The Lilly Endowment, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is one of the largest charitable foundations in the country, providing grants to religious institutions. In 2024, with reported assets of nearly $80 billion, the Lilly Endowment distributed $2.4 billion in grants, $809 million of which was allocated through its religion division.
Several Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) entities – from seminaries, to agencies, synods and even congregations – have received funding to envision new ministries and expand the work they do in the world.
Seminary funding
One of the largest areas of funding the Lilly Endowment has given through its religious division in the last several years has been to seminaries and other religious education institutions. Nearly all Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) theological institutions have participated in one way during these grants.
Lilly’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative began in 2022 by offering exploratory grants to schools for use in exploring emerging challenges and opportunities in relation to the needs of student bodies, and to envision new strategies to educate and address these needs.
Recipients of exploratory and phase one funding included Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
Phase two funding, which was announced for 2025, included $50,00 grants to previously unawarded schools – Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and San Francisco Theological Seminary – for exploratory work.
Beyond the Pathways Initiative grants, Presbyterian theological institutions also received grants in the following areas:
- Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative
- Communications Capacity Building Initiative for Major Programs in Religion
- Compelling Preaching Initiative
- Ministry in Rural Areas and Small Towns Initiative
- National Christian Faith and Life Storytelling Initiative
- National Initiative to Address Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leadership
- National Initiative to Strengthen Hispanic Pastoral Leaders and Congregations
- Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative
- Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative
- Thriving Congregations Initiative
- Thriving in Ministry Initiative
Rural ministry
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in addition to receiving $18 million in funding from the Lilly Endowment for the Louisville Institute, received $5 million through the Ministry in Rural Areas and Small Towns Initiative to fund the Black Church Rural and Small Town Ministry Initiative as part of its Black Church Studies Program.
Program Director Prezavia Praylow describes the project as a “missional ministry initiative” that will help congregational leaders, presbyteries and collaborators beyond the PC(USA), “assess the state of Black churches in their context.”
The initiative is also working with 12 re-grant partners to fund initiatives in each of their settings to foster collaboration, lifelong learning and build support for Black rural churches to fulfill the project’s priorities of church growth, evangelism, engagement with Black church rural heritage and elevating Black women in ministry. The initiative disburses the re-grants with the original Lilly grant funding.
With lifelong learning, assessment and refinement built into the evaluative process, Praylow is hopeful that the grant will be a springboard to introduce the wider church to the gifts of the Black rural church.
“We’re learning that the Black church has been a cornerstone of the thriving of Black communities from slavery to freedom,” she said. “We’re learning about the resiliency of Black churches that did not always have access to large member organizations.”
The Lilly Endowment has also granted the University of the Ozarks, a PC(USA)-affiliated institution, roughly $7 million dollars over the past several years to support rural pastors and churches.
In 2021, the university established the Thriving in Rural Ministry Program through a grant of $997,322 from Lilly Endowment. University of Ozark’s Thriving in Rural Ministry Program supports pastors of rural and minority-serving Presbyterian Churches throughout Arkansas. In 2023, a $966,099 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., helped the university create the Thriving Rural Congregations Program to support rural congregations within the Presbytery of Arkansas.
In 2025, University of the Ozarks received a grant of $4,877,803 from Lilly Endowment Inc., through its Ministry in Rural Areas and Small Towns Initiative. The grant will support the university’s efforts to help rural churches embrace their calling as anchor institutions within their communities through the Town Square Collaborative.
Financial leadership
Though not on the most recent slate of Lilly grants, the Board of Pensions and Presbyterian Foundation have received grants to help foster financial stewardship and literacy, and to assist with debt relief.
Beginning in 2015, the Board of Pensions received a planning grant that allowed it to develop the Healthy Pastors, Healthy Congregations program assisted by $2.5 million from the Lilly Endowment. Although Lilly funding ended in 2021 and this program closed after $8 million was distributed to 944 pastors, a similar initiative, renamed Minister Debt Relief and funded by the Board of Pensions, has been in place since that time.
