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Last week a parishioner emailed with questions about “Lutheran charities.” That prompted a lengthy response. Since then, after Elon Musk’s criticisms of “Lutheran charities,” I’ve fielded a lot of questions answered by that email. The misleading information out there is horrible!
Here it is lightly edited. I’m sure someone can nitpick certain details…
First of all, half of my seminary internship was social work, so I’ve seen how it works first-hand... the need, the work, the funding, etc... This was with Lutheran Social Services of New England. In Brockton, MA I worked at a group home for teen-age girls in state custody, lived in an assisted-living high rise LSS ran, and did congregational relationship stuff. Back then (over 25 years ago) they ran over 30 programs/ agencies/ etc. around New England.
And also first of all: "Lutheran Charities" is an umbrella name for dozens of independent Lutheran charitable organizations that are very geographically specific. For instance, Lutheran Children & Family Services in Philly did adoptions, refugee resettlement, family/ child counseling, etc. LCFS closed around 2010ish? when Harrisburg couldn't pass a state budget for almost a year and state grants got frozen. Under GW Bush, states were given “block grants” from the Feds to do what they felt was best in their state. The state contracted with LCFS to provide services, but without the state fulfilling those contracts they couldn't pay their employees. Very tragic.
Locally: Lutheran Settlement House in Philly is a battered women's shelter; Diakon runs a few nursing homes (and the first orphanage in the state in Topton); Gemma Services (used to be Martin Luther/Silver Springs) runs group homes for kids (which we support through our Youth Group); Liberty Lutheran does in-home care for the elderly and disaster response; Ken Crest runs neighborhood homes for developmentally disabled adults (at least a couple in Pottstown), etc... And there are a few more… And that's just SE PA. You get the drift. And then there's LAMPA, an advocacy group that lobbies in Harrisburg for all of the above.
If you were to add up all the Lutheran charity organizations in the country, it would be the biggest religious non-profit in the country. Deep roots from the 1800s.
What about St. Matthew’s? In our Annual Budget, the money that goes to larger Lutheran causes is "Synod Benevolence." Last year we gave $20,000 to the SEPA Bishop's Office. About half of that (approx. $10,000) supports the local synod—the Bishop, his Assistants, the deans, interim ministry, call processes, etc... The other half ($10k) goes to our denomination, the ELCA—and that supports the church-wide office... and I think, half (?) of that ($5k??) goes to Lutheran colleges, seminaries, campus ministry, global mission, etc... I don't think any of the "Synod Benevolence" goes to those individual local groups named above, but I could be wrong. We have supported local (and national) Lutheran charities in the past, namely Gemma Services, Lutheran Disaster Response, Lutheran World Hunger, etc.
Because immigration is a hot button: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. I'm familiar with them from the 2000s; we resettled refugees when I was at St. John's, Phoenixville (that was an awesome ministry, very humbling!). Congress sets the quota of refugees (back then about 80,000/yr). The State Dept. then contracts with groups like LIRS. LIRS then farms out contracts to local agencies. Back then it was LCFS in Philly. And LCFS finds churches—like St. John’s—to sponsor them. Refugee resettlement TRULY relies on local churches to be successful.
I know that's a long answer to a short question, but I feel like it's worth the time for a thorough answer.
For more context, please also see this video from the ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton on this topic and responding to the false accusations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liqz0VdZG1E