Donations to Religious Organizations Dropped by $2 Billion in 2018, Study Finds

Religious donations dropped nearly $2 billion last year, reversing a years-long trend of steady growth, according to the Giving USA Foundation’s annual report on philanthropy.

The decline comes as 2018 marked the first full year of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. That law doubled the standard deductions for families meaning many filers no longer need to itemize charitable donations. Critics of the plan argued the change would hit charitable organizations hard, as there was no longer a tax incentive to give.

Giving USA Chair Rick Dunham, the CEO of Dunham + Company, in an interview with the Christian Post, suggested there were other factors at play in the findings.

“I do think there are some negative things happening within the religious community that could affect giving, such as a denominational split we are seeing, the problems within the Catholic church,” Dunham said. “There are a number of things that could definitely be forces that are driving down giving.”

The 2019 study, conducted by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and released on June 18, found that, although overall charitable giving in the U.S. rose 0.7 percent to a record level of nearly $428 billion last year, when adjusted for inflation total giving declined by 1.7 percent from 2017’s record levels.

In the religion category, giving dropped by…