Sustaining Hope for the Future : Diocese Launching Major Fundraising Campaign

By Joseph Ryan
The Dialog
March 1, 2013

http://thedialog.org/?p=10413

Bishop Malooly has approved a three-year capital campaign called “Sustaining Hope for the Future” to address the current and future financial needs of the Diocese of Wilmington.

The campaign, to begin during the next few weeks, will focus on four areas — reinforcing the diocesan lay employees’ pension plan that is under a court directive to be funded with an additional $10 million by the end of 2017, securing priests’ retirement fund, strengthening diocesan ministries and sustaining current and future parish needs.

“I need to get the diocese back on an even keel and out of debt,” Bishop Malooly said Feb. 25 in announcing the campaign.

The major fundraising project was spurred by the diocesan bankruptcy settlement in February 2011 (finalized in September 2011) in which the diocese paid $77.4 million to settle 150 claims of survivors of sexual abuse by priests, as well as honoring claims of pensioners and other creditors.

The bankruptcy depleted not only the reserves and other assets of the diocese, but also nearly all of the holdings of the Catholic Foundation to pay for much of the settlement in order to protect the parishes, Bishop Malooly said.

“Twenty-nine parishes as well as the diocese had been sued and I needed to fold them into the overall settlement,” the bishop said. “I couldn’t agree to a settlement that just took care of the diocese. Our objective was to save the parishes.”

The bishop noted that if the 2011 diocesan settlement hadn’t included the parishes, some parishes would not have survived.

“Those parishes could not absorb that kind of debt,” the bishop said. He also said contributions to the Sustaining Hope campaign will be placed in a separate trust for transparency.

“None of the funds from the campaign will be used to satisfy claims from the abuse settlement,” Bishop Malooly said.

Deborah Fols, head of the diocesan Development Department, said the first phase of Sustaining the Hope for the Future will include discussions with potential donors as well as developing the campaign’s organization — naming honorary chairs, a clergy campaign policy committee, lay executive committee and parish organizers and volunteers.

Fols said the campaign’s dollar goal will be determined by the end of the first phase.

Two public phases of “Sustaining Hope for the Future” will begin this fall when parishes begin to participate directly in the campaign.

The last major capital campaign in the diocese, Bringing the Vision to Life, was 12 years ago, Fols said. That drive raised $54 million in pledges.

Bishop Malooly said Monday while Sustaining Hope for the Future isn’t brick- and-mortar fundraising, he’s confident “that priests and lay parishioners will step up” and the diocese will be strong going into the future.

That confidence is based in part on a months-long feasibility study issued by the Steier Group, a Catholic development and fundraising firm. The group’s report found that 72 percent of more than 550 clergy and parishioners who participated in the study favored such a campaign for the diocese.

The diocesan lay employees whose pensions will be shored up by the Sustaining Hope for the Future Campaign include parish secretaries, maintenance workers, directors of religious education, schoolteachers, cemetery workers, Catholic Charities employees and others. The bishop said he and pastors have a sense of justice for diocesan employees pension needs.

The campaign will also help the diocese continue a dignified retirement — a pension benefit and health care — for its priests who have dedicated their lives to the service of the Lord.