New Grants Help Parents Share Faith with Their Children

The private foundation Lilly Endowment has approved grants totalling approximately $90 million to 77 organizations, The grants will provide resources for parents and other caregivers that help them share Christian faith and values with their children.

These approaches include forming parenting support groups in congregations and creating intergenerational parenting mentoring networks.

“We’ve heard from many parents who are seeking to nurture the spiritual lives of their children, especially in their daily activities, and looking to churches and other faith-based organizations for support,” said Christopher L. Coble, the Endowment’s Vice President for Religion, via statement.

“These thoughtful, creative and collaborative organizations embrace the important role that families have in shaping the religious development of children and are launching programs to assist parents and caregivers with this task.”

Through the Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative, grants range from $240,000 to $1.25 million and are supporting child development and parenting approaches to inform faith practices in the home.

Organizations in the initiative seek to honor the needs of all types of families – from those with different structures and sizes, racial and ethnic backgrounds, or those faced with special challenges.

Grant money will allow these organizations help parents, caregivers, and families engage in:

• Daily Christian practices in their homes through prayer, scripture readings and storytelling
• Helping families develop faith-based rituals to help children grow spiritually by marking significant milestones in the lives of their children and at family celebrations
• Developing peer-coaching programs and offering training so that parents and caregivers can develop confidence in sharing faith

Among the organizations receiving grants through the Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative are a variety of denominational judicatories, congregations, colleges and universities, faith-based camps, seminaries and publishing houses. Many of the organizations are rooted in Black church, Hispanic and Asian Christian traditions.

Find a complete list of the organizations here.