The Impact of Stewardship Programs on Religious Giving

Recently, there have been a number of studies on the determinants of religious giving, looking at giving in a variety of denominations. One consistent finding across these studies has been the importance of stewardship programs. However, researchers have been less successful in identifying exactly which aspects of a stewardship program are likely to be most productive. This study analyzes the effect of implementing various stewardship techniques in U.S. Catholic parishes. The empirical findings show that just organizing an official parish-level stewardship committee has an impact, as does the introduction of the concept of tithing.