What kinds of program interventions help congregations thrive?
Context
Most main-line denominational churches across the United States are experiencing declining membership. Through the Thriving Congregations Initiative, Lilly Endowment has supported charitable organizations in the United States in developing new or strengthening existing programs that work directly with congregations to help them assess and adapt their ministries to their changing contexts as they move toward a post-COVID-19 pandemic future.
The aim of the initiative is to help congregations thrive by strengthening ministries that help people deepen their relationships with God, enhance their connections with each other, and contribute to the flourishing of their communities and the world. Read more about The Lilly Endowment’s work with congregations here: https://lillyendowment.org/thrivingcongregations/
Beyond Data works with three grant recipients to evaluate the effectiveness of their interventions and report findings to The Lilly Endowment.
Research
We spent the first few months developing a research plan with each organization. The specific plans depend on the project design, but most include:
A congregation-member survey at the beginning and end of the experience,
Evaluation of the congregation as a whole on certain characteristics or values,
Congregation-level operational data (e.g. budget, # attendees),
Interviews with key stakeholders.
We have worked closely with each team to design feasible but comprehensive research projects. Each year, we analyze all collected evidence and synthesize the results.
Deliverable
We meet with the organizations each autumn to discuss the patterns we’re observing in the data and work together to understand the underlying mechanisms at play. We offer questions for them to explore further. Once we’ve come to a shared understanding about the learnings, we formalize them in a yearly report that they use to report program effectiveness back to The Lilly Endowment.