We define three types of funder groups, based on the mission and membership composition of the organization. We decided to select a subset of funder groups within each category for deeper analysis, comprising 10 secular, 10 hybrid, and 7 faith-based groups. The categorization of these groups was based on our initial classification of their member composition, or, in the case of faith-based groups, on the mission of the organization.
A secular funder group is an organization consisting of only secular member philanthropic organizations and nonprofits. The funder group’s mission is not founded in religious sentiment.
A faith-based funder group is one whose mission is clearly rooted in religious sentiment regardless of membership composition.
A hybrid funder group is one whose mission is secular but membership consists of both religious and secular member organizations.
To understand the interaction between secular and faith-based philanthropic organizations, we first measured the proportion of religious members within all 74 funder groups with public membership lists. We found that most groups (83 percent) include a mix of secular and faith-based members. Of these hybrid groups, the majority have weak religious composition, meaning less than 10% of their membership is faith-based.
Upon closer examination of the composition of our chosen 27 primary groups, two conclusions stood out: 1) Three of the funder groups that we classified as faith-based - Faith Matters Network, FADICA Catholic Philanthropy Network, and Christian Funders Forum - contain both secular and faith-based members. 2) Six of ten funder groups originally classified as secular contain a small percentage of religious members (under 6 percent). As we obtained more data throughout the analysis, it became clear that funder groups that originally appeared secular should be more accurately described as hybrid.
Our team modified the religiosity survey to construct a 15-question score sheet to use as a direct measure of religiosity, using public facing material, for our subset of 27 funder groups - 10 secular, 10 hybrid, and 7 faith-based. We then compared the religiosity score of each funder group to its membership composition to illustrate the correlation between each measure. The results show a highly significant positive relationship between the membership composition of a funder group and its religiosity score. When we remove explicitly faith-based funder groups from the analysis, the correlation between member composition and religiosity score remains moderately strong and statistically significant. See the graphs below, or click the button to download the full report.
