Faith communities may be missing up to $30B in giving annually: study

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Wednesday, November 04, 2026

By creating more consistent givers, faith communities across the U.S. could generate up to $30 billion more in donations annually, according to a report released by Givelify Philanthropic Research & Insights, a research initiative of online and mobile donation platform Givelify.

In the 2026 Giving in Faith report, researchers highlight that the religious charitable sector receives more than $150 billion annually and even modest increases in consistent giving, defined as giving that occurs monthly for most months, “could meaningfully expand what congregations are able to sustain within their communities.”

Although only about 27.4% of congregants fit the definition of a consistent giver, according to the study, they account for some 81% of giving in churches. Church leaders tend to mistakenly estimate that more than half of their congregations qualify as consistent givers.

“Consistent givers are the financial backbone of their congregations, accounting for more than 81% of the total amount given. Yet they represent only a minority of faith-based donors. While most donors aspire to give more consistently, they struggle to translate those intentions into a sustained giving habit, a phenomenon known as the intention-action gap,” researchers explain.

“The findings [of the study] also reveal a significant disconnect between reality and church leaders’ perceptions of consistent giving. When asked to estimate what percentage of their congregation give consistently, church leaders reported an average of 53%, nearly double the observed rate of 27.4%,” they add. “The perception gap may carry important implications, as overestimating consistent giving could result in missed opportunities to support donors in building more consistent giving habits.”

The report suggests that if faith leaders want to create more consistent givers, they must bridge the “consistency shortfall” by moving donors through the three phases of what it calls the Consistent Giving Model: Opportunity, Intention and Action.

“Together, the intention-action gap and the church leader perception gap form what the report identifies as the consistency shortfall. The report estimates that this shortfall represents a potential financial impact of $25 to $30 billion annually across the religious charitable sector, including an estimated $50,000 in additional annual income for a typical congregation,” researchers note.

According to the report, repeated cycles of giving, reinforced over time, can turn generosity into a lasting habit rooted in a donor’s faith. Researchers suggest that faith leaders should abandon one-size-fits-all approaches to encourage giving in favor of tailored engagement strategies.

Givers were grouped as either devoted, steady, awakening, or unengaged.

Devoted givers give consistently, want to give even more and are the most likely to trust their church. Steady givers also give consistently but are satisfied with their current giving and less likely to connect it to spiritual growth. Awakening givers want to give consistently but often face financial barriers, while unengaged givers score lowest on religiosity and trust in their church.

Faith leaders were also urged to use technology to reinforce rather than replace donors’ intentions. The report also pointed to church leaders’ roles in teaching about generosity, modeling giving, sharing the impact of contributions and expressing gratitude to strengthen lasting habits.

A field experiment, for example, found that faith-based donors who used Givelify’s Champions of Good program, a faith-informed digital giving experience built on the science of habit formation and reinforcement, increased both the frequency and total amount of their giving relative to a matched group of donors who did not use the program, according to the report.

“The features were designed to leverage behavioral science principles, including donor recognition, goal-gradient effects, reflection on past giving, and streak-based accountability,” the report said. “The findings suggest these principles can positively influence giving behaviors within faith-based contexts as well.”

The report also found that most donors don’t use automatic recurring giving, often because of financial constraints or beliefs about giving as a spiritual practice. Researchers said recurring giving works best for donors who already give consistently and can afford to automate it.