Empowering Mission Support: How LWML CNH Makes Every Vote Count for Kingdom Impact

Have you ever tried to get a group of people to agree on something? If so, you know that voting is often the best way to determine what should be done. Imagine you have many opportunities to choose from on how you will spend your money in support of missions.

In the LWML, we have helped support missions since 1942. It started small with women saving coins from the “pin” money or allowance they received. As time has gone by, LWML has grown. At the national level, we have supported missions worldwide with over 127 million dollars.

The process for selecting which Mission Grants we want to support at the District level has grown much more complex. Our current process starts with our churches and groups submitting Grant Applications for various ministries. The submission process has strict guidelines on how the monies will be used. Our Gospel Outreach Committee evaluates the Grant Applications and vets them to make sure they meet our guidelines. The Grant applications which are selected by the committee are then placed on a ballot for the district convention delegates to consider. The LWML CNH Board of Directors and Executive Committee meet in February of even years to set a new Mission Grant Goal. They look at the previous goals and make a proposal to present to the Voting Delegates. They also consider needed updates to our bylaws and select candidates to replace the Officers who have completed their terms.

Over time, our schedules have become more crowded. We seek to get things done as efficiently as possible. Also our district covers a wide area, including Northern California, Northern Nevada and Hawaii. All of this presents a challenge to get our LWML ladies together every other year in person. Following what LWML had done for 4 or 5 of the Conventions at the national level, we started doing our voting electronically at our 2020 Convention when we could not meet in person due to COVID. Even after we were allowed to meet in person, we continued to vote electronically to save time at our conventions. This allows us to do other things when we get together, such as hearing from our past grant recipients, singing and Bible Study.

We also vote on the Mission Grant Goal and the Mission Grants a month before the convention so we can print out bookmarks for distribution at the convention, to give us all a reminder of the Grants we are supporting.

For our upcoming district Convention (April 24-26, 2026), we are making some updates to the registration to streamline the process.

1. We have added a Voting Delegate registration deadline of February, 28, 2026, which is earlier than the general convention registration deadline. This will be on the registration form.
2. We will also have online registration for both Voting Delegates and non-voting attendees.

We encourage the individual groups and Zones to select their Voting Delegates and Alternate Voting Delegates as soon as possible and no later than February 28, 2026.

For more information about District Conventions and Representation, please see Article III of our current bylaws.