Nudging church funding

Abstract

Fundraising involves designing mechanisms through which funds are requested and collected. This matters as donation decisions are inevitably influenced by how the funding ask is presented. A subtle change in the design can nudge a donor to choose differently. For churches, practical concerns of financial sustainability need to be balanced against the non-monetary implications of funding mechanisms, including theological considerations. This article explores the links between nudges and funding in various contexts – namely, congregational donations, giving technology and worship; pricing access to cathedral sacred space; church taxes and member participation; and the principle of tithing. Concepts from behavioural science including framing, defaults, inertia, anchoring, priming, social influences and mental accounting are used to address these reflections on church funding.

Introduction

Religious organizations and their leaders are inevitably concerned with issues of financial sustainability. While generous and cheerful giving by supporters to finance church activities has robust theological justification, there is much less attention given to the practical mechanisms used to deliver religious funding and their theological, ethical and economic implications. An insight from behavioural science is that choices, including donation decisions, are shaped in part by psychological factors. In ecclesiastical contexts, Bullivant points to the importance of framing, priming and social influences as psychological mechanisms or ‘nudges’ affecting behaviour. ¹ He considers case studies as diverse as empty churches, megachurches and church plants. This article extends Bullivant’s reflections on religious nudges by addressing behavioural influences in a related setting – namely, that of church funding.

Nudges typically involve subtle changes to seemingly irrelevant contextual factors. This contrasts with the traditional economic approach which attends to powerful, and often pecuniary, incentives in the form of costs and benefits to account for and shape behaviour. Instead, it is adjusting aspects of the ‘choice architecture’, the design of the environment in which decisions are made, that is the focus of interest in the nudge framework. Nudge interventions are ethically appealing insofar as they help the decision maker to choose wisely, do not coerce, and preserve freedom of choice. This article explores examples of the roles played by giving technology, social influences, inertia, priming, framing, defaults, anchoring and mental accounting as behavioural factors determining church funding. The interactions between giving, theology and behavioural science are explored in four brief case studies in relation to weekly Sunday offerings, cathedral entry pricing, church taxes and tithing.

Congregational giving technology

For many decades, at least in Western churches, collection of donations from members of the congregation relied on an offering bag or collection basket or plate passed along the pews. While the design of the receptacle may appear irrelevant to giving decisions, it is of potential behavioural significance. Given that a bag is relatively closed whereas a basket is open, there is a substantial difference in the visibility of donations to immediate neighbours in the pews, assuming donations are not hidden within envelopes. In principle, the greater visibility and ease of monitoring of the contents of a basket compared with a bag generate a higher social and reputational pressure to give more generously for those who would otherwise not do so, given that churchgoers care about the approval of others observing their donations. Conversely, the relatively greater anonymity of the offering bag lowers the psychological costs of giving smaller amounts for those who prefer to do so. It also protects worshippers with limited financial resources from potential shame or social judgement. Another difference is that the content of an open basket provides more information about giving levels than a closed bag since a donor can estimate the total amount collected so far. This may have informational value for givers who wish to conform and are uncertain about donation norms. The material composition of the container may also matter. Inserting coins, instead of higher denomination notes, into a cloth bag may be less audible and less conspicuous than dropping them on a metal offering plate.

In a unique empirical study, Soetevent tested for the financial impact of the type of collection container by conducting an innovative field experiment in 30 Baptist churches in the Netherlands over a period of 29 Sundays in 2002. ² A distinctive feature of the churches’ practice was the collection of at least two offerings at each worship service. One offering was to support the internal work of the church, the other supported external causes. The experimenter assigned the use of a bag or basket randomly each week. The container could also vary across the two offerings on a given Sunday. Church members were informed in advance which receptacle would be used. The research found no impact of container type on giving for the first offering. This was attributed to the fact that many churchgoers made regular bank payments as an additional vehicle for giving to the church. As such, a minimal or modest contribution to a Sunday offering might be attributed by fellow churchgoers to the use of bank payments and would be less likely to generate social disapproval for not giving or giving only a modest amount. However, for the second offering, the use of the open basket had a statistically significant positive effect on donations of around 8 per cent when these were designated for the benefit of external causes. Notably, in the case of these offerings, churches did not provide a bank payment mechanism. There was thus more scope for social pressure and the partial observability of the donations by others to play a role. One intriguing additional finding related to the types of coins donated. When open baskets were used, and anonymity lessened, the data showed that attendees gave fewer small denomination coins. This would seem to be evidence of behavioural mechanisms at work in the case of coins. That said, the social influences had only a modest impact. For religious believers, their church commitments most likely matter much more strongly for giving behaviour than the type of offering receptacle. Visibility to God may matter more than that of observation by near neighbours in church pews.

Since the conclusion of this study of Dutch churches more than two decades ago, automated giving by direct debit has continued to grow, diminishing further the social pressure to contribute to a collection plate. Whether this new giving technology is detrimental overall to church finances is unknown and difficult to determine. On the one hand, regular bank transfers ensure predictable and consistent income streams for churches and eliminate the risk of missed offerings due to church member absences or forgetfulness. Indeed, once the automatic donations are set up, donors must incur cognitive effort and time costs if they wish to change the level of giving. These costs generate inertia, which protects churches against downward revisions in giving levels but likewise implies that donations may only infrequently be adjusted upwards over time to take account of inflation and higher incomes.

