Report
CARA Report: U.S. Catholic Online Giving (2013)
U.S. Catholic Online Giving by Mark M. Gray, PhD., Fr. Thomas P. Gaunt, Ph.D., S.J., and Carolyne Saunders, M.S., Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), October 2013
The Catholic Online Giving survey, conducted from September 11 to 30, 2013, is based on a sample of 1,365 self-identified Catholics between the ages of 16 and 64 (i.e., the working age population). Ninety-two percent took the survey in English and 8 percent in Spanish. The results have a margin of error of ±2.65 percentage points. The research was conducted for the Office of National Collections (ONC) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.
This report explores financial giving among U.S. working-age Catholics between the ages of 16 and 64. It focuses more specifically on current and future use of online giving through digital technologies. Each table in this report includes the survey question wording and the results for all respondents as well as key sub-groups of interest defined by age, Mass attendance, parish registration, and language preference. The final section of this report includes a description of respondent demographics.
Both CARA data on giving and the broader literature on online giving lead to a reasonable hypothesis that younger Catholics are most likely to be already giving online and to take up interest in new opportunities to give to the Catholic Church online as these are presented. Older Catholics, as time passes and online giving becomes culturally more normalized, may also eventually take advantage of this opportunity in growing numbers. An online option for giving would likely increase the amount the Church is able to fundraise and allow for more people not regularly attending Mass weekly to give to causes important to them.