The United States has always had fluctuations in religious convictions, however in recent years there has been significant steep decline. Antagonism towards faith has become increasingly common and more arguments have been made to remove religious protections from some organizations. Not only are many calling for religious protections to be removed, many are also calling for religious ideologies to be removed from national discussions, education, public events and pushed into privatization without public interference. 

The PEW research center found that in 1972, 95% of Americans had a religious affiliation; that number dropped to 76% percent in 2016. The majority of this drop comes from young Americans; nearly 4 out of 10 say they have no religious affiliation. Within this group 3 out of 10 are atheists or agnostic. With the decline in religious affiliation and practice, comes the decline in donation to religious charity. According to the Lily School of Philanthropy, in 2003 68% of households donated while in 2015 only 56% donated to religious charities. Because of this, many faith based organizations need to adapt new methods in order to draw in new members and continue to stay afloat. 

Now, a large majority of Americans without religious affiliation believe that religious institutions do very little to solve social problems. According to Heart + Mind poll, 57% of Americans believe that efforts to improve poverty and the needy would be just as successful if there was no intervention by faith or religious organizations. Although this may have some merit, time and time again, religious practice and consistent attendance of religious services was attributed to the highest amount of philanthropy. Not only that, people with religious motivations are more likely to give to faith based organizations and secular ones, when compared to non religious people. Faith based organizations need to advertise their efforts and prove that their methods of helping to community are effective if they want to remove the notion that their intervention is useless. 

Leaders of churches and other faith based organizations need to find ways to expand their membership and following despite this decrease in religious conviction in America. Learn how Jeff Smith, an elder at the Forrest Hills Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Ohio, is responding to this challenge, expanding the reach of his church, and influencing the youth in is church in this interview clip: