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What’s a Fair Share? Assessments Vary.

In recent years, the Diocese of Nevada has reduced its assessment on churches’ operating income, initially from 23 to 19 percent, and then again to 16 percent. Bishop Elizabeth Gardner ultimately wants to see that congregational giving rate cut to 10 percent, a number she sees as sensible — biblical, even.

“We’ve reduced the assessment because I was under the impression that it’s supposed to be 10 [percent],” she said. “It’s the tithe.”

But for rural dioceses like Nevada — which has no endowment and funds 98 percent of its budget by assessment — such a dramatic reduction wouldn’t be feasible unless they find another source of revenue to supplement the lost income.

“It’s going to take a long time to get to 10 percent because I don’t have any grounding. I don’t have any savings or anything to fall back on,” Gardner said.

Nevada’s neighbor to the east is in a different position altogether. Only a small fraction (9%) of the Diocese of Utah’s budget comes from the assessments on its 22 congregations, its financial position bolstered by a trust funded through the diocese’s sale of a hospital in 1987.

The disparity in assessment rates — and the degree to which two neighboring dioceses rely on that income — illustrates the lack of uniformity in congregational giving among the Episcopal Church’s dioceses.

A comprehensive analysis conducted by The Living Church of 93 of the Episcopal Church’s 95 domestic dioceses found significant disparities related to assessment practices. In some dioceses, a parish is expected to pay a single-digit assessment to its diocese, while others turn over as much as a quarter of their operating income.

For example, a church with $200,000 in operating income gives $12,000 to the Diocese of Texas; its peer in the Diocese of Alaska would pay $25,000. Some dioceses impose assessments as fixed percentages; others use scales, in which different brackets of church income are assessed at different rates.

Meanwhile, enforcement of a congregation’s obligation — most often referred to as “assessments,” but also as “pledges,” “parish commitments,” or “fair share contributions” — is not uniform. Among the 93 dioceses, 77 percent impose mandatory assessments, while the remainder make the practice voluntary.

Yet those categories aren’t cut and dried; the difference between “should” and “must” can be murky. Compulsory assessments do not necessarily lead to compliance; some parishes simply refuse to pay the set rate, and dioceses may or may not seek recourse. Meanwhile, in dioceses that make assessments voluntary, the practice is often enforced by providing churches with a recommended pledge, rendering it less of a voluntary contribution and more of a suggested donation.

In the Diocese of Mississippi, for example, giving is entirely voluntary, but the diocese approaches congregations annually with a “voluntary proportionate giving” request, inviting churches to pledge anywhere between 9 and 16 percent of their operating income.

“This has been the approach for quite a few years, and it has provided enough information and funding to meet current diocesan needs,” said the Rev. Canon Gary Mead, canon to the ordinary. “It also provides welcome flexibility for our faith communities, some of whom are limited in their ability to pledge and others who are quite generous in their support.”

While diocesan assessment policies are seen as a matter of housekeeping, pastoral considerations often influence how stringently they are applied.

Take the Diocese of South Dakota as an example. While its 16 percent assessment rate is considered a canonical obligation, about 10 percent of congregations cannot meet that standard because of their financial context, and they may appeal their assessment to diocesan council. If every congregation paid the full assessment, the diocese would receive just over $370,000 in income. But in practice, the diocese budgeted $300,000 for 2024, recognizing that many could not fulfill their pledge.

It’s a balance of practicing accountability for parishes that pay their fair share while being sensitive to the realities of small congregations, said the Rt. Rev. Dr. Jonathan Folts of South Dakota.

“One of the things we must be keenly aware of in the Diocese of South Dakota, where the majority of our congregations are located in reservations, is that our small churches must be able to pay their propane, electric, and insurance bills first. Once that is done, we tell them, ‘Then start addressing the matter of your assessment,’” Folts said.

“It’s worth noting that the 2024 assessment of one of our reservation congregations is $4. Another one is $13. The assessment of two others is $15. And the assessment for three others is $25,” he added. “This is why when people say that the congregations located in reservations need to learn to become financially independent, they show they lack a lot of understanding when it comes to the context of reservation ministry.”

