Updated May 15, 2012
Executive Summary
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Expenditures by Religious Advocacy Groups
Diversity in Religious Advocacy
About the Report
Roadmap to the Report
The number of organizations engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in
Washington, D.C., has increased roughly fivefold in the past four decades, from fewer than 40
in 1970 to more than 200 today. These groups collectively employ at least 1,000 people in the
greater Washington area and spend at least $350 million a year on efforts to influence national
public policy. As a whole, religious advocacy organizations work on about 300 policy issues.
For most of the past century, religious advocacy groups in Washington focused mainly on
domestic affairs. Today, however, roughly as many groups work only on international issues
as work only on domestic issues, and nearly two-thirds of the groups work on both. These
are among the key findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion
& Public Life that examines a total of 216 religion-related advocacy groups operating in the
nation’s capital.
The study finds that about one-in-five religious advocacy organizations in Washington have
a Roman Catholic perspective (19%) and a similar proportion are evangelical Protestant in
outlook (18%), while 12% are Jewish and 7% are mainline Protestant. But many smaller
U.S. religious groups, including Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, also have
established advocacy organizations in the Washington area. In fact, the number of Muslim
groups (17) is about the same as the number of mainline Protestant groups (16). And the largest
category today is interreligious: About one-quarter of the groups studied (57) either represent
multiple faiths or advocate on religious issues without representing a specific religion.
This report is based on a systematic examination of the websites, mission statements, tax
documents and other public records of religious advocacy groups. Researchers also relied on
responses to a written questionnaire that was sent to 148 separate, active groups included
in the study and completed by 61 of them. Additionally, lead researcher Allen D. Hertzke
conducted in-depth interviews with leaders of 36 groups and observed the advocacy efforts
of many other groups at congressional hearings, lobby days, press conferences and other
Washington-based events.
Previous studies indicate that lobbying in general
has increased rapidly in recent decades. But
the growth in the number of religion-related
advocacy organizations appears to have kept
pace with – or even exceeded – the growth
in some other common types of advocacy
organizations. According to various studies,
for example, the number of national trade and
professional associations more than doubled,
from about 10,000 to about 22,000, between
1968 and the mid-1990s, then leveled off. And
the number of corporations with Washington,
D.C., offices rose more than threefold, from 175
to more than 600, between 1978 and 2004.2
Expenditures by Religious Advocacy Groups
Efforts by religious groups to influence U.S.
public policy are a multimillion-dollar
endeavor, with combined annual expenditures
conservatively estimated at more than
$350 million. The median annual advocacy
expenditures by the 129 groups for which recent
(2008 or 2009) financial data were available
was nearly $950,000. More than one-third of the groups (44 groups, or 34%) reported annual
advocacy expenditures between $1 million and $5 million per year, while about one-in-ten (17
groups, or 13%) reported spending more than $5 million a year. (See chart on Advocacy Expenditures.)
The recession in the U.S. economy from late 2007 to mid-2009 seems to have taken a toll
on the budgets of many religion-related advocacy organizations. For instance, the executive
secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation reported in June 2009 that the
group’s advocacy spending dropped from $4.6 million to roughly $3 million between 2007 and
2009, primarily because of declining investments.
Of the 102 groups for which
data on expenditures in
both 2008 and 2009 were
available, 57 reported that
their advocacy spending was
lower in 2009 than it had
been in 2008. The average
decline for the 57 groups
was about $500,000. In
the same period, 45 groups
reported that their advocacy
spending rose, with the
average increase being about
$300,000. Overall, among
the 102 groups, there was
a net drop of about $17
million in total advocacy
expenditures during this
period. (For more details, see Two-Year Comparison of Advocacy Spending subsection.)
Diversity in Religious Advocacy
Religious advocacy organizations in Washington reflect the pluralism of religion in America.
They are diverse in many other ways as well, including in their organizational structures, their
issue agendas and their primary advocacy methods.
Faith Communities: Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish advocacy groups are the most
numerous (a total of 124 groups); together they make up 57% of the religious advocacy
groups in the study. About one-in-six of the advocacy groups in the study (35 groups, or 16%)
represent faiths with smaller numbers of adherents in the U.S., such as Baha’is, Buddhists,
Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, as well as other Christian and secular groups. The remaining
quarter of the groups in the study (57) represent the views of multiple faiths or advocate on
religion-related issues without representing a specific religious tradition, which is more than
the number of groups representing any single faith.
Organizational Structure: Religious advocacy groups
also exhibit a variety of
organizational structures. Many
groups represent individual
members (90 groups, or 42%).
These include, for example,
Concerned Women for America,
the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, Sojourners
and People For the American
Way. But a substantial portion
are associations that represent
institutions such as Christian
colleges, Catholic hospitals and
religious broadcasters (37 groups,
or 17%). A similar number (32
groups, or 15%) represent the
official interests of a particular
denomination or religious
tradition, such as the Justice and
Witness Ministries of the United
Church of Christ and the Ethics
& Religious Liberty Commission
of the Southern Baptist Convention. Still others (21 groups, or 10%) are think tanks, such as
the Institute on Religion & Democracy and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
Permanent coalitions — such as the Save Darfur Coalition, which focuses on Sudan, and the
Jubilee USA Network, which seeks debt relief for poor countries — account for 19 groups, or
9% of the total. Hybrid groups that cross over various categories — such as the Becket Fund
for Religious Liberty, which combines elements of a think-tank with a public interest law firm —
make up the remainder (17 groups, or 8%).
