When I meet with pastors and ask how giving is going, the answer is pretty much the same: Giving is down, and not just during the low seasons churches are used to experiencing.
The decline in giving is no longer seasonal but has become a permanent shift. This makes the latest numbers from Giving USA revealing and puzzling. In 2025, Americans gave $617 billion to charitable causes, surpassing $600 billion for the first time in history.
Jon Bergdoll, interim director of data and research partnerships at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, notes that while consumer sentiment was low and may have cooled giving by some households, overall giving grew positively in 2025. Just not necessarily toward the church.
Roberto Rueda
This report shows something churches should pay attention to. Religious giving, which is still the No. 1 category of charitable giving at close to $152 billion, has grown only 1.2% since 2005. At the same time, giving to education, human services, health, the arts and the environment all increased in 2025. Generosity grew across nearly every category of charitable giving, except religious giving, which has not moved much.
This is the reality: People are still giving and they are giving elsewhere.
There is some reason to be optimistic about this considering people are still being generous and they will have more opportunities to continue doing so. Now, a new universal charitable deduction means Americans have a financial incentive to give, up to $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly. But policy alone will not answer the deeper question of why giving is flat in churches.
Today, church members are being presented with opportunities to give in ways that have a direct effect and impact right away, or they are presented with visuals on social media of their giving impact. Contrast that to an offering plate placed in front of them or a church’s operational budget, or budget versus actual figures in bulletins, and you have a strong reason to see why giving is shifting. Giving out of duty or gratitude, while these should remain main motivators, is now being challenged with opportunities to give toward causes people care about and can see impact in the short term.
The giving problem churches are facing is not beyond repair. It is a problem of imagination, boldness and storytelling. This calls for getting to know our surrounding communities well, seeing where they are struggling, where they need a hand, and showing up in tangible ways.
“The giving problem churches are facing is not beyond repair. It is a problem of imagination, boldness and storytelling.”
In our context at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, a study found close to 48% of students experience food insecurity. Our response was to open a pay-what-you-can deli where students have access to food with dignity. The result was a living example of the church in action, and it created opportunities for others to join us. When people started learning what we were doing, giving increased, not only toward the food ministry but toward our general ministry as well.
Stories like this show people can get behind ministries they care about, and churches everywhere could tell stories of the meaningful ways they are showing God’s love to others. Consider the Faithful Generosity Story Shelf by Lake Institute of Faith and Giving.
Today there is reason to feel hopeful. The truth of all generations still stands: God will provide. Our task is to be the church in action, to seek to be an active and tangible presence in the lives of people around us, and to give witness of what God is doing among us.
It is easy to lose sight of this or to feel inadequate to the task. People often say to me, “I could never start a pay-what-you-can deli, I don’t have the funds.” I tell them we never started big. We simply started doing the small things we could with the few dollars we had, and God started sending people our way ready to give.
Roberto Rueda serves as director of the Baptist Student Ministry at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border and is pursuing a doctoral degree in philanthropy at Indiana University, where his research focuses on philanthropy and generosity within Latino faith communities.
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University students experience high rates of food insecurity