We all have charities that we love – causes and organizations that tug at our hearts. How can you most help those grow? Hint: It isn’t to write them a check or to show up, it is to invest in the thing that makes your thing possible.

For 2,000 years one institution has created people who have hearts for others. That institution’s teaching has helped its’ members generate emotional and financial margin in their lives. The engine that makes your favorite charity and mine possible is the church. When you give first to something else rather than the church, you bypass the foundation that creates and nurtures the next generation of giving people, the very people who will have the time, talent and treasure to support the good works that tug at your heart. Oh, you might say, “There are people who are givers who aren’t and who never have been members of a church.” That is true, but those people have been nurtured in a culture with Christian assumptions: charity, kindness, an emphasis on the other. Even the non-churched in the West have been the recipients of the culture of the church. The data says that when you correct out for giving to the church (and much giving to churches gets then re-gifted to outside agencies), that church attending Christians still out give all other groups. In addition, “households that give to religious organizations donate about twice as much as households that give to secular organizations.”

In other words, the single best investment you can make in the organizations you care for is to tithe to a church. Healthy churches keep the floodgates of giving people open wide. So give to your cause, but give first to a church. It is a method that has worked for 2,000 years. With your help it will work for 2,000 more. If not, churches will continue to close, and, as giving people age out, your charity will be a generation behind it on the list of good things that are no more.

Source: National Center for Charitable Statistics