Listened to a great ECFA webinar with Brian Kluth, of Maximum Generosity, as the speaker. Survey of 1,507 churches show slight improvement in giving during 2010.
“State of the Plate” survey was conducted in February 2011. It showed about the same proportion of churches experiencing a decline in giving along with an increase in the proportion seeing an increase.
Of interest to me is the 3 year trend data:
- Change in giving level
- 2008 2009 2010
- Increase 46% 35% 43%
- flat 25% 27% 18%
- Decline 29% 38% 39%
You can draw your own conclusions from the data. My perception is there is slight improvement in the overall trends. The improvement isn’t great, but it is good news that the decline has stopped.
There is a lot of information at the State of the Plate website.
Most of the data is in the executive summary.
Lots of nice graphs which summarize their data here.
Looks to be some superb resources at the web site too. I encourage you to check out the site.