Lilly Endowment’s latest round of its Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative (Pathways) aims to help theological schools strengthen and sustain their institutional capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders for Christian churches.
The Endowment is expanding Pathways by offering two new grant opportunities for theological schools in the United States and Canada accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to:
- Explore the leadership needs of Christian congregations as well as emerging challenges and opportunities facing their own institutions.
- Gain clarity about their mission in light of these challenges and opportunities and in relationship to the leadership needs of their constituent churches.
- Assess the effectiveness of their financial and educational strategies as well as the long-term viability of their overall operations for educating and supporting pastoral leaders.
- Design and implement plans to launch new and/or strengthen current projects to address their key challenges and opportunities and to make their institutions more educationally effective and financially viable for the continued preparation and support of pastors and congregational lay ministers into the future.
Individual School Grants
ATS-accredited theological schools that did not receive Phase 2 grants in the previous round of Pathways were invited to apply for grants of up to $1 million each to strengthen their institutional financial and educational capacities to prepare and support pastoral leaders for the long term.
Eligible theological schools were able to request from the Pathways coordination program assessment and planning grants of up to $50,000 each to engage in conversations about the leadership needs of congregations, explore insights emerging from theological schools participating in the first round of Pathways, assess and design capacity-building projects to strengthen their financial operations and educational programs, and prepare proposals for Individual School Implementation Grants.
View list of Individual School Implementation Grant recipients.
Large-scale Collaboration Grants
All eligible ATS-accredited theological schools were invited to apply for grants of up to $10 million each to support large-scale collaborative endeavors that will 1) strengthen the institutional financial and educational capacities of the collaborating organizations to prepare and support pastoral leaders into the future, and 2) offer compelling and sustainable models that, if successful, could be adopted by other theological schools and collaborating organizations.
Interested theological schools submitted concept papers that provided initial descriptions of potential large-scale collaborations that would strengthen their collective institutional capacities to advance the initiative’s aim.
Large-scale collaboration grants, of up to $10 million each, may be used for up to a five-year period to develop and execute the proposed plans. The invited theological schools will receive planning grants of up to $50,000 each to assist them in designing their large-scale collaborations and preparing proposals for implementation grants.
The Endowment anticipates awarding Large-scale Collaboration Grants totaling up to $250 million and announcing funding decisions for these grants in December 2025.