Giving as an act of worship

In addition to growth in automated bank transfers, the continuing shift towards a cashless society has induced many churches to accommodate this trend by increasingly providing worshippers with access to credit and debit card readers and QR codes to facilitate donations. Digital forms of giving raise a theological question, especially for those churches that have historically placed an emphasis on in-person participation in the collection during a religious service as integral to worship. The multi-modal approach to giving risks generating a sense of exclusion from this aspect of worship for those not physically contributing to the offering bag. Moreover, a container passing along the pews with very little deposited is rather anticlimactic and serves to undermine the experience as a collective worship act. Inadvertently, a near empty offering plate may also send a signal that giving is unimportant, especially to those who are relatively new to church life.

Not all churches sacralize giving in the same way. In their study, Mundey, Davidson and Snell Herzog compared two congregations, one evangelical Protestant, the other mainline Protestant. ³ They found that the congregations could be distinguished by the sacred frames articulated by their interviewees as primary motivations for financial giving. The leaders and members of the evangelical church strongly identified donating as participation in a spiritual act of worship. Giving was framed as a sacrificial and obedient response to Scripture, a grateful acknowledgement that income belongs to God, and an indicator of spiritual health and maturity. By contrast, members of the mainline church framed giving primarily as a practical contribution to supporting the financial needs and activities of the church. In this case, it is not the act of giving itself but the outcomes that are sacred in terms of maintaining the fabric of the building, paying the bills and financing the programmes and ministries of the church and its mission in the local community. In terms of the level of donations, the authors found that individual giving was diluted where there was a mismatch between the view of a church member and the dominant sacred frame adopted within that congregation. For example, members of the evangelical church were less motivated to give generously if they did not themselves conceptualize giving as an act of worship. Whatever the framing, the long-term future of the financial offering as a ritual within the church service remains in doubt given the increasing use of electronic giving technologies.

Cathedral entry pricing

While access to a cathedral for worship or private prayer is always free of charge, some large, historic English cathedrals charge entry fees for tourists. For example, in mid-2025, a standard ticket for an adult to visit Westminster Abbey cost £30, St Paul’s £26, York £20 and Canterbury £19.50. Other cathedrals object to obligatory charges. On this view, even tourists, for whom the purpose of the visit is to enjoy the heritage and architecture, should not be treated as fee-paying consumers but as pilgrims. There are various arguments against charging. ⁴ One concern is that requiring payment to visit a sacred space turns cathedral access into a commercial commodity where market transactions are prioritized. The sightseeing visitor is valued instrumentally in monetary terms. A more pragmatic reason for not pricing entry is that it may backfire if sufficient visitors object to paying any fee or, alternatively, perceive the cost as prohibitive, and their visit is deterred. As a result, the cathedral may also miss out on the additional café or bookshop revenue that these dissuaded visitors would have generated. Further, pricing may erect barriers to entry for those on lower incomes and with larger families, a bias against the poor that may be theologically unattractive. To help mitigate this, charging cathedrals may provide concessions such as free entry to local residents or to visitors receiving state welfare benefits, or they may specify that the admission ticket is valid for any number of additional visits throughout the year. ⁵ For those who seek a place for private prayer rather than sightseeing, free access to a side chapel is typically available.

Most cathedrals do not charge and rely instead on nudges to raise funds from visitors. The traditional approach is simply to provide well-signed donation boxes strategically located around the building. The boxes may indicate a suggested donation and provide information enumerating daily running costs to frame perceptions and encourage contributions. The information nudge both educates about financial needs and makes them salient in motivating donations. The boxes may also be decorated with pictures of a bank note as a visual prime of an appropriate level of donation. For these cathedrals, while initial entry is not itself priced, there may be charges for guided tours or for admission to specific parts of the building such as the crypt or tower or to other attractions.

A compromise between entry pricing and donation boxes is the ‘encouraged donations model’ in which visitors are treated to an unavoidable welcome by trained cathedral staff and a scripted request to give a (suggested) donation. The personal interaction generates an element of social pressure to give that may induce a higher donation than would otherwise have occurred. This strategy is likely to be most effective in the case of visitors who dislike the risk of being perceived as ungenerous. Moreover, a warm welcome that provides visitors with information and orientation to the cathedral is itself a gift which leverages reciprocity to the extent that it creates a sense of obligation to return the favour in the form of a financial donation.

The social influence component is heightened if the point of entry inescapably requires passing by a cash till and being issued with a ticket. Even if the donation is described as voluntary, the visitor is primed by the design of the entrance to associate access with a financial transaction. Not giving then becomes a deviation from the norm and one that is observed by nearby visitors and cathedral staff processing donations through the cash till. Priming and social pressure combine to promote conformity to giving a donation.