As a growing number of dioceses explore reunification, mergers, or deeper partnerships with one another due to declining numbers, the effort to merge finances and iron out differences in assessment practices could present obstacles.

Some dioceses have found such compromises. The dioceses of Central Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, which voted this fall to reunify in a planned merger that will take effect in 2026, have agreed on an arrangement that aims to strike a middle ground between their two approaches. Bethlehem has a 12 percent assessment with 3 percent optional “acceptance,” while Central Pennsylvania assesses 10 percent on the first $200,000 of operating income and another 2 percent on income over $200,000.

Under the merger, churches would pay 11 percent on the first $200,000 of normal operating income and 13 percent on all amounts over $200,000. The result will be some parishes seeing a slight increase — likely within 1 percent — and others a slight decrease, according to the union agreement.

Likewise, when the three historic dioceses in Wisconsin merged in May, a new graduated assessment structure took effect, a complex model in which five assessment rates are imposed on different brackets of income. In practice, it means larger congregations contribute more of their operating income than their smaller counterparts. Today, 90 congregations pay the same or less to the reunified diocese than before, and 11 pay more. For those congregations, the diocese has directed $2 million in grant funding to help them ease into the full assessment.

Meanwhile, the Diocese of Washington is discerning a shift from a voluntary to mandatory 10 percent assessment. All churches are encouraged to make a 10 percent annual contribution to the diocese, yet only a handful of the 85 congregations do, according to the Rev. Canon Andrew Walter, canon to the ordinary and chief operating officer.

“We have a few that tithe, we have a few that, for financial reasons, maybe don’t give anything to the dioceses in a given year, and then there is everything in between,” Walter said.

The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of Washington, has encouraged parishes giving less than 10 percent to increase their giving by 1 percent increments each year until they reach that standard. But then church budgets took a hit during the COVID pandemic, as did giving to the diocese. Between 2020 and 2024, congregational giving has declined by 13.5 percent, Walter said.

Prompted by a group of clergy in the diocese, a committee formed earlier this year to examine congregational giving across the Episcopal Church and lay the groundwork for establishing a standard of giving for congregations in the diocese.

“Those clergy leaders just felt there needed to be more clarity,” Walter said. “Some congregations or leaders didn’t know of the expectation of giving, or giving 10 percent, and so they felt it was time for the diocese to have a conversation around what giving should be.”

The Diocese of Pennsylvania reintroduced assessments — called “Sacred Asks” — in 2024 after not having them for the past eight years, citing the need to reduce the draw on its endowment. The diocese has set a goal of 8 percent giving (on normal operating income) among all churches in 2025, with the goal of ultimately reaching 10 percent. Since 2016, Pennsylvania has had one of the lowest giving rates among all dioceses, at 6 percent.

“Diocesan costs have been covered by drawing heavily on the funds of the diocesan endowment, but that is not a sustainable course of action for the longer term,” treasurer James Pope wrote in his report to the 2024 diocesan convention. “We need to reset our diocesan budget so that we can follow the practice of the early Christians. In the Book of Acts we hear that believers ‘were together and had all things in common’ and sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds within the community ‘as any had needs.’”

“The reason to reset the ‘how’ of our Sacred Ask is to restore equity to an approach which has become inequitable not through design, but by trying to address earlier issues,” he added.

For Gardner, the effort to reduce assessments incrementally in Nevada is rooted in a philosophy she adopted from her earlier career as a buyer at Nordstrom. She cites the “upside-down triangle” business model, a customer-centric approach in which customers are the top priority, followed by those in closest proximity to them (frontline staff and salespeople), then managers, and executives — as a fitting framework for the distribution of resources within the church.

“My vision for a diocese is the upside-down triangle, where the bishop is at the bottom of the pyramid lifting up the priests, who then lift up the deacons, who lift up the baptized,” Gardner said. “The baptized are the most important people because they’re the ones reaching people who don’t know Jesus. We have to invest in that group.”

Gardner believes more money should remain in the hands of individual congregations.

“The less money the diocese spends, the more money there is for mission, for the baptized, in the hands of the church,” she said.

Lauren Anderson-Cripps is a domestic correspondent for TLC.

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