Case Study: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod achieves $1.5M COVID-19 relief fundraising and streamlined grantmaking with Blackbaud

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod - Customer Case Study

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), which represents nearly 6,000 U.S. congregations, faced urgent needs when COVID‑19 disrupted schools, missions, and the livelihoods of church workers. The Synod needed to quickly mobilize donor support and move from an inherited, paper‑driven grant process to a system that could track, award, and report on hundreds of emergency grants across many districts.

By leveraging Blackbaud CRM and cloud‑based Blackbaud Grantmaking, LCMS moved to a paperless, collaborative workflow that enabled remote work, weekly reporting with 35 district offices, and faster grant processing. The result: nearly 600 grants awarded in FY20 (over three times prior years), a COVID appeal that raised about $35,000 in one day and $164,000 in two weeks, and more than $1.5 million in contributions within six months—building a COVID response pool surpassing $3 million and improving leadership visibility and operational efficiency.

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Deaconess Maryann Hayter

Grants Administration Manager