Atla Partners With Day1 on Lilly Endowment Funded Project for Preaching Archives

Chicago, IL, December 13, 2022 — Atla announced as a collaborator on a Lilly Endowment grant-funded project with the Alliance for Christian Media, Inc. Alliance’s media ministry, Day1, received a grant of $1 million from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to help improve accessibility and functionality of the past 75 years of Protestant Hour/Day1 sermon archives for preachers and teachers of preaching. Atla will partner with Day1 to provide expert curation and organization of the archival materials.

Atla will hire a dedicated archivist for the project term, supported by the grant, who will prepare the sermon archives for streaming on the Day1 website. Atla will also provide additional strategic consulting work on various related topics to support the project’s success.

Atla’s collaboration with these partners was spearheaded by former Atla Executive Director Brenda Bailey-Hainer, with support from Maria Stanton, Director of Production, and Margot Lyon, Director of Business Development.

“We are thrilled to be able to bring our organizational knowledge and skills to this work and make these sermons more discoverable,” said Bailey-Hainer. “This innovative project brings sermons by important preachers to the academic community for reference and research aligns perfectly with our core purpose to promote worldwide scholarly communication in religion and theology.” 

Stanton will direct her team’s work in contributing to the project, and Lyon will serve on the grants leadership committee.

This project is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative. The Alliance for Christian Media is one of 32 organizations receiving funding in an invitational round of grants for the initiative, which is designed to help Christian pastors strengthen their abilities to proclaim the gospel in more engaging and effective ways.

Learn more and read the full press release from Day1.

About Atla

Established in 1946 as the American Theological Library Association, Atla is a membership association of librarians and information professionals, and a producer of research tools, committed to advancing the study of religion and theology. Atla’s membership includes more than 800 individuals and libraries at academic institutions from diverse religious traditions and backgrounds. As a community of collectors and connectors, Atla works to promote worldwide scholarly communication in religion and theology by advancing the work of libraries and related information providers.

Press Contact

Margot Lyon, +1.872.310.4233, mlyon@atla.com