Beyond Cash: How Stock & Crypto Donations Are Reshaping Generosity

I talk to a lot of church leaders, and almost every one of them can tell me how their giving is trending: online versus cash, recurring versus one-time, or even their average gift size. But when I ask them how much they received last year in stock or cryptocurrency, the conversation often goes quiet.

Not because the number is zero, but because most churches haven’t set up a way to easily receive it.

With the important year-end giving season fast approaching, this might be the biggest blind spot in your generosity strategy right now. Let’s take a look at how to fix this so your donors can express even more forms of generosity.

The Gift Sizes Tell the Real Story

Here are the numbers that every pastor should know: the average online cash gift is around $200. The average stock gift given to churches is $5,000, and the average crypto gift runs over $6,000.

Read that again. A donor giving stock is likely to give somewhere between 25 and 30 times more than a donor giving cash.

It’s tempting to think this is just a niche behavior reserved for a handful of wealthy families. However, these gifts are how a growing share of generous people already manage their money. 

Most of your congregation’s wealth isn’t sitting in a checking account to begin with. High-net-worth individuals only keep 15% of their wealth in cash, compared to 85% in assets like a brokerage account, a 401(k), or, increasingly, a crypto wallet.