Diocese of Covington studies creating Catholic Foundation to support diocese, parishes, schools

Laura Keener

Editor

The Diocese of Covington has formed three commissions that will spend the next four months studying, praying and discussing a strategic plan that will guide the diocese for 30 years or more. These three commissions are — Catholic Schools Commission, Catholic Charities Commission and Catholic Foundation Commission. A fourth commission — the Diocesan Governance Commission — will begin its work in the Fall, building on the needs and direction identified by the other three commissions.

The Catholic Foundation Commission is examining whether to create a Catholic Foundation — an independent nonprofit that could help parishes, schools and diocesan ministries with long-term giving and fundraising support. The Catholic Foundation Commission held its first meeting April 15, where Bishop John Iffert addressed the Commission via video.

Referencing the With One Heart planning process that parishes and the diocese have been implementing the last three years, Bishop Iffert said, “Tonight we’re kicking off on another kind of parallel strategic planning process. In this process, especially, we want to work on developing the capacity of the local Church to be able to support ministries that make a difference in people’s lives.”

The work of the Commission, Bishop Iffert said, is “to study and to bring into fruition a Catholic foundation to encourage giving in support of the mission of Jesus and his kingdom. That’s what this foundation is all about, to encourage that natural response that we need to give.”

The conversation for a foundation started about a year ago during efforts to better coordinate planned giving and estate planning across the diocese. Jim Hess, diocesan director for Stewardship and Mission Services, said early talks with Catholic Charities raised a simple question: How can the Church make it easier for people to include their parish, school or ministry in their long-term plans?

“We were having conversations about encouraging planned giving in the diocese and estate planning, and how we could both do that and coordinate that work together,” Mr. Hess said.

When leaders asked other dioceses how they manage that work, he said the answer was consistent: “Every diocese that we talked to said that you have to have a foundation in place.”

Mr. Hess said Bishop Iffert has approved a planning process to explore the idea. Whether or not to move forward with forming a foundation or what the final structure of the foundation would look like is the work of the Foundation Commission and its three subcommittees.

“None of these things have been decided,” Mr. Hess said. “This will be the work of the commission, and it’ll be an intensive work over the next four months.”

At the commission’s first meeting, about 60 people attended, including priests, school leaders, parents and other parishioners. Mr. Hess said the group’s questions took up so much time that organizers didn’t get to the second half of its agenda.

“It was wonderful to see how curious people are,” Mr. Hess said, adding that the discussion helped explain “what a foundation could provide for the diocese and also what a foundation is not.”

In general terms, Mr. Hess described a diocesan foundation as a separate nonprofit organization created to serve the Church’s local needs. “A diocesan foundation would be an independent 501(c)(3), an independent nonprofit that works to support our parishes and schools,” he said.

He said it could offer services the diocese is not currently set up to provide, such as education on estate planning, support for planned giving, and help establishing and growing endowments for parishes and schools.

Mr. Hess said those funds could be professionally managed and “invested ethically … in Catholic and ethical portfolios.” He also said a foundation model can add oversight through a lay board and clearer reporting, giving donors “visibility into how their money is being used, how it’s being invested.”

Just as important, Mr. Hess stressed that a foundation would not replace parish offertory or compete with schools and parishes for donations. “We’re not competing with the parishes and schools,” he said. “The foundation actually expands the capacity of parishes and schools to be able to accept different ways of giving that right now they’re not set up to receive.”

One practical example is fundraising consulting. Mr. Hess said parishes and schools often hire outside firms for capital campaigns, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a standard campaign. A foundation could reduce that cost by building an in-house team.

Equally important, when outside firms leave, he said, “any of the relationships that they’ve created with our faithful leave with them.” A diocesan foundation, he said, could help ensure those relationships stay in the Church.

Deacon Jim Fortner echoed the need for a coordinated approach.

“Today, everybody’s separate. There’s no strategy,” he said, noting that parishes are often “on their own” when it comes to endowments, planned giving or major fundraising.

Deacon Fortner said he sees a foundation as “the umbrella that everything hooks into,” helping keep donor relationships and information “inside the Church” instead of handing them to consultants “who come and go and take all that valuable data with them.”

Mr. Hess said recent research into local giving trends has been “very eye opening.” Looking back over decades of records, he said, “on average, the diocese and its parishes receive less than one percent of their income from bequests,” and “the majority of those funds come from priests.”

In dioceses with a working foundation, he said, bequests often average “eight to 10 percent.” For a diocese this size, he added, that can mean around $2.5 million a year in bequest gifts. Currently, the diocese averages about $25,000 in bequests each year.

Deacon Fortner said other dioceses encouraged Covington leaders to start talking about estate planning sooner rather than later. “Faithful are passing and we’re just not in the conversation,” he said. Deacon Fortner also pointed to broader challenges, including fewer households participating in parish life, saying the diocese needs “a more strategic approach” if it wants ministries to remain “healthy and robust.”

Mr. Hess said a foundation could also help parishes teach stewardship in a practical way.

“A major aspect of living a life of stewardship is deciding what you’re going to do with the gifts God has entrusted you with when we pass on from this earth,” he said. Mr. Hess said many Catholics have not taken that step, adding that “70 percent of Catholics don’t have an estate plan in place.”

When families do plan, he said, it can bring relief: donors often feel “an immense peace of mind … for their children and grandchildren” because it can prevent the estate from going through probate court and tying things up for months or years for loved ones.

Mr. Hess said that planned giving isn’t only for the wealthy. “For the vast majority of people, the largest gift they’ll ever make in their life is their estate,” he said, which may include a home, insurance policies, or retirement accounts. He said the foundation’s work would especially help “the vast majority of people that doesn’t have … a network of financial planners and legal advisors.”

For example, the average teacher that might have an estate of $30,000 when they die, doesn’t have a legal team but still has a need to sit down with someone to guide through estate planning.

Questions about oversight are central to the commission’s work. Mr. Hess said there are “different models” for how much involvement a bishop has, and the Governance Subcommittee will study what has worked in other dioceses. He said the goal is to set up something that will serve local Catholics for the long haul: “For the decades and centuries to come, we want to take our time now to establish something that is going to serve the Diocese best.”

Over the next four months, the commission will continue gathering feedback and reviewing possible services and governance options before making recommendations. For now, diocesan leaders say the discussion is about building a stronger support system for parishes and schools — while making sure any new foundation is clear in purpose, transparent in operation and focused on serving local Catholic ministries.

For more information on the Planning Commissions visit www.covdioplanning.org.