Reddit removed post
If we assume that 300 is kind of a high number with a holiday and a bunch of kids there, plus I figure a lot of people donate as a family not an individual. Say at the high mark that's 200 people donating every month that's still $325 per donor, which seems crazy to me
From my own experiences with chruch finances, there are always a significant number of people who don't donate significant amounts. Median donation is usually more meaningful than mean donation. Most churches have a small number of sugar daddies (or, more commonly, sugar mamas) who provide the bulk of donations.
The couple of big donors are almost always senior citizens. There is then a second tier of middle-age doctors, lawyers, insurance agents, or other high-income individuals. They will be cautious about over-donating until their kids are through college (including grad school) and established in their own professions. They will be cautious until their 401ks hit target levels. By the time they are senior citizens they will have moved into top-tier donors.
The problem a lot of churches have is they have lost the mid-tier professional donors. There are a lot of churches that are still holding onto their top-tier senior donors. The churches are surviving on those big donors. They are deferring maintenance. Also, they are saving money because they don't have to spend money on a lot of youth programs (the youth are gone).
When the senior donors die, there is no one to replace them.
That's a really good point. Somehow I wasn't thinking about this and I looked over a nonprofit's financials just last year. It was crazy to see that while they had hundreds of donors, 80 to 90% of all their money came from one really wealthy guy. I of course asked the same question that you mentioned here, what happens to your organization when this guy stops? Nobody had an answer for that, just hoped that some other rich person would appear.
That is when you start looking at 2nd tier donors. Are those second-tier donors professionals and business owners who are likely to step up when they become wealthy senior citizens? Or, are they middle class wage earners who are not accumulating real wealth because they have maxed out their donations?
The one person who did all the primary handshaking and fundraising sort of stuff passed away. From what you're saying it sounds like no one else really fills that role so they're just going to slowly wither down until that one rich donor gives up.
People have to spend many thousands of dollars to go through all the various Scientology levels and find out about Xenu and all that bullshit. Even though all of their bad science fiction is online for free!
Christianity usually requires (or heavily implies) people to give 10% of earnings.
I grew up catholic and they never specified an amount, just that you should give something. My parents were pretty broke so they put a couple dollars in the basket but that was it. I hadn't even heard of the 10% number until years later when I read about tithing in some other churches.
In baptist church, this was not required, but welcomed. Meanwhile, Bahá'í have to give 10% of their earnings or so.
A lot of churches do use tithing. That is generally 10% of income. Some groups, such as Mormons, demand 10% of gross income, so that is income before taxes. Other churches allow deductions and do 10% of net. It varies greatly. Some churches don't do formal percents, but the leadership has a pretty good idea about what most people are making and how much they are giving.
No modern churches except for cults follow what the New Testament says about donating. Jesus was anti-wealth and said that all money should be given to the church. There is an example in Acts about a couple who didn't give everything to the church, and God punished them for it. Christians spend a lot of time and effort trying to ignore those requirements.
I have a church across the street. I try to keep track of what they are doing because they have done some stuff bad for the neighborhood. They publish the results of their business meetings online, and I try to keep up on them. Their last budget was over $65,000 per month. Their average attendance was 300, and that is during Easter season when attendance is higher than normal. The 300 would include kids and adults. This is not a rich neighborhood. Their parking lot has Fords and Hondas, not BMWs.