Updated May 15, 2012  

Staff and Facilities

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Office Spaces

There is no definitive source of information on the number of full-time, paid employees engaged in religious advocacy in the nation’s capital. However, the Pew Forum gathered self reported figures from websites, questionnaires and interviews to try to get a rough sense of staffing levels. Data were available for 120 groups, which together employ more than 1,000 paid staff members in the Washington area. Since the 120 groups represent only about half of the 216 groups in the study (55%), the cumulative staffing level for religious advocacy in the nation’s capital is likely much higher. On the other hand, some employees may not engage in advocacy, though all presumably contribute to the missions of their groups.

Most religious advocacy organizations are modest operations. Eight-in-ten groups for which data were available have 12 or fewer employees (80%). More than half (55%) have five or fewer employees. Less than one-in-ten have more than 25 employees (6%).

Organizations that represent the interests of relative newcomers to religious advocacy, such as Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims, tend to have particularly small staffs (five or fewer employees), as do the advocacy offices of many well-established but small Protestant denominations, such as the Mennonites, the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Of the seven groups with more than 25 employees, five are interreligious, combining the interests of multiple faiths or advocating on religion-related issues without representing any particular faith. Six of the seven groups with a Washington-based staff of more than 25 represent individuals (the other is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which represents a religious body and has a Washington headquarters with many responsibilities besides public policy advocacy).

In addition to staff located in or near Washington, D.C., some organizations have professional employees around the country or around the world. Among the largest is Catholic Relief Services, the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community, which has around 5,000 staff providing development and emergency assistance in approximately 100 countries. Only a small portion of them are involved in Washington advocacy efforts.

Office Spaces 

Just as staff size varies widely, so do office spaces, with some groups sharing cramped quarters while others occupy large buildings. Some advocacy programs, such as the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, are attached to larger national organizations headquartered in the Washington area and benefit from the organizational stability provided by such arrangements, which helps buffer them from economic vagaries.

Other groups have erected their own office buildings in the nation’s capital, which often serve as the hub of coalitions. One of the most prominent is the United Methodist Building, situated across from the U.S. Capitol. Built in the 1920s, it houses the General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church and other mainline Protestant denominational groups, along with several religious organizations that rent space. (See “Evolution, Growth and Turnover”.) Other religious advocacy groups that occupy substantial buildings include the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Family Research Council and the Friends Committee on National Legislation.