About
About Fund for Leaders
The ELCA Fund for Leaders scholarship program supports students of tremendous promise attending ELCA seminaries. By making seminary more affordable, the ELCA Fund for Leaders enables more future ministers to go to seminary and helps them graduate with less debt, empowering those whom God calls into ministry to go and serve wherever the church needs them most.
Together, we are working toward our ultimate goal: a future in which every ELCA seminary candidate can graduate without the burden of financial debt.
About the 25th Anniversary
Twenty-five years ago, at the 1997 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, leaders of our church presented a case for establishing what we now know as the ELCA Fund for Leaders and challenged the church to make a robust commitment to theological education for its future leaders. In 2000 the Fund for Leaders awarded its first eight scholarships. Now, the Fund for Leaders supports over 300 candidates for ministry with over $3.2 million in scholarships. Including synodical scholarship recipients, the Fund for Leaders network of alums has grown to over a thousand!
The fund is providing $1 million more in scholarship support annually than it was five years ago. With your help, we hope to increase our annual awards by another $1 million in the next five years. That will allow us to give 50 full-tuition scholarships to promising leaders every year.
How can you support this?
There are many ways you can support ELCA Fund for Leaders in this landmark year; you can make a one-time donation of any amount, become a monthly partner of this ministry or even set up your own fundraising page. Your support — in whatever form it takes — will allow more talented leaders to say “yes” to God’s call!
Our success to date hints at great possibilities, but there is more that we can do with additional financial gifts. We are committed to the future leaders of this church to work toward supporting every one of them financially. Together, we can step forward as a bold and courageous church and say “yes” to our future leaders.