Teleios Research analyzed the financial and work efficiency of secular versus Christian private related relief organizations operating in the United States. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)’s online database was used for the Christian-based organizations and CharityNavigator for the secular-based organizations. The Christian list was analyzed first and matched to similar organizations on the secular list that were active in at least three states.
Types of organizations included in this evaluation were family and child, medical, education, urban development, poverty alleviation, and legal services. Types of organizations from the secular-based list unable to be matched to a Christian agency were those that advocated abortion or LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) rights.
This study included 69 Christian-based organizations matched to 69 secular-based organizations. The analysis revealed that Christian-based organizations spent a lower percentage of total expenditures on overhead (10% versus 15%; P= 0.003) and a greater percentage on relief (83% versus 77%; P= 0.0008).
No significant differences were found (P> 0.05) between groups in other parameters including: overhead cost (averages given for Christian organizations first; $7,339,814 versus $2,857,418), overhead cost per person ($159 versus $255), number of people served annually (1,319,342 versus 1,192,525), total amount spent ($65,427,988 Christian versus $60,072,752), total budget minus administrative cost per person ($1,687 versus $1,650), and absolute level of money spent on relief ($53,368,485 versus $55,154,135).
This study showed both secular and Christian-based organizations provide substantial amounts of services to help certain groups within the United States. Christian-based organizations appear to work more efficiently with a lower overhead and a greater percent given to relief.
WC Stewart, AC Kleinhans, JA Stewart, LA Nelson