Lutheran congregations, schools, and organizations have until Sept. 15 to apply for a total of $5.5 million that the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation will give in its Charitable Gifting Initiative grant program for 2006.
The initiative is a “a competitive grant program aimed at helping Lutheran organizations collaborate with a financial-services organization to foster charitable gifting” to benefit those organizations, said David Rustad, a Thrivent spokesman.
To order the grant-application material online, go to
www.thrivent.com/fraternal/foundation/index.html and click on links under the heading “Lutheran Grant Initiatives documents” near the bottom of the home page.
Lutheran groups eligible for applications include congregations, regional divisions of the nation’s three largest church bodies (such as LCMS districts), small church bodies, high schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, camps, campus ministries, social-ministry organizations, and other independent organizations or institutions.
Awarded grants will range from $5,000 to $100,000.
For 2005, the Thrivent Foundation awarded 75 Charitable Gifting Initiative grants totaling $4.9 million. That included a total of $2 million to 29 LCMS-related organizations.
Rustad said those 75 grants were awarded “with the expectation of generating an estimated $275 million in immediate or deferred monetary gifts” to the Lutheran groups that received them.
Organizations that received a Charitable Gifting Initiative grant in 2005 or 2004 are not eligible for a 2006 grant.
Posted April 27, 2006
