Samaritan’s Purse have all received large foundation grants. Indeed, with the world of evangelical foundation philanthropy, there appears to be a preference for funding large, existing organizations. The third category of religious grants includes those awarded to build and maintain institutions. Lilly’s support of Union Theological Seminary, which as faced a serried of financial crises in recent years, is representative of this trend.
Wuthnow and Lindsay tackle the problem of misclassification of grant categories which is particularly pernicious in the realm of religion. There are many activities that receive grant funding that have strong connections with religion, even though they don’t qualify as “religion” according to NTEE categorization. For example, analysis of the grant making of “faith-friendly” foundations showed that few of them had formal restrictions against giving money to faith-based social service organizations and that several provided substantial funding to such organizations. The best example of such funding would be grants to the Salvation Army, which totaled $306 million between 1999 and 2003, including sizeable grants from such “faith-friendly” foundations as the Lilly Endowment, Marcus Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Mega Churches

Over the past twenty years, the attendance of the churches (in the Faith Communities Today 2000 Survey) increased by an average rate of 90%.
In the last five years, the weekly worship attendance for three-quarters of these congregations grew by 10% or more.
The states with the greatest concentration of megachurches include: California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.
A list of sermons topics least preached on includes:
- The end times / second coming of Jesus – 1.0%
- Stewardship of time and money – 5%
- The gifts of the Holy Spirit – 11%
Percent of megachurches that report support of congregational social ministry programs (support is defined as material or financial contribution, member volunteer time, or space in building.)
- Cash or vouchers given to families or individuals – 91%
- Programs for youth and teens – 99%
- Counseling services or support groups – 95%
- Hospitals & nursing homes – 80%
- Thrift store or thrift store donations – 78%
- Temporary or permanent housing/shelter – 78%
- Senior citizen programs – 84%
- Substance abuse & 12 step programs – 85%
The average number of volunteer workers giving five or more hours a week to church was 297.
In 1999, 54% of megachurch respondents described the current financial health of their congregation as excellent, and another third said it was good. This financial picture has improved considerably since 1995 when only 30% rated it as excellent and 40% as good.
The average total annual income of the megachurches in the study for 1999 was 4.8 million dollars.
The average total annual income of the megachuches in the study for 2005 was 6 million dollars.
The average expenditures in 1999 for these same churches totaled 4.4 million dollars, and 5.6 million dollars in 2005.

LFI Greater Indianapolis Congregational Giving Survey

The Lake Institute on Faith & Giving (LI) at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University honors the legacy of Thomas and Marjorie Lake and encourages and performs work that examines the links between faith and giving in diverse religious traditions. One way the Lake Institute examines connections between faith and giving is by pursuing research into important philanthropic issues relevant to congregations, communities and nonprofit organizations. Congregational giving is perhaps one of the least understood ‘philanthropic issues,’ and LI is committed to building a lasting scholarly foundation for the exploration of the vital role religion plays in philanthropy. This research will be useful to both the academic and faith communities in the United States and abroad. This report marks a milestone for the Lake Institute as we present the results of the first LI Greater Indianapolis Congregational Giving Survey. With the generous collaboration of the Indianapolis Center for Congregations, 1,492 surveys were mailed with questions about congregational giving patterns in 2005. Data were collected and processed confidentially by the Indiana University Center for Survey Research. The analysis was completed by the Center on Philanthropy’s highly skilled Research Department. This document is a compilation of some of the findings that we thought might be of particular interest to faith communities, and was presented to a group of Indianapolis area congregations at a Lake Institute/Indianapolis Center for Congregations luncheon in September 2006.

Click here to download an Executive Summary of the survey.