More Ministry Leaders Expect Negative Impact By Trump Administration Policies
About 27% of Christian ministry leaders told MinistryWatch they believe the Trump administration’s policies will have a negative impact on the organization they lead or the work they do. This is an increase from 19% who gave the same answer in our January survey.
In January, nearly 55% of respondents were optimistic that the new administration’s policies would have a positive impact. That has dropped to 38% in this month’s survey. About 27% of respondents say they don’t know what impact the new administration will have.
Some of the change in outlook may be due to cuts the Trump administration has made to refugee resettlement programs and provisions of the budget reconciliation bill that would reduce charitable contribution limits and increase taxes on private foundation assets.
MinistryWatch has been conducting its quarterly survey of the leaders of the nation’s 1,000 largest Christian ministries since October 2022. We have consistently reported about the insights they have provided.
This quarter, we received responses from 107 ministry executives, 94% of whom are in the top role at the organization — CEO, president or executive director.
While we recognize the response size is somewhat limiting, we believe the trends we have seen are still noteworthy and have included graphics showing the trends over time.
Ministry revenue over past year
According to the survey respondents, revenue has not increased over the last 12 months as much as it had previously. Only about 16% saw an increase of at least 10% or more in revenue — down from about 21% of respondents in January.
About 18% of ministry executives told MinistryWatch their revenue had fallen during the last 12 months, down from about 21% of respondents in January.
While 46% of Christian ministries saw an increase in their revenue of between 1% and 10% over the last 12 months, about 21% saw their revenue remain flat in that same period. That result is similar to the survey results from July.
MinistryWatch also asked a related question about whether ministry leaders believe a recession is on the horizon for the U.S. economy. Leaders are not as optimistic about the state of the nation’s economy as they were in January, with 49% responding that they do not think the U.S. will enter a recession in the next year, down from 62% in January. A majority of leaders — 51% — believe the economy is already in a recession or will enter one in the next six months to a year.
Ministry revenue expectations
Despite their predictions of a recession, ministry leaders are optimistic their revenue will grow over the next 12 months. A majority — 51.4% — believe their revenue will grow between 1% and 10% over the next year, and a healthy 19% believe it will grow by more than 10%. About 21% believe their revenue will remain flat.
In January, nearly 70% of the leaders who responded expect to see revenue grow over the next 12 months, with 59% expecting that growth to be between 1% and 10%, and 11% saying they’ll expect to see revenue growth of over 10%.
As the graph indicates with the dark red bar, most ministries over the nearly three years of surveys have expected to see growth of between 1% and 10%. The number who have expected to see growth of over 10% has fluctuated more.
According to data from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, the number of donors who gave to charitable causes decreased in 2024 by 4.5%. Major and supersize donors who have at least $5,000 and sometimes more than $50,000 make up 3.1% of all donors, but they contributed 77% of all donations in 2024.
Significant challenges in ministry
Even though ministry executives expect to see revenue growth in the next 12 months, they cite fundraising as the primary challenge they face in leading their ministry. As in January, about 50% of ministry executives cited fundraising as their biggest challenge.
When we first began the survey in October 2022, finding and keeping qualified staff was a persistently challenging situation faced by ministry leaders. While it remains a challenge cited by about 25% of respondents in this quarter’s survey, it is down from over 40% when the survey began.
Succession planning concerns fell from the January survey. Less than 5% of respondents cited it as a primary challenge they face, compared with about 12% in January.
As in January, operational and logistical challenges was the third-highest response in this quarter’s survey at 9%, down from 13% in January.
Other stressors include human resource policies, religious liberty challenges and personal challenges, like burnout. One respondent said he or she faces challenges in trying to ensure the international security of the ministry’s teams.
Another respondent said they face challenges by “agencies that are part of the Poverty Industrial Network attacking us in the media.”
Seventy-two percent of ministry leaders said they engage in formal goal-setting annually, while about 12% said that they do so every two years. Additionally, only about 22% of ministries said they were subject to a cyberattack or financial fraud over the last year.
Years in position
As is evident in the graph, the number of leaders who have been in their position for 10 years or more has been steadily decreasing, even though they still constitute the largest portion of the survey respondents at 37%.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, 45% of survey respondents said they’ve been in their ministry leadership position for five years or less. That may indicate turnover at the top leadership positions where older leaders are retiring.
Age of leaders
A related category is the aging of ministry leaders, which is a likely explanation for why the number of leaders on the job for five years or less is growing. For the first time in the survey’s history, the number of ministry executive respondents between 51 and 60 years of age — 41% — exceeded the number of respondents between 61 and 70 — 40%.
Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs)
MinistryWatch once again asked ministry leaders about their use of the nondisclosure agreements as part of their operations. A debate has arisen in recent years over how and why Christian ministries use NDAs as part of their operations. While NDAs may be used to protect confidential information about how a ministry operates, at other times, they are used to prevent persons from discussing the terms of a settlement agreement. NDAs are binding, and violations can result in a lawsuit.
We began asking about the use of NDAs in April 2023. In that survey, 47% of ministries answered that they use NDAs, 49% said they didn’t use them and 4% said they didn’t know.
In this quarter’s survey, 45% of respondents said they use NDAs, 52% said they don’t use them, and only 3% said they didn’t know.
When asked to elaborate about the purposes for using NDAs, 75% of leaders said they are used for protection of proprietary information, 25% said they were required by third party vendors (down from 27% in April 2023), and 25% use them as part of severance or settlement agreements (down from 27% when we first asked the question). About 21% say NDAs are part of their standard onboarding process.
Some respondents chose to elaborate on their answers telling us they will use an NDA to protect information about their missionaries working in sensitive locations.
Are you male or female? The vast majority of leaders who respond to our survey — 81% — are male. Just about 19% of respondents are women.
As we’ve reported in the past, more women are at the helm of Christian ministries than those leading secular businesses. According to Fortune, in 2024 women led only 10.4% of Fortune 500 companies.
This article has been republished with permission from Ministry Watch.
Kim Roberts is a freelance writer who holds a Juris Doctorate with honors from Baylor University and an undergraduate degree in government from Angelo State University. She has three young adult children who were home schooled and is happily married to her husband of 28 years.