WMPL exists as an international community of approximately 6,000 members with formal offices in the United States (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Canada (Camrose, Alberta).
By the mid-1930s, a band of students, pastors, and friends in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area joined together to approach the foreign mission boards of the existing Lutheran synods, but they found no budget for new outreach.
In 1937, they organized themselves to accept missionary volunteers and send them into areas of special concern, without the constraint of budgetary limitations.
They were committed to providing a way for lay participation in mission, without the requirement of ordination, and to complement the regular work of the Lutheran synods without diverting means or personnel from their programs.
The World Mission Prayer League has inherited their particular concern for the Santal people of India and Bangladesh.