← The Journal Research · 4 min read

Why only 7.5% of religious organizations have an endowment.

Seven in ten colleges and universities have one. Here’s what MIT research on 374,000 nonprofits shows, and what it means for churches.

By Emmanuel Iroko · Oct 12, 2026

Researchers at MIT studied the tax filings of 374,351 U.S. nonprofits from 2008 to 2020. They found that 70.4% of higher-education institutions report an endowment. Among religious organizations, it’s 7.5%.

It isn’t a lack of generosity

Churches receive gifts every week. The difference is structure. Universities built endowment offices decades ago. Most churches never had the tools, so every gift was spent the year it arrived.

A note on the numbers

The study uses IRS Form 990 filings, and many churches don’t file one. The true picture for churches may differ, but the gap is real and wide.

Seven in ten universities have an endowment. Fewer than one in ten religious organizations do.

Closing that gap doesn’t require a major donor. It requires a policy, and a way to follow it automatically.

Source: Lo, Matveyev & Zeume, “The Risk, Reward, and Asset Allocation of Nonprofit Endowment Funds,” MIT Sloan / NBER. ssrn.com/abstract=3560240