A Promise to Provide Scholarships for Seminarians from the Northeastern Iowa Synod
The Northeastern Iowa Synod Assembly initiated the Fund for Leaders Endowment in 2004 as a way to help seminary students from the Northeastern Iowa Synod with the high costs of education and to encourage more people to enter ministry. Renamed the H. George Anderson Fund for Leaders Endowment in 2015, the fund is committed to providing scholarships for seminarians from the Northeastern Iowa Synod to reduce their financial debt for education.
Scholarships can help relieve debt and attract new pastors to Northeastern Iowa.
- The annual tuition and fees for a full-time ELCA seminary student can be around $20,000. Housing and living expenses can be $30,000 or more while in seminary.
- Extensive educational debt can hinder seminary graduates from accepting calls to smaller or lower-paying congregations.
- Scholarships remove potential debt for seminary study, making it easier for young adults and those with families to pursue a call to ministry.
- With less debt, new pastors can better afford to serve in small, rural congregations, such as those in the Northeastern Iowa Synod.
If I would not have had a tuition scholarship, I would have had to work five to 10 years before entering seminary, so the scholarship really made 10 years of ministry possible.
Former Fund Recipient
Your gifts can help others answer the call to ministry.
Learn how your gifts to the H. George Anderson Fund for Leaders Endowment can help ensure that faithful and talented men and women from the Northeastern Iowa Synod will be able to answer the call to leadership in the ELCA.
To learn more, visit the ELCA Fund for Leaders website, call 319-352-1414 or email the synod office.
How To Donate
Checks to support the H. George Anderson Fund for Leaders Endowment should be made payable to the Northeastern Iowa Synod with the memo indicating the Fund for Leaders.
Mail your check to:
Northeastern Iowa Synod
201 20th St. SW
PO Box 804
Waverly, IA 50677-0804
About H. George Anderson
The Rev. Dr. H. George Anderson served as the second Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from October 1995 to October 2001. He served as president of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, from 1982 to 1996, and prior to that he was on the faculty of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina, where he served as president from 1970 to 1982.
As Presiding Bishop, Anderson saw the need for a nationwide system to financially assist ELCA seminary students with the rising tuition costs and debts they faced. His vision led to the establishment of the ELCA Fund for Leaders endowment in 2000.
The Northeastern Iowa Synod’s H. George Anderson Fund for Leaders Endowment honors Anderson’s wisdom and vision to create a nationwide means to fully fund tuition scholarships for seminary students.
