Contact: Dawn Jantsch

469.398.3606, x 104

djantsch@choristersguild.com

 

CHORISTERS GUILD RECEIVES $1.3M GRANT FROM LILLY ENDOWMENT INC.

          June 22, 2023

 

Choristers Guild has received a grant of $1.25M from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help create and edit curricula that will assist the choral leader for children in preschool, elementary, and junior high to provide expert leadership in the worship setting. 

 

The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. The aim of the national initiative is to support faith-based organizations as they help children grow in faith and deepen their relationships with God.

 

This grant term will last from March 1, 2023, through December 31, 2028. A few goals for Choristers Guild include rebuilding struggling children’s choirs, challenging churches without children’s choirs to add one, and empowering child singers to recognize that they are worship leaders in the church through singing. Some highlights of the project include creating curriculums for the volunteer or paid staff for both Sunday schools and children’s programs, with a curriculum that will foster a multisensory environment where preschoolers can experience and express the great stories of their faith. 

 

“For this purpose, we have gathered strong educational and choral leaders to create different levels of curriculum that can focus on creating and organizing children’s choirs, reinvigorating choirs, and providing a strong foundation for teaching children to use their musical skills as worship leaders,” said Dawn Jantsch, Choristers Guild’s executive director. 

 

Lilly Endowment is making nearly $32 million in grants through this invitational round of the Nurturing Children initiative. The grants are funding efforts to help organizations develop new and/or enhance existing programs that support congregations as they design worship services and prayer practices that more intentionally and fully engage children. 

 

Choristers Guild is one of 26 organizations taking part in the initiative. They represent and serve congregations in a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, including mainline Protestant, evangelical, Catholic, Pentecostal, Black church, Hispanic and Asian traditions.  Many organizations also serve churches that describe themselves as nondenominational, ecumenical and multi-denominational.

 

Lilly Endowment launched the Nurturing Children initiative in 2022 as part of its commitment to support efforts that strengthen the religious education and formation of children and enhance the vitality of Christian congregations.

 

Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic 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. While those gifts remain the 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 and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. 

Choristers Guild is known as a choral, school, handbell, and instrumental music publisher, and a leader in educational material for choir leaders. It is a nonprofit that has strived to nurture leaders to foster children to become leaders in the church through music and prayer for 74 years. The founder, Ruth Krehbiel Jacobs, conceived the organization as a vehicle for supporting the systematic development of Christian character in children through the medium of the church children’s choir. The Choristers Guild mission is to enable leaders to nurture the musical and spiritual growth of children, youth, and adults.