April 7, 2026 — World Renew Disaster Response Services (DRS) has received a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its initiative, “Hope After the Storm: Capacity Building for Faith-Based Disaster Relief Organizations.”

With the grant, DRS will strengthen volunteer and church engagement, improve technology and systems, create a comprehensive communications approach, and increase capacity to train volunteer leaders, secure equipment, and manage grants.

“The word that immediately comes to mind is gratitude,” shared Chris Gibson, DRS director. “This significant grant from Lilly Endowment will enable us to pour resources into transforming communities and respond more effectively to natural disasters.”

Grant-related projects will begin in the summer of 2026 and run for three years. DRS will begin collaboration with many other organizations at a two-day gathering in Indianapolis, Indiana, sponsored by Lilly Endowment. Many of these organizations are members of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD), the coalition that World Renew DRS helped found 51 years ago. Our work with these organizations is founded on collaboration, cooperation, communication, and coordination.

The grant to DRS is one of 30 grants being awarded through Hope After the Storm, an initiative which aims to strengthen the capacity of faith-based organizations to provide aid to individuals and families affected by disasters in communities throughout the United States.

Lilly Endowment recognizes that faith-based organizations play a key role in providing disaster relief services in the United States. They also serve as important vehicles through which individuals and religious communities live out their faith and serve others by volunteering and giving funds and other resources to address the immediate needs of their neighbors.

About World Renew
World Renew is a faith-based non-profit that works each year in more than 30 countries to address poverty, hunger, and injustice through development and disaster response programs in communities of poverty. These programs are carried out through local partner organizations and churches and supported by World Renew’s generous donors in North America and its alliances with well-established networks of government and non-government organizations worldwide.

About Lilly Endowment
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based 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. Although the gifts of stock remain a 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. The Endowment funds programs throughout the United States, especially in the field of religion, and maintains a special commitment to its founders’ hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.

Media contact: Lexi Fischer, [email protected]