More than Just Junk Mail

In our advancement meeting this week, we were talking about ILT's end of the year fundraising campaign. This is the biggest yearly fundraiser for ILT and this year we have a donor who is willing to match $150,000 of donations received by January 21, 2018. This is exciting for us, but for many people, it is just another piece of junk mail on their dining room table at night.

I, of course, understand this attitude toward a donation letter. I have the same attitude for many of the appeal letters I receive in the mail on a regular basis. So let me tell you a little bit about how ILT uses the money we receive from donors.

The money is used in one of two ways. Some donations are restricted to a specific use by the donor. These funds are used in accord with the wishes of the donor. Mostly, these are donations given to the financial aid fund or other special projects. ILT budgets $30,000 a year to help students who have financial need. Last year we received $121,023 dollars in restricted funds. These funds were used to help support our international partners, our students through financial aid, and to create a reserve fund toward accreditation compliance.

For the most part, however, donations are given to be used for general operations. This is important because it helps us keep the cost of education low. Some of the feedback from the recent accreditation visit is that we have a very small staff for a school our size, with employees taking on multiple roles. We keep expense as low as we can.

The end of the year campaign is one of four that ILT runs as a part of its business plan. ILT depends upon donations for the majority of its income. However, we are conscious of the generosity of our donors. We know that there is no need to go to our donors every month. Most have a plan for giving to ILT already in place. It is still important to be able to offer regular information to you about the state of things around ILT.

Please think about donating to ILT this year. Our appeal letter is more than just junk mail. Donations to ILT support the students who will one day be our pastors and teachers. To learn more about giving to ILT click here.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ILT and Woman's Ordination

Image
Over the past years, some have commented about ILT and the ordination of women because through ILT’s email newsletter and social media it is obvious ILT has students who are women. Let me start by saying that ILT does not have an official position, nor can it ever take an official position on women’s ordination. However, because we do have female students, it is understandable that we receive a question like “Why does ILT ordain women?” There are two facts that need to be made clear. First, ILT has students preparing for pastoral ministry and who, when they graduate, serve as pastors in congregations. Second, ILT is an independent seminary and graduate school and does not belong to any denomination. This means ILT cannot ordain anyone into the office of pastoral ministry. Only churches and church bodies can do this. I can say clearly and with certainty, ILT does not practice women’s ordination, and it will not, because it cannot. We do, however, have many denominations who look to
Read more

The Church Business

Image
I've been accused of being in the "church business" before. Of course, this was from someone who thought that we were simply using Christianity to take money from the susceptible. As if pastors and church leaders were simply exploiting the underlying fears people have concerning death and final judgment so as to acquire donations from them. From this perspective, the church is nothing but a business with a specific business model. We, of course, do not want this stigma. We try to avoid looking like we are merely in the church business for the profit. From the Christian perspective, there is a necessary suspicion about using business language or principles with anything connected to the church. Business is after all inherently corrupt and unethical. The way God calls Christians to live together in faith is antithetical to the way business must necessarily operate. But for a business that is connected to the church, there remain these questions: Is there a way for church-
Read more

One Week after Accreditation

Image
We really did not know how it was going to go. I have often said over the last week that I would not want to play poker against any of our accreditation visitation team or the commission members. They did not in any way let us know what they were thinking about ILT as a candidate for initial accreditation. We did not have a good feeling, either way. However, one week ago, ILT was granted initial accreditation from the Associate for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE). Most people connect to ILT have probably never heard of ABHE until they heard that ILT had decided to receive accreditation from them. Most Lutheran schools are accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). There were a couple of hurdles for ILT concerning ATS. One is that ATS does not allow for a 100% online learning modality. ATS accreditation would radically change the way ILT approaches online education. Our integrated online approach which combines the academic classroom into the real life of the student
Read more