Seventh-day Adventist church members in the North American Division have a reputation for outstanding generosity. In recent years, however, there has been a disturbing slump in their per capita giving (see table). Stated in 1987 dollars, adjusted for inflation, tithe per capita rose from $383.20 in 1950 to peak in 1970 at $594.36 and then slump to $467.79 in 1990. Per capita Sabbath school and mission offerings also fell dramatically from $136.40 in 1950 to $25.75 in 1990. Per capita giving to local projects rose from $98.77 in 1950, peaked at $296.55 in 1970, then fell back to $235.33 in 1990.1 Some may suggest that reduced earnings is the reason for reduced giving. However, the last column in Table 1 shows that disposable personal income per capita in the United States has risen steadily, in constant 1987 dollars.
Reasons for reduced giving must be sought elsewhere. This article highlights several attitude and lifestyle trends, identified in the United States, that may partially account for this reduction in giving. The article also explores the impact of these trends on church leadership, local and cooperate.
Selected social trends in the U.S.
Socioquake is a word coined by Faith Popcorn,2 a researcher of sociological and consumer trends, and consultant to many Fortune 500 corporations. Socioquake describes the dramatic societal shake-ups in the United States, which, in "seismic" terms, will far exceed previous socioeconomic tremors. The effects of these demographic and lifestyle changes on the management and marketing practices of most organizations are often tracked and commented on by strategists and trend-trackers.3 The effect of these trends on the strategies of not-for-profit organizations is often ignored. Even less is written about the implications for religious organizations or churches. The consequences of ignoring what is happening in society would be disastrous for any organization, including the church.
The following societal trends have been selected from among many, particularly for their impact on management practices and strategies within church organizations.
Collapse of confidence.4 Big government, large corporations, small businesses, health care providers, charities, and churches-all have fallen from grace. The trust of customers, members, and supporters has been violated, time after time. Credibility has been severely impaired. The tragedy is that these trust violators have not been limited to slick politicians or unscrupulous marketers. Too many "saints" have also demonstrated their sinfulness by misappropriating donated funds, mismanaging church assets, or failing to render adequate account of entrusted resources.
Sense of victimization.5 People react---often excessively---as they search for payback or revenge. Popcorn writes of the vigilante consumer.6 For church organizations, the vigilante consumer/supporter has been transformed from the odd single "troublemaker" at the annual church business meeting into an array of disillusioned supporters, complete with photocopy, fax machine, and Internet, demanding more detailed answers to their questions, more frequent feedback, and greater control over the resources they have contributed.
Cocooning. Popcorn defines cocooning as "the impulse to go inside when it just gets too tough and scary outside.... Cocooning is about insulation and avoidance, peace and protection, coziness and control."7 Americans are retreating from a dangerous world they feel they cannot control, into a smaller world (their home) where they can feel more control. So they screen their incoming telephone calls, shop from home, have their favorite foods delivered to their door, run businesses from home, and beef up their home security. When they leave home, they do so in the plush comfort of their mobile cocoon (minivan). Only those who are invited gain entrance to the cocoon.
Churches are having a more difficult time accessing their members than ever before. Some members are even using call screening facilities against church agents just as effectively as they use them against overzealous telemarketers.
Personalization. People are no longer prepared to accept that they are just a digit in a supercomputer. They now demand recognition of their unique identity. Personal service and customization have become important. Naisbitt and Aburdene call this trend "the triumph of the individual." In a church situation, members are demanding that they be treated as respected individuals, rather than as part of a faceless mass.
The do-it-yourself trend.8 Henkoff calls this trend powerful, massive, and unorganized. Victims of poor service and shoddy products are doing for themselves what they once entrusted to others. They are buying in bulk. They drive utility vehicles that allow greater versatility and do-it-yourself capability. They go for do-it-yourself home products.
