Toronto School of Theology Wins Prestigious Lilly Grant to Fund Shared Services

Toronto School of Theology (TST) and Knox College have received a grant of $4.3-million USD from Lilly Endowment Inc. to create a robust network of shared services for TST members, a collaborative initiative that will strengthen the preparation and long-term support for Christian pastoral leaders.

TST, the largest ecumenical consortium in North America, together with member colleges, Emmanuel, Knox, Regis, St. Michael’s, and Trinity, will develop a Ministry and Pastoral Leadership Hub and strategically repurpose and redirect existing resources, efficiencies, and cost savings across the colleges while building new and stable sources of revenue. Expanding capacities in these areas will permit participants to direct resources and energies to our principal activity: formation of ministerial leaders equipped to serve the Church—and the world.

The project is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative. This initiative is designed to help theological schools across the United States and Canada as they prioritize and respond to the most pressing challenges they face as they prepare pastoral leaders for Christian congregations both now and into the future. The grant TST is one of 45 that was approved in this competitive round of funding to support theological schools as they lead large-scale collaborations with other seminaries, colleges and universities, and other church-related organizations.

Establishing a Ministry and Pastoral Leadership Hub will coordinate student services, experiential learning, student placements, strategic enrolment management, and curriculum rationalization. The project will also launch the Shared Services and Procurement Initiative to reduce administrative duplication, streamline fixed costs, improve institutional efficiency, share physical spaces, and inform collective longer-term strategic planning. A shared endowment, created via a special fundraising campaign, will ensure long-term financial sustainability of core functions of ministry formation programs.

“Collaboration has always been at the heart of TST in terms of teaching and learning,” says TST Executive Director, Prof. Darren Dias, OP. “Extending that approach to the practical side of our operations in new ways will reduce costs, freeing faculty time for teaching, mentoring, and research, thus enhancing student experience and the academic mission of all participating colleges.”

Dr. Elizabeth Smyth, Chair of TST’s Board of Trustees, agrees. “This is an eminently sensible step in TST’s development,” Smyth says. “It creates a more sustainable future, allowing TST to enhance services for students in the most practical but effective of ways, ensuring continued top-tier support and education for future ministers and congregational leaders, lay and ordained.”

Lilly Endowment launched the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative in 2021. Since then, it has provided grants totaling more than $700 million to support 163 theological schools in efforts to strengthen their own educational and financial capacities and to assist 61 schools in developing large-scale collaborative endeavors.

For more information, contact Dr. Darren Dias, OP, Executive Director of TST at tst.director@utoronto.ca

About Lilly Endowment Inc.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of about religion and lift up in fair, accurate and balanced ways the roles that people of all faiths and various religious communities play in the United State and around the globe traditions in the United States and across the globe.