Nov. 24, 2025
Contact: Judith Cebula
317.916.7327 | communications@lei.org
Grants support efforts to collect and share compelling stories about Christian faith and life
INDIANAPOLIS – Lilly Endowment has approved 48 grants to help a wide variety of organizations engage in projects to share stories that illuminate the vitality of Christian faith and life in congregations and communities throughout the country.
The Endowment is making the grants through a competitive round of its National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life (Storytelling Initiative). The initiative seeks to help organizations identify, produce and share compelling stories about ways that Christians from many different backgrounds and in a broad range of settings are living vibrant lives of faith and engaging in acts of love and service for others.
The grants, which range from $2,863,038 to $5 million, total more than $232 million. See the grants list here.
“Christian leaders from many communities have shared with the Endowment powerful stories about how faith helps people find meaning and hope and connects them with one another. Contrary to many media accounts that highlight the decline of religion, these stories tell how individuals and congregations are living out their faith by tending to the needs of their neighbors, extending hospitality to friends and strangers, and working to promote healing and reconciliation in their communities,” said Christopher L. Coble, the Endowment’s vice president for religion. “Through the Storytelling Initiative, the Endowment hopes that the funded organizations will shine a light on these stories and make more visible the vitality that many Christians experience through their faith.”
The organizations receiving these grants through this highly competitive phase of the Storytelling Initiative reflect a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, have expertise in different storytelling genres and formats, and reach audiences in a wide variety of contexts. The organizations include, among others, faith-based agencies, denominational judicatories, church networks, educational institutions, individual congregations, and publishers and other media groups.
Grants are funding projects that will share a wide range of compelling stories with varied audiences. A few examples, among many others, include projects that will:
- Feature compelling accounts of individuals and faith communities engaging in ministries that address pressing needs in their communities, ministering to those who are incarcerated, and accompanying those who live with physical and intellectual disabilities.
- Help young adults share their own stories of faith with their peers.
- Produce stories about ways that congregations have helped those most impacted by natural disasters and significant disruptive economic changes in their communities.
The projects will take a variety of approaches to share their stories, including through digital media, face-to-face storytelling festivals, podcasts, radio, docuseries, print publications, public awareness campaigns, music, visual arts and storytelling workshops, among others.
“Collectively, these projects will present through multiple formats and to many different audiences a fuller portrait of the vibrancy of Christian faith and life in the United States today,” said Coble.
In early 2024, the Endowment launched the Storytelling Initiative. In December 2024 it announced grants to 12 organizations through an invitational round of the initiative.
About Lilly Endowment
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly, Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Although the gifts of stock remain a financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion. Although the Endowment maintains a special commitment to its founders’ hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana, it also funds programs throughout the United States, especially in the field of religion. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to foster public understanding about religion and lift up in fair, accurate and balanced ways the roles that people of all faiths and diverse religious communities play in the United State and around the globe.