Introducing the LWML Gifts of Love Legacy Circle
PURPOSE: To give glory to God in honor of those who have remembered His work through LWML via a gift/estate plan.
If you have remembered LWML in your gift/estate plan, we give thanks to God for you and invite you to make us aware of your gift so that we can welcome you into the LWML Gifts of Love Legacy Circle.
For those considering remembering LWML in your gift/estate plan, now is the time to complete or update your plan.
Please know, you are making an eternal difference!
An Invitation to Join Gifts of Love Legacy Circle Brochure PDF
Naming LWML in your Estate Planning
To join the Legacy Circle, please contact LWML's Gift Planning Counselors, Linda Gage or Carol von Soosten.
Linda Gage
linda.gage@lfnd.org
800-741-4138, ext. 1
Carol von Soosten
carol.vonsoosten@lfnd.org
800-741-4138
A History of Giving
Women of the church have a long history of supporting worthy causes and Gospel outreach efforts. As far back as the mid-1800s, church women recognized emerging needs by gathering and mending clothes for seminary students, assisting in hospitals and orphanages and providing food for the hungry, among many other deeds of mercy.
The mite box collections began in 1928, and by 1930, 92 Ladies Aid Societies had collected $6,651.31, mostly from leftover change. In 1942 the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod formally recognized the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League as its official women’s organization. Over the decades, LWML has distributed more than $100 million in mission grants to thousands of worthy efforts and causes to help spread the Gospel message and address human care needs both domestically and around the world—all through mites!
By 2000, LWML leadership under then-President Virginia Von Seggern started thinking that even more mission grants could be funded if LWML had its own planned giving ministry. Its purpose would be to encourage faithful stewards to return a portion of their estates to God in thanksgiving for His lifetime provisions of material blessings. The Gifts of Love planned giving ministry was launched in 2007 under the leadership of then-President Linda Reiser. Patricia Bilow, Gift Planning Counselor with the LCMS Foundation, was selected to lay the groundwork.
Five years later, $25 million in immediate and deferred gifts had been documented from 100+ donors who made planned gifts for LWML and other ministries of the Church. Since then, volunteer Gift Planning Advocates have been added to the ministry to help spread the gift planning word in their home districts. Linda Gage, also a Gift Planning Counselor with the LCMS Foundation, is taking the ministry to even greater levels when in 2013 she replaced Pat who moved to part-time work. By year end 2016, the total to LWML and other church ministries stood at over $85 million.
By the grace of God, this ministry has flourished through your generosity and heart for ongoing mission outreach.