A grant of up to $10,000 is available to eligible ministers and can be applied to any debt. The program includes an intake assessment, learning modules and consultations with a financial advisor to assist with immediate and long-term goals. In the last three reporting years (2022-24), more than $4 million has been distributed in 471 grants. A majority of Minister Debt Relief participants polled (79%) said the grant provided sustained debt relief.
“That’s really the goal of the program,” commented Ruth Adams, director of the Board of Pensions Assistance Program. “If you give someone the tools to succeed, they have something they can use for their lifetime.”
Since 2016, the Presbyterian Foundation has received $2.35 million from Lilly to fund initiatives for financial literacy. As part of the Lilly Endowment’s National Initiative to Address Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders, the foundation established the Church Financial Literacy and Leadership Program to meet these needs.
The program’s four key areas include leadership grants, a coaching program, a coaches network, a leadership academy, and have served over 1,600 church leaders, Additionally, the grants have fostered nearly 650 partnerships and funded the development of the Stewardship Navigator – a free resource used by 1,900 PC(USA) congregations to plan their year-round giving and stewardship campaigns.
“This coaching program has been a ‘game changer’ for me,” said Catherine Craley, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Mercer, Pennsylvania, noting that giving had increased 30% over the course of her coaching and a capital campaign had been initiated.
Children’s worship and prayer
A major Lilly Endowment initiative called Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer has garnered seven PC(USA) institutions $9.9 million in grants for their projects.
The Presbyterian Publishing Corporation received a $1.25 million award in this area and is working toward building the initiative named “Worship for the Whole People of God.” The project’s purpose is to create resources for intergenerational worship within the Presbyterian church that also speaks to the needs of neurodivergent populations.
“One of the things we are trying to do through this initiative is to dispel the idea that intergenerational worship just means kid friendly,” said Amy Kim Kyremes-Parks, PPC Church Acquisitions Editor and project coordinator. “The hope is that people will start understanding that when we make things more welcoming to any group, that it actually is more expansive for all of us in the ways that we understand community, the ways that we grow in our faith and the creativity that happens because we’re open to other possibilities.”
Another recipient of this award is Westminster Presbyterian Church in Oklahoma City on behalf of the 700 congregations in the Synod of the Sun. It received $1.25 million in funding from Lilly and has developed Big Faith Resources as a tool and learning hub for churches seeking to include families with neurodivergent families in worship.
Michelle Junkin, pastor of spiritual formation at Westminster, says the church serves as a learning lab that, with guidance from partners in developmental disability and autism awareness, helps the church adapt its worship experience to be more invitational to families and individuals who experience external inputs differently so “churches become places where all children can grow in faith, worship freely, and find their place in God’s story.”
A webinar highlighting the work Big Faith Resources titled Creating neuro-affirming worship: Welcoming neurodiverse children and families will be hosted by the Presbyterian Outlook at 7:00 pm ET on November 5, 2025.
Cultural legacy
The Presbyterian Historical Society received a total of $2.5 million across two grants in 2024 to create traveling exhibits of materials it has stored and curated. The first exhibit, “Faith and Justice in the 1960s: Religious News Service Covers Civil Rights” was displayed at the 90th anniversary of Religion News Service in September 2024.
Additional exhibits will be developed under the grant over a five-year cycle to include additional Religion News Service exhibits along with an exhibit highlighting the impact of ecumenical and interfaith groups on U.S. social and political life in the 20th century and another on the legacy of Presbytery mission work among Native American populations, including the history of Presbyterian Indian schools.
The list of PC(USA) entities currently utilizing Lilly Endowment funding is extensive. The ongoing work of the funding, through programs that were envisioned and started with seed money from Lilly, continues in many areas of the church as well.
David Loleng, vice president of church financial literacy & leadership and stewardship education at the Presbyterian Foundation, expressed gratitude to the Lilly Endowment for working with them to shape and refine the programs they provide.
“Lilly has been an excellent partner and has given us the flexibility to explore solutions that help PC(USA) ministers succeed financially, both personally and for their congregations, so they can serve God and God’s people more effectively,” he said.
