Among our former members who have left Grace Church to remain in the Episcopal Church the pledges are rather low, mostly $5 to $120 for the year with two or three larger amounts.
Among our current members who are now in CANA, the average pledge at this point in our 2008 canvas the pledges are in the neighborhood of $6,000 for the year.
So I would quess that among Episcopalians the average pledge is in the $400-$600 range.
The reported stats have been trending toward Membership & ASA flat or down, with income actually up as the remaining parishioners try to keep their churches going.
I am going to guess around $1,200 – $1,300.
The amount of money is not important. Let’s all remember the widow’s mite. Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re making the commitment God has called you to make.
I just looked it up, so I won’t spoil the quiz by revealing the answer. But here’s a question for people with experience: what percentage of the total pledges do you expect, on average, to actually come in? That is, if your congregation collectively pledges $X, how much of $X do you generally see when all is said and done?
I looked this up when this was listed as one of the “areas of encouragement”. (The others are pathetic.) It can be found [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/FAST_FACTS_for_Domestic_Dioceses_20061.pdf ]here[/url].
BTW, hh6646, I would believe Father Don. If you look at the average pledge of the TEC-er, the figure of Father Don’s is entirely reasonable.
Here’s a hint. Contrary to popular belief, most pledging Episcopalians exist right at the 2007 poverty level (assuming a family of four). Because the only other explanation is that they aren’t keen on tithing, and with everything going so well, that can’t be what’s happening.
I figure it must be around $20,000 per household per year.
Explanation: now that all those dumb, poor, easily led neo-fundamenalists / congregationalist Bible-thumpers are gone, the average per capita income for TEC must be soaring. And we all know that the smarter, richer, more beautiful people remain in TEC – so figure they must have a household income of $200,000. And certainly they tithe on that and then give to the MDGs, Planned Parenthood, etc. So they have to be giving at least $20,000 to the local church and then an equal amount to other charities.
Well, Fr. Armstrong’s figures might have some truth to them, but given the schism grooming that he’s been busy with in his parish for the last few years, what would one expect? Those people didn’t need 40 days of discernment to figure out what he was going to do.
We tithe from the “first fruits” (pretax dollars) combined to RC (wife) and local Episcopal parish (me). Not one dime to 815. About 12 K per year total.
Well, the 2006 statistics per diocese are [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/research_71316_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=51354]HERE[/url].
I did a little checking and Pledge & Plate per ASA is about $1718 domestically and 1709 for the whole church. Plege and Plate per baptized member is 610 domestically and 568 for the whole church.
It seems that “One Lord, one faith, one buck” is increasingly common in TECUSA. 🙁
I thought the average pledge would have been about $7,000.
We pledged low last year, and added other charity groups because of our concerns with TEC. Our pledge was $1700. We also realize that whatever we pledge will end up being double of what we actually give to the church, another reason why we pledge on the lower end.
For example, when we sign-up to be the host/hostess, that is another $50 that week to buy donuts, juice etc. When we worked on the property, each week my husband would load up his trailer with mulch and bring it to the church, $100 a load for mulch, about 7 loads,plus liner and other materials. Donations added throughout the year for the heiffer fund, donating items on the church’s wish list, Buying a preschool curriculum (to prevent our priest from teaching the wee ones hinduism-no joke)) a family needs help etc., etc.
I know these things should be in addition to a tithe but it is something we consider before pledging.
But now that we have no church home….what in the world should we do with all our extra time and money? (just kidding of course)
Sidney–it was a schism ballot–but schism toward the left…meaning this was a liberal ‘vote’ against the orthodox posture of the parish–the orthtodox truly tithe in our parish…because they believe the bible and that in God’s economy it takes 10% to catch your attention and reorient your life…and there in will be the rub for average giving in the years to come for TEC parishes whose primarily leftist parishioners reject biblical truth…
What I would like to see is the median pledge (50% of the pledgers give more than this amt and 50% give less than this amt), rather than the average pledge. As others have pointed out, the very committed tend to tithe or give proportionately. I suspect that we have around 5% tithers and another 15-20% proportionate givers and the rest are sporadic at best.
