· Public charity
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a not-for-profit membership organization of christians.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 1,460 grants below total $74,742,311 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $110,618,538 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $35,876,227 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k844 grants · $5.7M
- $10k–50k528 grants · $9.2M
- $50k–250k55 grants · $4.6M
- $250k+33 grants · $55M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Thrivent Member Network - Greater Iowa (365) | $3,970,349 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Northland (435) | $3,684,118 |
| Thrivent Member Network - South Wisconsin (523) | $3,648,266 |
| Thrivent Member Network - East WI & Upper MI (3 | $3,454,289 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Southeast (190) | $3,306,473 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Heartland (528) | $2,797,162 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Twin Cities (283) | $2,615,671 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Great Lakes (240) | $2,473,809 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Kansas & Missouri (410 | $2,404,345 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Mid-America (270) | $2,235,052 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Mid-Atlanic (165) | $2,193,328 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Nebraska (378) | $2,046,349 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Southwest (529) | $1,994,263 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Texas (475) | $1,875,902 |
| Thrivent Member Network - Northeast (115) | $1,870,407 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–18) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +37% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
1683 repeat relationships — 933 still active in FY2024, 750 since wound down; 31 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.5M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITY - MIDOHIO5× · 2017–2022 · $18M · revenue +93% · 64% of their budget
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC8× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +145%- OGORPHAN GRAIN TRAIN INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.9M · revenue +25%
Funded once
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITY IN ATLANTA INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $14M · revenue +28% · 84% of their budget
- TFThrivent Financial for Lutheransgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5.3M · revenue +25%
- FHFOOTHILL HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY DBA HOSPITALITY HOUSEgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $1.0M · revenue +190% · 40% of their budget
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To share christ's love as we serve the spiritual, physical, intellectual and emotional needs of people entrusted to our care and others whose lives we touch.
We empower individuals and families to confidently navigate aging so that it is a purposeful journey filled with dignity and support.
Good shepherd lutheran home and its affliliates provide personalized housing & health care services for the young & older adults in central minnesota through a continuum of care.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
Originating from a christian commitment of service, we provide high quality care, services and communities for seniors
Originating from a christian commitment of service, we provide high quality care, services and communities for seniors
Originating from a christian commitment of service, we provide high quality care, services and communities for seniors.
Originating from a christian commitment of service, we provide high quality care, services and communities for seniors
St. luke's lutheran care center provides elderly and handicapped people with housing facilities and services and is specially designed to meet the physical, social, and psychological needs of the residents and to contribute to their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Union Mission Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Mercer Island Launch Educational Advocacy Project. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 44 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1.0% lost their exemption, against 29% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
890 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 890 of the 2,000 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - MIDOHIO ↗
- Who funds GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY IN ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation ↗
- Who funds Thrivent Financial for Lutherans ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN DIACONAL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds FOX VALLEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds ORPHAN GRAIN TRAIN INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans-Group · Lutheran Legacy Foundation Inc · Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · J J Keller Foundation Inc · Target Foundation · Siebert Lutheran Foundation Inc · The Boldt Family Fund Inc · Mielke Family Foundation Inc · US Ventureschmidt Family Foundation · Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region Inc · Concordia Lutheran Ministriesfoundation · The Clarence Wallace & Dolores Lynch Wallace Family Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Thrivent Financial for Lutherans funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service Inc Dba Global Refuge — 100% of income from government
- Lutheran World Relief Inc — 47% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.