2023 ELCA Foundation report

View reports for our 2023 assembly on our assembly mission and ministry stories page and in this collection of blog posts.

Our regional gift planners Lisa Higginbotham and Josh Kerney share the 2023 annual report for the ELCA Foundation as a PDF, a video, and in this blog post.

The vision of the ELCA Foundation is to be a thriving ministry that develops a culture of intentional generosity and financial stewardship to expand the work of the ELCA. Our mission is to support and sustain ELCA ministries by enhancing gifting capacity and stewarding resources.

As a ministry of the ELCA, we serve individuals, congregations and worship communities; synods; the churchwide organization; and institutions, agencies and other related ELCA organizations.

The ELCA Foundation exists to:

Provide gift planning, administration and processing.
Manage endowment funds and offer investment management services as an acknowledged fiduciary.
Engage individuals and organizations in thoughtful planning to pass on philanthropic values and support ministry passions.

In 2022 the ELCA Foundation’s gift planning network walked alongside 200 donors/families in developing their gift plans, which resulted in $76.5 million in future planned-gift commitments. Nearly $26 million of this will go to provide direct support to individual ELCA congregations. The network generated $116.1 million in total gifts and investment assets. This includes new planned-gift commitments, $10.3 million in current gifts, including funded trusts, gift annuities and individual endowments, and $29.3 million in new assets invested in the Ministry Growth Fund (previously known as Fund A). Thank you for the opportunity to work in your synod, for trusting your endowment dollars to the ELCA Foundation and for allowing us to work alongside your ministries.

The ELCA Foundation and your regional gift planner are here to support your ministry through shared expertise with endowments, gift acceptance policies and practices to promote planned giving. We also work with individual donors to ease the complexity of estate plans, planned gifts, trusts and noncash gifts. Our services are free of charge to your congregation and its members. A local representative from our network of regional gift planners is available to work with you. Learn more about the ELCA Foundation by watching “ELCA Foundation: Make a Plan. Change the World.,” visiting our updated website at foundation.elca.org or contacting your regional gift planner to help your congregation grow its culture of giving today.

Contact your regional gift planner: