May 23, 2009
New Web site features The Catholic Foundation
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Kathy Pescetti, a board member of the foundation, says she is happy to be part of a board that is continuing the mission of funding Catholic education. Cathy Joyce/Herald photo
The Catholic Foundation of the Diocese of Sacramento may be the best-kept
secret in the diocese.
But the May 22 launch of the foundation’s Web site means the secret’s out, says Mike Halloran, executive director of The Catholic Foundation.
Halloran, who is also director of stewardship and development for the diocese, described the foundation and its work in a recent interview with The Herald, and explained why he’s so pleased to see the Web site going online at www.tcfsac.org.
“Our mission is to provide services to the entire community, so it’s crucial that the community know we’re here and what we offer,” he said. The Web site, which will become increasingly interactive as it develops, Halloran noted, is a way of bringing the foundation to Catholics across the 20-county diocese.
The Catholic Foundation is a non-profit corporation created by Bishop Emeritus William K. Weigand in 2004. The foundation supports the diocese and provides services for the Catholic community, Halloran explained, by holding and investing different endowment and advisory funds. The earnings from those funds are used to support social services, parishes, education and seminarians.
“For example,” Halloran said, “a school community might start an endowment fund for tuition assistance, or a family might want to start an endowment fund to feed the hungry. We set up the fund for them and manage it, and pay out the earnings each year.”
The money in those endowment funds is always invested according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ social responsibility guidelines, Halloran noted, so that the Catholic community’s financial investments support businesses that operate in alignment with Catholic moral teaching. Christian Brothers Investment Services, a firm started by the Christian Brothers religious order, advises the foundation on investments.
A board of directors, appointed by Bishop Jaime Soto, manages the foundation. The 14 board members are all Catholic professionals from different fields of expertise, including law, finance, social services, a wide range of businesses, and the church community.
One knowledgeable board member is Kathy Pescetti, president of Admail West in Sacramento and a tireless advocate of inner city Catholic schools through the diocese’s Sacramento Urban Catholic Children’s Equal Education Development (SUCCEED) program.
“For me, it’s all about the schools,” said Pescetti, a member of St. Mel Parish in Fair Oaks whose two children graduated from St. Mel School. “My intent is maintaining good quality Catholic education.”
Because The Catholic Foundation strongly supports Catholic education, she noted, it was easy for her to say “yes,” when Bishop Soto asked her to join the board.
Pescetti said that she is happy to be part of a board that is continuing the mission of the SUCCEED program that she’s helped grow over the past 15 years. The SUCCEED endowment fund is managed by The Catholic Foundation, she added, along with several other funds focused entirely on education.
For Daniel Cairns, a member of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Carmichael and managing director of the Cairns Financial Group in Sacramento, serving on The Catholic Foundation board is “a labor of love,” he said.
“It’s really important that an organization like this exists in this community,” he noted. “We have a wealth of resources here in Sacramento. We have to get beyond ourselves, and be in relationship with others who are in need, who may not even be geographically near us. We can help a dependency clinic in Redding with donations from Sacramento. We need to alleviate suffering and take care of people.”
Cairns said people who want to help others don’t have to start an endowment fund to do it. The Catholic Foundation also operates “as a central database,” he said, to guide people toward Catholic agencies that are providing the services a donor wants to support. The foundation also acts as a resource for parishes in their own efforts to raise money, he said.
As an expert in planned giving, Cairns noted that The Catholic Foundation provides materials and presentations to parishes on the diverse ways that people can support an organization beyond giving cash or remembering the institution in their will.
Sometimes a gift can be structured in such a way that it actually makes more money for the donor during his lifetime than it would if he hadn’t donated it, Cairns noted, but many people just don’t know the options.
“The Catholic Foundation is going to do a tremendous amount of good as word of it spreads through the Catholic community,” he added.
Msgr James Kidder, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in El Dorado Hills and a Catholic Foundation board member, is enthusiastic about the foundation because “it gives the average person a chance to practice philanthropy,” he said.
“People have to have $1 million to start a foundation usually, but The Catholic Foundation is already established, so you can start an endowment fund with just a few thousand dollars,” he noted. “And you can set it up to help people right in your own community.”
Msgr. Kidder is a veteran of community foundations, having served on the board of the El Dorado Community Foundation for several years and even serving two terms as its president.
He sees The Catholic Foundation providing both necessary services and a necessary vehicle for philanthropy to the Catholic community across the diocese. He noted that the current economic crisis itself is leading people to philanthropy.
“The economic times we’re in right now demonstrate that we are all in this together,” he said. “We’re all interconnected. People see that, and they want to help. The Catholic Foundation is a way to facilitate that happening.”
In a statement considering the work of The Catholic Foundation, Bishop Soto noted that because the Catholic Church itself is both a spiritual reality and the lived experience of the incarnation of Christ, every endeavor of the church is touched by Christ’s incarnation.
In this light, the bishop wrote, The Catholic Foundation’s work is not just “good financial management.” It is also a way of “cooperating with God’s plan for the church and sharing in the wonderful enterprise of the redemption.”