These do-it-yourselfers stay abreast of events and information through the Internet. They manage their own finances through electronic connections with banks and brokers. They communicate across the world with friends and business associates via fax and E-mail. And it is all happening in and around the home cocoon as a way of regaining control, avoiding the rip-off, stretching the dollar, and achieving a sense of pride and accomplishment. These are the members who are likely to give their tithe and offerings electronically, who want to dialogue with their pastors or conference leaders via the Internet, who want to be actively involved in the planning and running of church projects, and who want to keep a supervisory eye on how church finances are being used.
Who are these do-it-yourselfers? Henkoff says they are "mostly middle-aged and middle-class," and the baby boomers (those born soon after World War II), who to date are the most important segment of the American economy. They are well educated, smart, technologically alert, and astute buyers who tend to be early adopters of new products, ideas, and services.
If the baby boomers are the muscle behind the do-it-yourself trend, there is yet another group that has "much in common with their boomer siblings"9 : the 18- to 34-year-olds, called Generation X. This group makes up about 30 percent of the U.S. population compared to 26 percent in the case of the boomers. We have largely ignored this new generation, and yet these are the very members we hope will fill our pews, fund our projects, and provide new leadership.
Felt needs behind the trends
What are the underlying motives driving these trends? What do church administrators and pastors need to understand that can help them restructure the giving systems of the church? Here are some of the motives that prompt many, especially in the North American church:
1. Economics---the need to believe that the church is stretching its resources and gaining better value for its money.
2. Personal involvement---the need of members to be personally involved and to have a sense of accomplishment, a sense of ownership.
3. Control---the members' felt need to have control of their lives, their choices, their resources, and the quality of everything they are involved in.
4. Distrust of people and organizations that fail to honor promises and live up to declared values.
5. A desire for respect and recognition.
6. The search for an anchor---individuals or a structure with uncompromising, rock-steady integrity they can depend on.
The cash flow problem
We return now to the problem of why funding for the Adventist Church has decreased. The answer is multifaceted.
There are powerful spiritual and philosophical factors at work. Are the do-it-yourselfers in the church losing their faith in administration? Is this causing them to evade their commitment to the church's mission?
Demographic factors could also influence cash flow. In the United States church growth during recent decades has sprung from lower income groups rather than from the upper income groups.
There are promotional factors that may be responsible. This article concentrates only on one slice of the total picture---the social factors identified in this article as they impact on local and corporate church leadership.
These social factors suggest that loss of confidence, decreased accountability, and the depersonalization of the funding process have been major contributors to the decline in giving. We have already seen in the table that donations peaked in 1970. Tithe per capita decreased after that. Could this correlate with the breakout of major church issues that rocked member confidence in the seventies and eighties? The table also shows that as giving to Sabbath school and missions decreased, offerings to local projects increased. Could it be that as feedback and control over mission projects decreased, members diverted their giving to local needs where they had more control and could ensure greater value for their money? It is true, however, that even local giving decreased in real terms after 1970. This could be because of the same dwindling trust that drove tithe downward.
Church members who are part of the do-it-yourself trend are genuinely concerned that their donations be used for their intended purpose, and used efficiently. But they apparently feel that their trust has been so violated that they prefer to transfer their funds to projects that give them regular feedback on efficiency of fund usage and some degree of control.
Implications for the local and corporate church
What impact will these trends have on the way we lead the church? Both baby boomers and Generation Xers wait in the wings to take over the leadership and support roles in the church, but currently show little interest in the church as they perceive it, and are the most distrustful of leadership. Listening and reasonably adapting to their needs would have to be a priority.
How do leaders rebuild trust and reestablish a real sense of ownership? To start with, here are some suggestions:
- Redesign the local and corporate accounting and reporting system to ensure higher levels of accountability.
- Avoid establishing funding to be disbursed at the sole discretion of any one person with little accountability to anyone else. This is a sure way to erode confidence, even if handled by the most honest church leader.
- Increase the status and importance of the audit report, which should not only be carefully digested by leaders, but sent to executive committee members and, where appropriate, to constituency business meetings. Auditors should write their reports with the average nonaccountant in mind and explain the implications of their findings carefully and in common terms. Church auditors should be totally independent, answerable ultimately to church members only in a constituency session.
