Thrivent Financial for Lutherans announced that its membership approved an extension of its common bond, allowing it to serve more Christians.
72 percent of Thrivent members who cast votes between March 1 and April 30 voted in favor of revising the organization’s articles of incorporation. Nearly 425,000 members participated in this vote – more than double the turnout of other typical membership votes at Thrivent.
“This vote will allow us to strengthen our mission of helping more Christians be wise with money and live generously,” said Brad Hewitt, president and CEO of Thrivent. “Working together, we’ll be able to serve more people, meet more needs and strengthen more Christian communities.”
In May 2012, the Thrivent Financial Board unanimously voted in favor of amending the Articles of Incorporation to extend the common bond and for submitting the proposed amendment to a benefit member vote for approval.
“One of the unique aspects of Thrivent is that our benefit members are our owners so they get to make these important decisions,” said Hewitt. “We are certainly excited about the possibilities of serving more Christians. However, we are looking at this from a long-term perspective and changes will be gradual. Over the short and the long-term, one thing remains the same though: our commitment to serving Lutherans and strengthening the Lutheran community remains as strong as ever. We value our Lutheran members and our heritage and that will never change even as we move forward in a new chapter for the organization.”
Thrivent is based in Minneapolis but has additional headquarters in Appleton.
