Social work’s Global Mission Leadership to move ahead thanks to generous gift

A $3.6 million gift from Carl and Martha Lindner will allow Baylor to continue a unique program that prepares Christian leaders to become catalysts for change in communities all over the world.

Launched in 2008, the Global Mission Leadership Initiative brings to Baylor’s School of Social Work international graduate students who have demonstrated servant leadership and strategic thinking while working in their home cultures. Here, they earn a master’s degree in social work, after which they serve — many within their home communities — as agents of change, using holistic approaches to build up impoverished communities.

The initiative began with a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation; the Lindners’ gift will create an endowed fund to support the program going forward, reducing its reliance on such grants. It comes with a call, however, for others to step forward to provide scholarship support that can sustain and even increase the number of students in the program. The program’s first students will graduate this spring; two of those five students are pictured at right.

Sic ’em, Mr. and Mrs. Lindner, Baylor social work, and Global Mission Leadership students!