The personal welcome and ticket sales counter effectively convert the giving choice from the default opt-in design of the donation box into an opt-out regime. The expectation is that the visitor will donate and must incur the risk of social embarrassment to avoid doing so, an experience that does not arise for largely unobserved donations to an unattended box. Durham and Chester are examples of cathedrals that have implemented this form of choice architecture, both requesting a donation of £5 per adult, notably lower than charging cathedrals.

To qualify as a nudge, an intervention must be easy to avoid, benefit the decision maker and not constrain choices. Insofar as there is perceived exposure to social pressure in the encouraged donations model, the approach is more of a shove than a pure nudge. Feedback from visitors to both Durham and Chester cathedrals on the TripAdvisor review website provides a flavour of the impacts. For some visitors, the strategy is perceived as coercive, a forced donation which is awkward, uncomfortable and reducing agency to choose. Some reviewers report aborting their visit or else resisting the social pressure but feeling shame for doing so. Others reluctantly complied but experienced displeasure at the sense of obligation to donate. In response to a disappointed and deterred TripAdvisor reviewer of Chester Cathedral, the marketing director points to the financial logic, in that giving is much lower in the absence of the personal ask. ⁶ Likewise, Durham Cathedral reports considerable gains in visitor donations following implementation of the Encouraged Donations scheme. ⁷

A design challenge for the cathedrals is that of setting the recommended donation level. In addition to concerns about affordability and deterring visitors, the recommendation functions as a default norm for visitors uncertain about what donation is appropriate in the cathedral context. Additionally, the suggested amount may affect perceptions of the true value of the visit. In this way, it functions as an anchor, causing donors to adjust their intended donation to the recommended level. The desire to socially conform may play a role here too if the suggestion affects expectations of what other visitors are giving. ⁸

Church taxes – the power of the default

The funding of churches in some Western European countries is by an obligatory church tax on members. This regime applies to churches in the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Denmark, together with Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The tax is collected from members by the government on behalf of the church and typically amounts to around 1 per cent of taxable income. This system has considerable benefits for church income compared with countries with established churches without church taxes, such as England and Scotland. ⁹

In Sweden, between 1952 and 1995, those children with at least one parent in membership of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church were automatically enrolled as members at birth without requiring parental consent or ritual. On earning income as adults, members would then automatically pay the church tax. ¹⁰ It was possible to opt out of the tax but that would also require cancelling membership. In 1996, the Swedish default was reformed such that children were enrolled as members only on baptism. Effectively, this switched the default from opt out to opt in by parents. A statistical investigation of the impact on church tax receipts estimated that church revenues were about 8 per cent lower in 2020 compared with what they would have been had the default not changed.

A study of church membership in Finland found that membership dropped substantially in 2003 when a legal change made it easier to opt out of the state church. ¹¹ Previously, opting out required personal attendance at an administrative office to complete the process. The new law enabled opting out by submitting a form by post or email or by completing an online form set up by a society of atheist free thinkers. This impersonal process significantly reduced the time and effort required as well as any stigma that a personal interaction may have previously generated when de-registering. In other words, the online opting-out facility helped to overcome inertia.

While opting out of church membership has become easier over time in both Sweden and Finland, it remains the case that the church tax is automatically deducted from income for registered members. This has considerable funding benefits given that membership remains high by European standards. On the other hand, levels of regular church attendance are very low in these two countries and characterized by little or no participation in church activities by most members. With no strong link between attendance and funding, the financial incentives for clergy to mobilize members and invest in mission are blunted.

Tithing

Tithing, a church income tax of 10 per cent, while not promoted by mainline Christian denominations, is taught by some stricter groups such as Seventh Day Adventists and the Assemblies of God as an expected religious practice and biblical principle. From the perspective of behavioural science, the tithe is a form of mental accounting in budgeting. ¹² Mental accounting refers to the allocation of income to different expenditure categories for specific purposes. The tithe earmarks a fraction of income as designated to a religious account. The attraction to the giver of creating spending budgets is that it simplifies and disciplines financial decision making, imposing an element of self-control. Having assigned income to a named budget category, the tithe, a giver is less likely to consider alternative uses of the funds. In other words, the temptation to spend the tithe on something else is reduced, even though income is fungible and can be readily reallocated. While tithing would be too heavy a commitment for many households, the implication of mental accounting for churches and their members is that there are potential benefits from a nudge which recommends to members that they fix a proportion of income for church donations, even if this is not as high as a tithe.

Conclusion

For many congregations and denominations, income maximization is an increasingly salient concern in the face of deepening financial challenges and growing structural deficits. Inevitably, fundraising strategies are attracting greater and more urgent attention. While church members’ donation decisions are motivated by diverse factors, including their disposable income, other financial commitments, how much they care about the church and their theological convictions, choices are also inescapably affected by subtle psychological considerations. The above case studies illustrate the role of nudges in financial giving and the mechanisms designed to deliver that giving, including those mobilizing social influence, defaults, anchors, norms, priming and framing. Nudges not only affect giving but also have implications for how we think theologically about donations in some contexts: for example, in worship and in access to sacred spaces. The tools of behavioural science help to generate awareness of psychological considerations in church funding that may otherwise be hidden. As such, it is important that church communities think carefully before making use of nudges to ensure that they are not manipulative but remain consistent with their values and mission.