LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (April 4, 2025)—The Grants Committee of the Methodist Foundation for Arkansas (MFA) Board of Directors has awarded a total of seven grants in their first three monthly meetings of the year, with grant funds totaling $131,692.
The grantees and their award amounts from MFA during the first calendar quarter are:
Arkansas Conference UMC Emerging Partnerships Coaching/Spiritual Direction: $50,100 — This online pilot program will provide leadership coaching, spiritual direction, and related resources to clergy (and, in some cases, leadership teams) to help in the discernment, strategic planning, and implementation of emerging church partnerships that can include but are not limited to cooperative parishes, property sharing, merging churches, creating multi-site locales, and repurposing property.
200,000 More Reasons (Arkansas Conference UMC): $30,000 — This hunger- and literacy-focused initiative provides resources and connections for local congregations that pursue community involvement toward alleviating hunger and promoting literacy among the estimated 200,000 children in Arkansas who deal with food insecurity. $15,000 will be used to make sub-grants to local United Methodist organizations around the state through a competitive grant application and process. Applicants may request funds for literacy ministries, small-capacity building items such as materials to build Little Free Libraries, book shelves, etc.; supplies for efforts designed to increase literacy such as curriculum needs for literacy programming. The remaining $15,000 will be used for larger grants to create new literacy ministries, especially for smaller churches and related United Methodist organizations seeking to establish after-school or summer literacy assistance to food insecure children.
Arkansas Conference UMC Emerging Leader Network: $15,000 — This grant will offset costs for the five Arkansas clergy under age 40 participating in the new Emerging Leaders Network, a program sponsored by the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan. Each participant was recommended by Bishop Laura Merrill. The Revs. Virginia Brown, Jana Green, Jeremy Hopper, Abbey Maynard, and Dane Womack will benefit from three in-person group experiences plus individual mentoring opportunities between spring 2025 and spring 2026.
Hendrix Youth Institute: $15,000 — This long-standing collaboration between the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church, MFA, and the Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics and Calling at United Methodist-affiliated Hendrix College in Conway helps United Methodist high school youth in Arkansas discern a call to ministry through exposing them to a variety of professional and lay ministries; engaging them in vocational discernment through worship, mentoring, storytelling; educating them in what is required for ministry in the United Methodist Church; enabling youth to develop a deeper understanding of United Methodist history, beliefs, and practice through religious study with college faculty and staff; and empowering youth to perform meaningful and relational mission work.
Hendrix College Choir: $10,000 — This grant will replace the choir robes used in the annual Hendrix College Choir Candlelight Carol Services, which MFA began sponsoring in 2024.
Casa Lupita: $8,000 — This grant will provide food for distribution through the pantry that is part of Casa Lupita, a ministry in southwest Little Rock that serves a majority Latino population. Between 100 and 120 families per month (approximately 800 persons) receive food and other services through this organization.
First UMC Murfreesboro Feeding Ministry: $3,592 — The Blessed Beginning Mission House Food Pantry seeks to feed as many low-income people as possible in the Pike County area. The monthly average of households helped has risen from 35-45 per month to more than 100 per month; the most common household configuration is senior citizens caring for children under age 18.
MFA welcomes grant proposals from United Methodist and Pan-Methodist churches and organizations, as well as non-church-related community nonprofits that pursue goals aligning with one or more of the 11 grant priorities listed at www.methodistfoundationAR.org/grants. Addressing food insecurity in Arkansas is currently a top priority of the Foundation’s grants program.
About the Methodist Foundation for Arkansas
With a mission to establish and manage charitable funds to strengthen and expand Methodist ministries across Arkansas, the Methodist Foundation for Arkansas manages over $220 million in endowment funds and other charitable assets that benefit local churches and other United Methodist ministries. Founded in 1963, the Foundation has grown into one of the largest United Methodist foundations in the country, managing more than 800 funds that support Methodist ministries.
