Geneva, 18.12.2015. Record-level donations to the LWF Endowment Fund since 2009 have brought the fund closer to its goal – 20 million Swiss francs in 2017.
This year alone it has received more than 670 thousand Swiss francs, thereby bringing the total amount closer to 15 million. The largest share of donations came from the smaller members of the Lutheran communion in the southern hemisphere, including Costa Rica, Nepal and Nigeria.
Since its founding in 1999, the fund raised 10 million Swiss francs in its first decade, aided by a period of high interest rates.
This year the fund allocated 345 thousand Swiss francs to the LWF’s work in advocacy, humanitarian assistance, development, mission, and ecumenical and interfaith relations.
In 2016 the fund will allocate a similar amount, which will again go directly into the LWF budget.
The most generous donor in 2015 was the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
LWF resource mobilisation officer David Cook said that the donors secure the LWF’s long-term financial future. Each year the fund provides a return on the capital investment, which helps to balance out the differences in income from the churches.
The goal of 20 million Swiss francs is divided equally among the member churches according to the principle of a “fair share” – a calculation that takes into account the size of the congregations and the economy of the country where the church is based.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, in preparation for the Reformation celebrations in 2017, has set as its goal a donation of 500 thousand Canadian dollars to the fund’s Reformation Challenge. Rev. Dr. Robin Steinke, chair of the fund’s board, said that the fund provides a perpetual income to support the LWF’s mission.
“With this mission all the member churches, small and large, in the north and in the south, share the means they have, and in sharing, these gifts are multiplied. Such sharing is one more way in which we bear witness to what it means to be a global communion of churches.”
She said – if the fund is supported, then it can provide continuous, permanent income, so that the LWF’s mission can be financed regardless of the volatility of the world’s financial market or changes in the member churches’ donations.
Member churches and individuals are invited to donate to the fund, which supports the LWF’s witness and mission. The long-term goal is to reach 50 million Swiss francs.
Translated by: LELBĀL pastor Ieva Puriņa
Proofreading: Milda Klampe