BTW, in looking at the statistice for 2005-2006, the domestic dioceses lost 21,945 in ASA (2.79%). That is more than the 2007 ASA of every diocese except Virginia and Texas. To put it more bluntly, the third largest “diocese” in TECUSA for 2006 is “We don’t go there anymore.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, you won’t really have the statistic some think they have until you discover the modal number, along with the mean (average) and the median. The average is a terrible number for studies like this one to be limited to, because you have the huge givers averaged in with the widow’s mites and you don’t really know what range most of the pledges fall into. And people tend to mix household numbers with individual pledges. So drawing conclusions based on an “average” can be iffy at best.
“Since the “membership†numbers are a lie, this is a moot question.”
LOL, I wasn’t going to put it quite that bluntly, but that is such a good point. Most churches even trying to objectively total their ranks have people moving without notice, leaving for other churches, dying, under 18, attending without being registered and so on. So the only real way of seeing what “most folks” give is to either list the pledges in ascending or descending order and see where they cluster or use a statistical program that does the charts for you. And carefully distinguish “pledge units.”
Per member…I’d put it at $400. Per attendee, right around $1,200.
Among our former members who have left Grace Church to remain in the Episcopal Church the pledges are rather low, mostly $5 to $120 for the year with two or three larger amounts.
Among our current members who are now in CANA, the average pledge at this point in our 2008 canvas the pledges are in the neighborhood of $6,000 for the year.
So I would quess that among Episcopalians the average pledge is in the $400-$600 range.
I would guess around $750.00
Hmm, so far, overly dire. All of you are low.
Okay, I’d guess around 2,100.00 per year (family unit).
The reported stats have been trending toward Membership & ASA flat or down, with income actually up as the remaining parishioners try to keep their churches going.
I am going to guess around $1,200 – $1,300.
Okay, then I’ll change my guess to $1,000.
O.K.
Here goes.
It is $872,34
$1200
The amount of money is not important. Let’s all remember the widow’s mite. Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re making the commitment God has called you to make.
Does anyone really believe the numbers that Don Armstrong throws out?
I just looked it up, so I won’t spoil the quiz by revealing the answer. But here’s a question for people with experience: what percentage of the total pledges do you expect, on average, to actually come in? That is, if your congregation collectively pledges $X, how much of $X do you generally see when all is said and done?
$2400 per pledging unit per year?
$17-18,00, per unit, per year?
I looked this up when this was listed as one of the “areas of encouragement”. (The others are pathetic.) It can be found [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/FAST_FACTS_for_Domestic_Dioceses_20061.pdf ]here[/url].
BTW, hh6646, I would believe Father Don. If you look at the average pledge of the TEC-er, the figure of Father Don’s is entirely reasonable.
$1500
Robroy- you mean a dime a week? $5 annually? surely you jest
Here’s a hint. Contrary to popular belief, most pledging Episcopalians exist right at the 2007 poverty level (assuming a family of four). Because the only other explanation is that they aren’t keen on tithing, and with everything going so well, that can’t be what’s happening.
I figure it must be around $20,000 per household per year.
Explanation: now that all those dumb, poor, easily led neo-fundamenalists / congregationalist Bible-thumpers are gone, the average per capita income for TEC must be soaring. And we all know that the smarter, richer, more beautiful people remain in TEC – so figure they must have a household income of $200,000. And certainly they tithe on that and then give to the MDGs, Planned Parenthood, etc. So they have to be giving at least $20,000 to the local church and then an equal amount to other charities.
Or am I too low?
hh6646–they always pre-paid in one check for the year…
$6,000 per person pre-paid! One could send one’s kids to grad school for that.
Well, Fr. Armstrong’s figures might have some truth to them, but given the schism grooming that he’s been busy with in his parish for the last few years, what would one expect? Those people didn’t need 40 days of discernment to figure out what he was going to do.
