Each quarter, MinistryWatch conducts a survey of leaders of the largest 1,000 Christian ministries in the country. We began the survey in October 2022, and thanks to your help, we have gathered seven rounds of survey results and reported about the insights they have provided.
In October 2023—our one-year mark for beginning the survey—we wrote a comprehensive article about the survey results. Now, we offer the second overview, this time based on our April results.
We received responses to the April survey from 99 ministry executives, 90% of whom are in the top role at the organization—CEO, president, or executive director. The responses to our survey have been growing, up from 93 responses six months ago and 79 responses to our first survey in October 2022. We are very grateful to all of you who have participated.
While we recognize the response size is somewhat limiting, we believe the trends we have seen are still noteworthy.
How many years have you been in this position?
Over 50% of ministry leaders who responded have been leading their organization for 9 years or more. When expanded to a broader range to include those who’ve led for at least seven years, it rises to nearly 72%. Turnover at the top seems uncommon. However, new leaders are slowly moving in. In April 2023, only 8% of ministry leaders had been at the head of their organizations for two years or less. That percentage rose to 12% in this quarter’s survey.
What age are Christian ministry leaders?
The long-serving tenure of Christian ministry leaders also supports the trend that many are getting older. In fact, the number of respondents between ages 61 and 70 remains high at 42%. In October, it was 46% of respondents. However, just as we reported from the January survey, we are beginning to see a trend toward turnover and younger leadership. Over 50% of the respondents are now under age 60.
Most Significant Challenge for Ministry Leaders
The MinistryWatch survey includes several choices of the most significant challenges ministry leaders face, including fundraising, staffing, operational and logistical challenges, human resource policies, religious liberty challenges, personal challenges like burnout, and succession planning.
Repeatedly, the top two challenges ministry leaders face are fundraising and finding/keeping qualified staff.
Since July 2023, respondents have chosen fundraising as their top challenge.
Six months ago, and even three months ago, fundraising outpaced staffing by a double-digit margin.
However, this quarter staffing challenges took the top spot, edging out fundraising by less than 1%—32.6% versus 31.6%.
This section of the survey also included an option to write in a custom response. Two respondents cited capital campaigns as their most significant challenge and another wrote, “Keeping up with costs due to inflation.”
Ministry Revenue
Given that fundraising is not the top concern among ministry leader respondents, one might expect them to be fairly optimistic about their revenue.
In fact, that is the case. Six months ago in the October survey, about 55% said their revenue had increased during the last 12 months. In this quarter’s survey, that increased to 62%.
In October 2023, 18% of respondents said their revenue had remained flat compared with 15% in April 2024.
Ministry leaders have a healthy level of optimism about their revenue.
In October 2023, 62 % believed ministry revenue would increase in the next 12 months. Now, nearly 76% expect to see an increase. Of those, 61% expect an increase of one percent to 10%, while 14% expect revenue will grow over 10%.
Nineteen percent of respondents expect their revenue to remain flat compared with nearly 27% of respondents who gave that expectation six months ago.
Nondisclosure Agreements (NDAs)
There has been heated debate in recent years about whether or not using NDAs is an appropriate practice for Christian ministries. NDAs are made between parties to protect confidential information. They prevent persons from discussing information covered by the terms of the agreement. NDAs are binding, and violations can result in a lawsuit.
A slight majority of Christian ministries do not use NDAs. According to our survey results, 51% of ministries don’t use them, 42% use them, and 7% of leaders answered that they don’t know.
When we asked this question in April 2023, 49% of ministries answered that they don’t use NDAs, 47% said they do use them, and 4% said they didn’t know.
We then asked leaders to elaborate on their purposes for using NDAs. Nearly 60% said they use them for protection of proprietary information, 33% said they use them “as part of standard onboarding agreement/employee handbook,” and 21% use them as part of severance or settlement agreements.
Are you male or female?
As we’ve reported in the past, more women are at the helm of Christian ministries than those leading secular businesses. According to the MinistryWatch survey responses, about 12% of Christian ministries are led by women. In contrast, according to the the Pew Research Center, “the share of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies reached an all-time high of 10.6% in 2023, with 53 women heading major firms.”
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