Is your church managing its finances correctly?

It’s 2024, and financial stewardship for churches is becoming more important than ever. What does it even look like these days? What’s important? What’s not?

Church financial management in 2024 focuses on using modern tools and strategies to ensure stability and growth. Managing church finances has become more complex, with many congregations relying on digital giving platforms, transparent budgeting, and new software.

It’s crucial for church leaders to understand the changing landscape to keep the church’s finances in good shape. With inflation and changing donor behaviors, financial management requires a strategic approach, balancing day-to-day needs with long-term goals.

Understanding church finances helps leaders make wise decisions that align with their mission while ensuring that resources are used effectively.

In this podcast, we’ll look at financial reports for churches to get an understanding of our situation, then dive into some tips for effective church financial management.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Table of contents

• Church Finances: The Stats
  • Giving Sources
  • How Much Are People Giving?
  • How Do Churches Spend Their Income?
  • Church Finances
• Tips for Healthy Financial Management
  • 1. Build an Emergency Fund
  • 2. Create a Church Financial Planning Strategy
  • 3. Set Up Online Giving Solutions
  • 4. Budget Based on Your Church Size
  • 5. Promote Generosity While Practicing Stewardship
• Managing Church Funds
• More on Church Finances

When looking at church financial management in 2024, we need to look at the numbers. What do the statistics say about finances? How can we use these numbers to help in our financial planning?

First up, we have to look at where the money is coming from. Churches are getting financed somehow. In most cases, this looks like tithes and offerings collected from members.

According to Philanthropy Outlook (via Vanco), 49% of the U.S. population gives to religious organizations. That’s almost half of all Americans! Pretty awesome, right? However, its not as high as its always been.

According to the New York Times (also via Vanco), the share of overall donations going to religious organizations dropped by 50% between 1990 and 2015.

Looking at stats from Enterprise Apps Today (via ChurchTrac), we see that 49% of all donations to churches are given by credit cards or other electronic ways, while 40% come from in-person cash or checks.

Speaking of digital giving, churchgoers ages 35-44 are 2x as likely to give with an app compared to those age 24-34 (according to the Vanco Churchgoer Giving Study). Statistics also show that adding an online giving option increases church donations by 32% (according to Nonprofits Source).

According to the U.S. Bank Study (via Vanco), 76% of people don’t carry more than $50 in cash at any given time. This makes it extra important that your church has online giving options!

However, even with as many giving options as possible, it’s important to know that according to Nonprofit Source, only about 10-25% of church members tithe.

ChurchSalary reports that churches of 50 people saw $2,589 as average per-person giving, while churches of 5,000 in attendance reported an average per-person giving of $2,340. Here is their image that breaks things down into even more detail. For reference, PPG means “per person giving”.

It’s clear that per-person giving is higher for smaller churches than it is for bigger churches. Therefore the average church size of 125 or fewer people sees average annual per person giving over $2500.

To break things down even more, according to Health Research Funding, average tithing by adults in U.S. Protestant churches is ~$17 a week.

Your church can use these numbers to help estimate how much income it will make. If you know an estimate of your church’s financial resources, you will be able to spend your church’s funds more wisely and never go over budget.

Despite these stats being helpful, we encourage you to keep track of your own numbers and find averages and trends you can use.

So now we know where the money is coming from and how much churches are making. But what do most churches do with their money?

According to ChurchSalary, churches usually spend 40-60% of their budget on payroll, with 49.1% being the average.

However according to the same source, the smaller the church, the less is spent on payroll.

According to