Investing with Faith / Joanna Feltz
Making stewardship affordable and part of your legacy
In my role as planned giving director of the archdiocesan Catholic Community Foundation (CCF), I’m always meeting new people in our archdiocese. When I introduce myself, they often ask, “So what does the Catholic Community Foundation do?”
Well, if I had to pick just one word to describe what we do, it would be “stewardship.” What comes to mind for me is the parable of the talents in Mt 25:14-30.
A master about to go on a long journey calls together his servants. Based on their abilities, he entrusts each of them with an amount of money—called a talent—to manage while he is away. Most of his servants wisely invest the money, and increase the amount of what they were given.
Just as the servants in the parable are called by their master to care for his kingdom, we are all called by our master, Jesus Christ, to do the same.
CCF is a resource for people to create long-term financial stability for the Church’s ministries in central and southern Indiana.
What kind of ministries? For you, maybe it’s the parish where your children were baptized. A Catholic school you attended. Or a Catholic agency dedicated to caring for those in need. Through endowment funds held by CCF, you can perpetually support a mission like one of these and impact the lives of others.
Getting started is easier than you might think. You can contribute to an existing endowment fund with no minimum amount, or you can create a new endowment fund with as little as $5,000. That may not sound like much, but when modest gifts are combined, they become a much larger display of faith.
Case in point: June marks CCF’s 30th anniversary. During the last three decades, we’ve been blessed to award more than $105.5 million in grants from the more than 460 funds we manage. Yes, $105.5 million. Small gifts add up.
Anyone can be a good steward to the Church because many of the gifts our donors make are part of their estate plans. If you can’t sacrifice the money today for an endowment, it’s OK. You can earmark funds to be distributed after your death from planned gifts such as bequests, individual retirement accounts, life insurance policies or charitable trusts.
If there’s a ministry in our archdiocese to which you’ve dreamed of providing long-term financial support—but didn’t know how to do it—endowment funds through CCF might be the way to go.
My team and I will be happy to sit down with you and show you your options. Feel free to reach out to me by e-mail at jfeltz@archindy.org or by phone at 1-800-382-9836, ext. 1482, or 317-236-1482. Together, we’ll figure out how to make stewardship part of your legacy.
(Joanna Feltz, J.D., is director of planned giving for the archdiocesan Catholic Community Foundation, and consultant to the law firm Woods, Weidenmiller, Michetti, Rudnick & Galbraith PLLC. For more information about planned giving, log on to www.archindy.org/plannedgiving. Tax information or legal information provided herein is not intended as tax or legal advice and cannot be relied on to avoid statutory penalties. Always check with your legal, tax and financial advisors before implementing any gift plan.) †