Issue Agendas: This study finds that religious advocacy groups in Washington address about
300 policy issues, touching on a wide array of domestic and foreign policy concerns. A fifth
of the groups focus just on domestic matters, while about one-in-six (16%) focus solely on
international issues. Nearly two-thirds (63%), however, are engaged in both domestic and
foreign issues.
On the domestic front, the
most commonly addressed
issues are the relationship
between church and state,
the defense of civil rights and
liberties for religious and
other minorities, bioethics
and life issues (such as
abortion, capital punishment
and end-of-life issues) and
family/marriage issues (such
as the definition of marriage, domestic violence and fatherhood initiatives).
Internationally, the most commonly addressed concerns are human rights, debt relief and
other economic issues, and the promotion of peace and democracy. Indeed, compared with
past decades, religious advocacy today is increasingly globalized, connecting a multitude of
diverse constituencies with policymakers in the United States and other countries.
Advocacy Methods: More
than nine-in-ten groups that
completed a questionnaire
about their activities say that
informing their constituents
and the general public is
among their advocacy methods
or strategies. (For more
information on the questionnaire,
see the Methodology.)
And about four-in-ten of the
groups that filled out the
questionnaire (41%) report
that educating constituents
on issues – rather than
directly approaching policymakers
— is the activity they
engage in most often. The
next most-cited strategy is
meeting with officials, which 15% of the groups list as their most frequent activity.
Other findings in the study include:
- More than eight-in-ten of the 216 religious advocacy groups in the study (82%) operate as
nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
This means they are not allowed to devote a substantial part of their activities to lobbying as
defined by the Internal Revenue Service.
- Only 10 groups (5%) are organized solely as 501(c)(4) organizations, which are permitted to
conduct substantial amounts of lobbying as defined by the IRS. Twenty-seven groups (13%) are
501(c)(3) organizations that have a sister group that is registered as a 501(c)(4), or vice versa.
- While more than three-quarters of American adults identify as Christians, about half of
the religious advocacy groups in the study are exclusively Christian. Many of the religious
coalitions and interreligious groups, however, are partly or largely Christian in outlook.
- More than eight-in-ten of the groups that completed a questionnaire about their activities
say they use targeted or mass emails to mobilize constituents. More than six-in-ten were using
social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter in 2009.
- Eight-in-ten of the groups for which staffing data were available employ 12 or fewer people in
the Washington area.
About the Report
This report is based on the full set of 216 groups except where otherwise indicated. For
example, the discussion of the groups’ advocacy strategies is based primarily on the 61 groups
in the study that completed the questionnaire. (See the Methodology for details.)
Readers should bear three important limitations in mind. First, although this study analyzes
a number of major characteristics of religious advocacy organizations, including their annual
spending, it does not attempt to assess their political influence. An organization’s size –
whether measured by expenditures, staff size or number of constituents – is not necessarily
a reliable indicator of its influence on policymaking. This study makes no claims about the
degree of influence wielded either by individual organizations or by religious advocacy groups
as a whole.
Second, religious advocacy undoubtedly is conducted, formally and informally, by many
individuals and groups beyond the 216 organizations included in this report. Numerous other
religious groups send delegations to the nation’s capital, organize campaigns from a distance,
join coalitions and contact legislators in their home districts as well as in Washington. For
example, the American Family Association, based in Mississippi, operates an extensive
legislative alert system that identifies legislation relevant to its members and urges them to
contact lawmakers, but it does not have a Washington office. This study focuses on formal,
institutional efforts by groups with paid staff and physical offices in or near the nation’s capital.
Given the limits of the study, it is likely that the findings reported here underestimate the full
breadth and depth of religious advocacy in Washington.
Finally, the groups define themselves in many different ways, and they report their
expenditures, constituencies, issue agendas and other characteristics differently. Professor
Hertzke and Pew Forum researchers have tried to be as consistent as possible in determining
how to categorize the advocacy groups. The study relies primarily on the groups’ own websites,
mission statements and tax filings, as well as questionnaire and interview responses, to
determine what issues they work on, what strategies they employ, what constituencies
they represent, how many staff members they have and how much they spend on advocacy.
However, judgment calls inevitably had to be made, and other researchers might have made
different decisions. For this reason, the study tries to be as transparent as possible. For
example, the study includes an online table showing the spending data that was considered
in determining which expenditures most closely reflect each group’s annual advocacy-related
spending. Professor Hertzke and the Pew Forum researchers tried to choose the expenditure
figures for each group that best reflected the broad definition of advocacy used in this report.
Given the broad range of advocacy activities that many of the groups undertake, the study does
not restrict the expenditures to those costs that were incurred for direct lobbying as strictly
defined by the Internal Revenue Service. (See Methodology for more details.)
Roadmap to the Report
The next section of this report provides a brief history of organized religious advocacy in
Washington – “Evolution, Growth and Turnover." This is followed by an
analysis of the major characteristics of religious advocacy groups currently or recently active in
the nation’s capital. The order of the sections is as follows:
In addition, an online directory includes
profiles of the 216 religious advocacy groups in the study, as well as excerpts from their
mission statements and financial data, where available.
Footnotes:
2 For an overview of these studies, see Berry and Wilcox, “The Advocacy Explosion” in The Interest Group Society, 2009. In addition, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that the number of registered lobbyists grew from about 10,400 in 1998 to nearly 15,000 in 2007, before dropping to around 13,000 in 2010. Total estimated lobbying spending has more than doubled over the same period, rising from $1.44 billion in 1998 to $3.51 billion in 2010. See Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/.(return to text)