- Assure donors of maximum economic value. As administering a larger church becomes more challenging and complicated, higher proportions of the donated dollar go for maintaining the system, and expenses tend to be managed with less care. In today's distrustful atmosphere more accountability is imperative.
- Give supporters more control over their donations and foster a sense of personal accomplishment. Start by making available a range of projects, with details of what is needed for members to get involved. Put a face on each project. Then invite members to make direct donations to specific projects of their choice---donations involving both theor skills and their dollars. Give them regular, detailed feedback on progress and finances, and ask for their comments, questions, or counsel---and actually listen to what they say.
- Cultivate the servant model of leadership and bury forever the autocratic model that so easily creeps in.
- Create an open, trusting culture, from top to bottom. Have an open-door policy by which any individual or group can approach church leaders, be heard, and be given complete and honest explanations to all questions. This could involve opening an E-mail line to dialogue with them.
- Provide continuing training for leaders in current management techniques.
- Avoid the slightest conflict of interest.
- Make both the president and treasurer directly accountable to the governing committee. Removing the financial officer from accountability to the president creates an additional check on financial decisions, and a roadblock to dictatorship by either officer.
- Provide an easily accessible, independent, arbitration panel that can act as an "appeals court" for members or employees who are dissatisfied with actions taken by administrators.
- Increase the laymember component on church institution boards and controlling committees.
- Establish an organizational structure that makes church leaders directly accountable to their constituency and gives more authority to local churches.
- Restore authentic spirituality to the center of Christian leadership.
General fund needs
Some may well ask,"What happens to the general operating fund that is still the backbone of the church mission program?" What if everybody chooses one or another exciting, high-profile project from the list and neglects the needs of the general fund? Who pays for administrative overhead, for the retirement fund, and other less appealing infrastructural necessities?
Do-it-yourselfers are not the whole church. There are still many members who do not have the temperament or need to be so involved and controlling. These other members will likely still donate to whatever church fund is currently promoted. Thus, strong public promotion of needy funds will continue to be necessary, but the needs must still be more personalized. Once church leaders have regained the members' trust, it is likely that the do-it-yourselfers will resume giving to the general fund. The key is to regain trust. The rebuilding of trust can work only if applied as a package. Band-aids applied here or there will not work.
Many of the suggestions listed above are already being practiced in parts of the church. Individually they will not accomplish much until there is a true cultural shift that transforms the churches' mind-set and organizational system. The central leadership focus should be on creating and maintaining a long-term trusting bond with individual church members.
1. Annetta Gibson, "Divisional Winners in the Growing World Church" (presentation at Andrews University School of Business, Crosstalk program, Nov. 20, 1992).
2. F. Popcorn, The Popcorn Report (London: Arrow Books, 1991), p. 228.
3. See, for example, K. J. Clancy and R. S. Shulman, The Marketing Revolution (New York: Harper Business, 1991), p. 314; P. F. Drucker, Post Capitalist Society (New York: Harper Business, 1993), p. 232; J. Naisbitt and P. Aburdene, Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s (New York: Avon Books, 1990), p. 416; T. Peters, Liberation Management (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992), p. 834.
4. A. Clurman, "Social Change in a Marketing Context" (presented at a meeting of the Michiana Chapter of the American Marketing Association in South Bend, Indiana, Oct. 20,1994). (Ann Clurman is a partner at Yankelovich Partners, Inc.)
5. Ibid.
6. Popcorn, pp. 69-77.
7. Ibid., pp. 27-33.
8. R. Henkoff, "Why Every Red-blooded Consumer Owns a Truck, and a Five-Pound Jar of Peanut Butter, and a Personal Computer, and a Tool Belt, and a Case of Energy-saving LightBulbs, and Why It All Matters on a Nearly Cosmic Scale," Fortune, May 29,1995, pp. 86-100.
9. C. Horton, "Easy Pickup Line? Try Gen Xers," Advertising Age, Apr. 3,1995, p. S-22.
