Secret Services
Churches freely provide social services, but neither church nor community realizes to what extent. A new study calculates its value.
Marshall Shelley
April 1, 2003
Churches are doing more for their communities than you (or they) realize. In fact, the monetary value of a church's contribution to the community is far more than the financial benefits churches receive from their tax-exempt status.
That's the surprising conclusion of a significant new study headed by Ram Cnaan, professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania, and published in his book The Invisible Caring Hand: American Congregations and the Provision of Welfare (New York University Press, 2002).
"Our findings strongly support the Supreme Court's view of congregations as 'a beneficial and stabilizing influence in community life,'" writes Cnaan, an Israeli-born secular Jew who is director of the Program for the Study of Organized Religion and Social Work.
The study provides one of the first assessments of the dollar value of the social services churches provide. The net value of a congregation's social and community services averages $15,307 per month or approximately $184,000 per year. This number includes the value of space, utilities, staff, and volunteer hours (calculated at approximately $11 per hour).
"Although congregations can be viewed as being publicly subsidized because of their tax-exempt status, the value of their services to their communities exceeds the value of the tax exemption," writes Cnaan. "There is also the value of services that cannot be measured in dollars, such as informal help, pastoral counseling, value instruction, residents' representation, and community pride.
"As a key part of the national social safety net and the first to aid in time of local, national, and international emergencies, congregations allot a significant percentage of their budgets to helping others and are the major source ...
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