Duquesne Receives $5 Million Grant from Lilly Endowment

Duquesne is one of 60 organizations from across the United States that have received grants through the initiative since 2024. The groups include media organizations, denominational judicatories, church networks, publishers, educational institutions, congregations and other nonprofit charitable organizations. 

The DSL will serve as a hub for production, training and community building, empowering young people in all walks of life to document their highs, lows and in-betweens of a life of faith.

The project will begin with students at Duquesne and then expand more broadly into the Pittsburgh community through partnerships with faith-based non-profit organizations. The final phase of the project will scale to a national level, creating a network of campuses and young storytellers across the country.

The Grefenstette Center has secured several partnerships to aid in the effort, including Casa San José and Voices for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, and the national Ignatian Solidarity Network.

"As America’s only Spiritan university, Duquesne offers the ideal environment to cultivate the next generation of faith-based Christian storytellers,” said Duquesne President Ken Gormley. “Our mission is centered on God, service, and interdisciplinary scholarship. This initiative allows us to meet students where they are—in the digital world—and empower them to navigate it with faith and integrity. We’re grateful to the Lilly Endowment and proud to launch a program that will amplify the voices of young people and foster a deeper understanding of what it means to live out one’s faith in the 21st century."

The aim of Lilly Endowment’s National Initiative on Christian Faith and Life is to help organizations identify, produce and share with a wide variety of audiences compelling stories that portray the vibrancy and hope of Christian faith and life.

About Lilly Endowment Inc
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic 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 and maintains a special commitment to its founders’ hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A primary aim of its grantmaking in religion is to deepen the religious lives of Christians, principally by supporting efforts that enhance congregational vitality and strengthen the leadership of Christian communities.

The Endowment values the broad diversity of Christian traditions and endeavors to support them in a wide variety of contexts. The Endowment also seeks to foster public understanding about religion by encouraging fair, accurate and balanced portrayals of the positive and negative effects of religion on the world and lifting up the contributions that people of all faiths make to our greater civic well-being.

Duquesne University

Founded in 1878, Duquesne is consistently ranked among the nation's top Catholic universities for its award-winning faculty and horizon-expanding education. A campus of more than 8,200 graduate and undergraduate students, Duquesne prepares students by having them work alongside faculty to discover and reach their goals. The University's academic programs, community service and commitment to equity and opportunity in the Pittsburgh region have earned national acclaim.

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