Paying $5 for a year sounds like a schism ballot purchase to me.
Parishioners can be simply instructed to make those annual cheques payable to Campaign Againsh Silly Hymns….or CASH for short.
For my wife and me: $4200 per year @ 7%.
We tithe from the “first fruits” (pretax dollars) combined to RC (wife) and local Episcopal parish (me). Not one dime to 815. About 12 K per year total.
[i] Off topic comments edited by elf. [/i]
Well, the 2006 statistics per diocese are [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/research_71316_ENG_HTM.htm?menupage=51354]HERE[/url].
I did a little checking and Pledge & Plate per ASA is about $1718 domestically and 1709 for the whole church. Plege and Plate per baptized member is 610 domestically and 568 for the whole church.
It seems that “One Lord, one faith, one buck” is increasingly common in TECUSA. 🙁
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I thought the average pledge would have been about $7,000.
We pledged low last year, and added other charity groups because of our concerns with TEC. Our pledge was $1700. We also realize that whatever we pledge will end up being double of what we actually give to the church, another reason why we pledge on the lower end.
For example, when we sign-up to be the host/hostess, that is another $50 that week to buy donuts, juice etc. When we worked on the property, each week my husband would load up his trailer with mulch and bring it to the church, $100 a load for mulch, about 7 loads,plus liner and other materials. Donations added throughout the year for the heiffer fund, donating items on the church’s wish list, Buying a preschool curriculum (to prevent our priest from teaching the wee ones hinduism-no joke)) a family needs help etc., etc.
I know these things should be in addition to a tithe but it is something we consider before pledging.
But now that we have no church home….what in the world should we do with all our extra time and money? (just kidding of course)
Sidney–it was a schism ballot–but schism toward the left…meaning this was a liberal ‘vote’ against the orthodox posture of the parish–the orthtodox truly tithe in our parish…because they believe the bible and that in God’s economy it takes 10% to catch your attention and reorient your life…and there in will be the rub for average giving in the years to come for TEC parishes whose primarily leftist parishioners reject biblical truth…
What I would like to see is the median pledge (50% of the pledgers give more than this amt and 50% give less than this amt), rather than the average pledge. As others have pointed out, the very committed tend to tithe or give proportionately. I suspect that we have around 5% tithers and another 15-20% proportionate givers and the rest are sporadic at best.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
BTW, in looking at the statistice for 2005-2006, the domestic dioceses lost 21,945 in ASA (2.79%). That is more than the 2007 ASA of every diocese except Virginia and Texas. To put it more bluntly, the third largest “diocese” in TECUSA for 2006 is “We don’t go there anymore.”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
that should be 2006 ASA of every diocese except Virginia and Texas. Who decided to put 7 next to 6 on the keyboard? 🙂
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Not to put too fine a point on it, you won’t really have the statistic some think they have until you discover the modal number, along with the mean (average) and the median. The average is a terrible number for studies like this one to be limited to, because you have the huge givers averaged in with the widow’s mites and you don’t really know what range most of the pledges fall into. And people tend to mix household numbers with individual pledges. So drawing conclusions based on an “average” can be iffy at best.
We don’t make pledges or every member canvasses in our parish, yet we meet our budget every year. Radical, huh?
Since the “membership” numbers are a lie, this is a moot question.
bl
“Since the “membership†numbers are a lie, this is a moot question.”
LOL, I wasn’t going to put it quite that bluntly, but that is such a good point. Most churches even trying to objectively total their ranks have people moving without notice, leaving for other churches, dying, under 18, attending without being registered and so on. So the only real way of seeing what “most folks” give is to either list the pledges in ascending or descending order and see where they cluster or use a statistical program that does the charts for you. And carefully distinguish “pledge units.”
My guess is $52. per year….a dollar per Sunday.
I guess about $2000/yr -$2100/yr
(It was $1881 in 2004).
About $2000.