While the decrease in total number of religious Americans affects all faith-based philanthropies in the United States, unique challenges are presented to non-Christian philanthropies, of which a few important examples were just shown. Although the great majority of religious Americans are Christian, there is a great deal of good currently being done by non-Christian faith based philanthropies. They have an uphill battle dealing with reduced population and communities as well as public and government religious discrimination.

Reduced Population And Community

The main clear problem that arises is the lower population of religious followers and therefore much less donators. The biggest non-Christian religious group in America is Judaism, which only accounts for 1.9% of the US population and non-Christian religious groups in total account for 5.9% of the population, while 70.6% are Christian. This is a stark difference and definitely provides some challenges to finding a group of able philanthropists. This also leads to smaller communities that are less frequent and harder to find, which acts as a large force behind giving, especially consistently and over time. As shown in the map of the Jewish population across the United States below, there are clearly counties and even whole states where the ability to be able to find an accepting community must be extremely difficult. Imagine how this problem gets worse as the less popular religions in the United States are looked at. “Evidence has shown that community philanthropy initiatives[...] are better able to sustain and adapt to changing needs” (Doan). Community philanthropy is a growing practice as nonprofits realize its importance in attracting donations and so being able to build a strong and unified base is crucial in order to run an effective philanthropy.