Thrivent Puts Values at Its Core — and It's Hiring Advisors

It has gradually shortened its name and for marketing purposes is now called Thrivent.

The Fortune 500 organization, a 2024 Luminaries award winner for technological innovation, offers both insurance and investment products. It has 2,500 advisors and 2 million-plus clients with more than $193 billion in assets under management or advisement.

Since January 2024, Thrivent has been driving advisor growth with its Thrivent Planning Platform that offers financial advisors built-in selling power while simplifying financial planning.

In the interview, Rasmussen explains Thrivent’s mission as a fraternal benefit society with Christianity its common bond and generosity its "differentiator" as a financial firm.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: Why did Thrivent do a brand refresh?

TERESA RASMUSSEN: We want to be sure we’re staying modern and contemporary, particularly as we’re focusing on introducing Thrivent to a younger audience.

We’re probably one of the best-kept secrets out there.

Which came first: deciding to redo your brand or to recruit more financial advisors?

Our new marketing campaign highlights Thrivent’s ability to infuse financial services with generosity, which is our differentiator.

In 2020, we did a major brand refresh focused on emphasizing the firm’s financial expertise.

Now we’re focusing on what we’ve always been known for: generosity. Now that we’re known for financial expertise, we can bring the generosity [aspect] back and bring the full story of Thrivent to life.

Your website says: “We have inspired generations to make financial choices guided by their Christian values.” Please elaborate.

[To us], Christian values means giving back to the community and clients’ desire to instill in their kids and grandkids their values around service, money and faith. This is about our members being generous and coming to the aid of others.

We help our clients focus on fulfilling their purpose [to be] good people.

How does that show up in their investing?

For our clients, saving for retirement isn’t about retiring on the beach in Florida. It’s about, “How can I live my life to continue to support the causes that I care about and make sure I’m fulfilling my purpose to leave the world a better place than it was?”

Thrivent is a membership-owned financial services firm. Please explain.

We don’t have shareholders. We’re owned by our clients that have membership. They own our life, health and annuity [insurance] products and receive dividends and other benefits of ownership.

To qualify for membership and buy those products, you have to be Christian or married to a Christian.

But our investment products are available to everyone.

Why can’t non-Christians buy insurance products?

We’re technically a fraternal benefit society. One of the requirements for that is to have a common bond. In our case, Christianity is the common bond.

What’s been the advisor response to your new advertising, or is it too early to know?

As we start to elevate our positioning and become more known in the marketplace, we’re starting to attract people interested in a career.

People who join us are from a variety of backgrounds: younger people new to a career, recent college grads, people starting a second or third career.

Are you recruiting from all channels?

Yes — from anywhere. The most important thing is the cultural fit: Do they share the values around service and money? With us, money is just a tool, not a goal.

In recruiting, are you targeting younger advisors?

We’re trying to attract advisors that our values resonate with — so younger, older, we’re welcoming to all.

The people who are beginning their career prefer to be an employee [vs. independent] and have a steady paycheck. [In contrast] are those who want to start and build their own business.

We want to make sure we’re offering choices across the Thrivent ecosystem so people can join us in the fit that’s right for them.

Please describe your ecosystem.

We have 3,500 licensed professionals: 2,500 full-time advisors in a client-facing sales role and then licensed people who are mostly on the servicing side.

Are all those Thrivent employees?

We have a mix. Some advisors are employees for our life, health and annuity business but are independent contractors for the mutual fund managed-account business.

We also have advisors who are completely [Form] 1099 independent but are card-carrying Thrivent advisors.

They’re in our Thrivent Advisor Network of 22 businesses that has $6 billion in [client] assets.

The advisors in TAN sell our life, health and annuity products and investment products as well.

What’s the profile of your ideal advisor?

It’s most important that they understand Thrivent values, who we serve, being a great listener — which is probably the most significant aspect of understanding what clients want, what their purpose is and what’s important to them.

We have advisors that are growing fast with the families they’ve been serving; so in that case, they may need to bring in a younger advisor.

Or it might be someone starting a second or third career who wants to go on their own and form their own practice.

Are you recruiting advisors across the entire ecosystem you just discussed?

Yes. We want to offer choice. We also have our Career Advisors Channel, which are employees that sell life, health and annuities and are independent for investment products. And we have a small but growing team, our Virtual Advice Team, that’s [completely] employees.

All of our advisors do everything — they sell life, health and annuity products and do managed accounts and investment products.

How are you helping your existing advisors in 2025?

A huge part of our growth strategy is the Thrivent Planning Platform, which we introduced in January 2024. Seventy-five percent of our advisors have already used it.

It brings together the client’s data on one screen. Advisors have said that they don’t have to be “salespeople” — the client sees [everything] and says, “Yes, I have to implement that plan.”

Your website has a Thrivent “store” that sells about 150 items, including golf balls and cheeseboards, many with the Thrivent name on them. Why do you sell that merchandise?

We have clients who are very proud of the Thrivent brand and want to showcase it to others.