Phil Cooke

I can relate this to my experience within Local Churches so I don't know how valuable that will be.

There is a definite economy of scale that takes place within the Local Church.  On average, the actual amount of money spent directly on pure ministry is usually quite small.  Most local church budgets run at about 50% of the annual budget.  There can be a 10% fluctuation either way, but I'd bet the farm that that is a pretty clear bell curve and few fall outside of that span.

Building and maintenance hits about 20 – 25%.  The remaining 25% of budget gets spread among other administrative costs, supplies with maybe 10% applied to actual program and ministry costs.  Some Churches even give money outside of themselves for missions as well and it depends on whether it is inside or outside of their annual budget.  It's a rare Church that exceeds 10% of it's annual budget in missions type projects.

Some argue that you can't consider salaries as overhead because these are the people who do the ministry and I understand that argument and it's right.  I've even seen some creative accountants argue that the building has to seen as a tool that supports ministry and therefore spending money on the building should be seen as an investment for future ministry revenues.

The economy of scale kicks in as the church gets larger, in general, the staff costs stay at roughly the same proportion but begin to skew toward the 40% level depending upon the ministry model in use in the Church.  Building maintenance costs tend to reduce as well as you have higher program usage relative to the size of the building and the congregants per square foot.

In short, the larger the church, the greater the proportion of the budget available for direct ministry costs.

There's ways around it.  Some churches don't own buildings and rent non-traditional space for example.

The media costs of course, are probably more the issue for the context here.  My experience there is limited.

My guess would be that there is a significance to how a Church or ministry organization views those costs.  Joel Osteen for example, from what I've read and observed treats their media expenses as a cost of ministry and therefore they don't use the TV time for any fund raising period.  Of course, they still receive a healthy cash flow from viewers who send support in unsolicited.  That amazes me.

Where push would come to shove is, if that revenue were to decrease significantly for any reason would they continue to maintain the same level as a commitment to ministry and scale back in other areas?  Is the media ministry for them, in other words, a direct ministry expense of the Church or is it a satellite that has to pay for itself?

A ministry organization which is not an extension of the local Church, and which actively solicits funds, has to treat things differently if the revenues there are the sole means of support for every element.

This may explain why so few Churches, even large one and mega-ministries break into wide distribution ministries.  When you start with a local Church and are locked into 70-80% fixed costs (assuming there's a commitment to employees) the available funds to move in that direction are prohibitive without great leadership and vision.

My motto in Church ministry has always been that money follows vision and most Church financial problems are a symptom of something else.

Yet, most of the issues I see with large media ministries are in part attributable, in my opinion, to a lack of connection with a Church or governing body where there is stability and accountibility.

It puts a lot of things into context, doesn't it?

Your points are quite good. Both Bart and yourself have done some good homework.