In 1988, tax-deductible donations to US charities exceeded One Hundred billion for the first time in US history and church fundraising was a large percentage of that number. To put it in perspective, One Hundred billion is more than the profit revenue of all the Fortune 500 companies put together. And if charitable contributions were used as a sales figure, charitable organizations would rank second in the Fortune 500 behind only General Motors and almost $20 billion ahead of Exxon Mobil. It's no exaggeration to say church fundraising is major business.

The chase for charitable donations has soared to new levels in recent years, particularly in church fundraising. To offset reductions in federal funding during the 1980s and to maximize their share of philanthropic giving, the estimated 800,000 organizations that are categorized by the IRS as charities are increasingly hiring fundraising managers and challenging them to raise increasingly higher totals of gift profit.

Although no dependable statistics are available, it can be estimated that tens of thousands of men and women today carry out fundraising duties as paid employees involved in church fundraising as well as activities for other non-profit organizations. One indicator of this growth is that membership in the National Society of Fund Raising Executives has grown from fewer than 2,000 to greater than 10,000 in only 10 years.

The practitioners, whether they are involved in church fundraising or raising donations for another organization, conduct prospect searches to identify potential contributors, accept credit card payments from contributors, coordinate special events to cultivate contributors, solicit gifts by direct mail, proposals, phonathons, and face-to-face meetings; and write and edit publications to report fundraising results and to recognize contributors.

To help them fulfill these tasks, practitioners rely on church fundraising principles that have evolved through anecdotal material and studies that have primarily been administrative in function. Collectively, these principles form a powerful perspective of the church fundraising function that focuses on how to raise money without questioning the rationale for the function of its effect on recipient organizations and society.

Although different opinions may be offered in response, church fundraising research has made very little progress in answering these important questions. Without a theoretical base founded in the literature of academic disciplines, church fundraising usually has been ignored by educators as a subject worthy of scholarly study.

Part-time practitioner/scholars generally have provided research on church fundraising that has been occasional. Although there has been a dramatic increase of scholarly activity in the area of philanthropy, church fundraising as an organizational function has not been identified as one of the agreed upon problems that define that domain of study. This lack of scholarly concern in church fundraising is illustrated by the fact that only 3% of research projects on philanthropy and nonprofit organizations over the last 5 years have focused on church fundraising, but interest in this topic continues to grow.

This article was written by Todd Nelson, Marketing Director for Capital Merchant Solutions, Inc (HolyProcessing.com). CMS has been in the merchant account business for nearly 10 years, and offers free merchant accounts to both online and retail businesses. CMS also offers a unique program called "Automatic Tithing", which allows Churches to allow their members to automatically donate using their credit card or debit card. This article may be republished as long as absolutely no changes are made, and the resource box is included. Copyright 2007 - Capital merchant Solutions, Inc. - All rights reserved.