I’m headed to The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Conference later this week, taking place right here in Washington D.C!
I’ll be at the event November 21-23 and presenting on Thursday, November 21st from 2-3 pm (in meeting room 13).
For years, my research partner, Dr. Brad Fulton of Indiana University, and I have been investigating the often overlooked “Ecosystem of Faith-Inspired Grantmaking.” Our ongoing work aims to identify the scope and scale of faith-inspired grantmakers and understand their grantmaking
One key question drives our research: How large is the field of faith-inspired grantmakers?
Here’s a sneak peek at what we’ve uncovered:
17% of public grantmakers and 28% of private grantmakers identify with a religious tradition. Together they give about 15% of all grant dollars – that was $17.8 billion in 2019! These organizations are diverse, including Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian Scientist, Hindu, Humanist, Interfaith, Mormon, Muslim, Yoga, and Fraternal organizations, with the largest shares being Christian (53%) and Jewish (27%).
We also find these organizations strongly dislike the term “faith-based,” even when their founders were people of faith, and their religious identity influences their organizational values and grantmaking practices. These grantmakers told us repeatedly that they “aren’t faith-based" because they “give to everyone,” rather than just to people or organizations that match their religious identity. The term “faith-inspired” was more acceptable.
And this insistence that they “give to everyone” showed up in their grantmaking too – particularly for private grantmakers. Over half their grantees were secular. Public grantmakers were less likely to give to secular grantees or to those that didn’t match their religious identity, but we believe that is a function of how auxiliary fundraising organizations support faith-inspired hospitals and schools.
One particularly relevant, and likely surprising, finding we’ve uncovered reveals insights into grantmaking on reproductive health and abortion-access issues: 88% of abortion-related funding went to pro-choice organizations, while 12% supported pro-life groups. And, notably, over 90% of the pro-choice funding came from private Jewish grantmakers. That is a truly significant number that was previously unknown.
There is so much more to explore in this data on faith-inspired grantmakers, and we're excited to talk about the effects of faith-inspired grantmaking on the nonprofit and philanthropic fields. Curious to join this conversation and hear more?
Join me at ARNOVA on Thursday, November 21 at 2pm! I hope to see you there. Or, if you can’t make it, reach out directly at allison@cohesionstrategy.com.
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