Overall giving to evangelical churches and ministries fell in 2022 for the first time in a decade, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability said Wednesday.

Donations fell by 0.7% in 2021-2022 after having risen 3.9% in 2019-2020, according to financial reports submitted to the Christian organization.

However, evangelical ministries and churches have reported an increase in cash donations in 2023, the Christian financial standards association reported.

The evangelical council’s figures come on the heels of a report from the BBB’s Give.org unit, also known as the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, showing that religious charities were displaced from the “most trusted” ranking for the first time, falling behind veterans’ charities and nonprofit hospitals.

Cash donations are important to the churches, schools and ministries that comprise the council’s membership, accounting for 80.7% of annual revenue, or $21 billion last year. Non-cash giving such as donated services and gifts-in-kind accounted for $4.7 billion, or 4.7%, while tuition, program fees and investment income brought in 14.6% of revenue, or 14.6%.

“I am just amazed at how generous people are, even when you take out the significant impact of inflation,” said Warren Bird, an ECFA vice president. “There has been … consistent growth in giving over the last nine or 10 years, this last year being just a slight dip of less than 1% after adjusting for inflation.”

Nonprofit members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability reported a 0.2% drop in cash giving last year and churches noted a 3.8% decline. The council said the shortfalls made it difficult for the evangelical entities to keep up with inflation, which hit 6.5% last year.

The council said more than half of its members — 51% of ministries and 56% of churches — expect cash giving this year to be higher than it was at the end of 2022. Student and youth ministries, at 63%, were the most optimistic, followed by rescue missions and groups serving the homeless (56%), evangelism ministries(55%) and education (53%) in the top four categories.

Although the report noted a 13.8% overall increase in programming expenses last year, slightly more than twice the rate of inflation, council members said they would maintain or increase their programming. Among ministry groups, 89% said they would grow or maintain such activities, while the total was 88% for churches.

Few organizations or churches said they decreased staff in 2023, and most — 92% of ministries and 90% of churches — reported plans to maintain or increase staff rosters next year. Ministries, 44% of whom said they would grow staff, outpaced church projections, at 31%.

Churches, at 74%, said their greatest issue was in recruiting volunteers, while 73% of ministries reported a challenge in attracting major donors of $10,000 a year or greater, and 62% said attracting new donors below that figure was an issue.

The evangelical council report quoted an unnamed “smaller rescue mission” in Georgia as being optimistic about fundraising prospects in the New Year.

“God has been good to us, and we’re standing in faith for blessings to continue as we seek to do His will in serving others. We recently created and recruited for a Development Coordinator position, our first designated position to focus on fundraising efforts,” the mission said.

Educational institutions from K-12 schools to colleges to graduate schools saw double-digit increases in cash donations, the council report indicated.

K-12 schools saw a 238.6% rise, colleges and universities noted a 17.1% increase, and seminaries and graduate schools reported a 16.9% growth in cash donations. Those increases took three of the five top spots for ministries experiencing the highest cash-giving increases last year.

The council said funding models among membership categories vary widely, with K-12 education reporting 37% of revenue coming from cash gifts, while organizations involved in child sponsorship and orphan care derive 95% of their income from cash donations.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was formed in 1979 in response to scandals involving televangelists such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. The group has codes of conduct for ministries designed to avoid misuse of funds and has removed organizations for breaches of those rules.

A copy of the report and additional information is available online at http://www.ecfa.org/stateofgiving.