Press Release: Catholic Charities Announces $2 Million Legacy Gift
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend Announces $2 Million Legacy Gift
November 15, 2023 (Fort Wayne, Ind.) – Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne - South Bend (CCFWSB) announced today that the agency has received an approximate $2 million legacy gift, to be received in installments over the next two years.
“We are so thankful for this very generous gift,” said Matt Smith, Chief Development Officer at CCFWSB. “The family who made this gift possible is bolstering the sustainability of the organization and ensuring that we can serve current and future generations through our mission.”
This gift comes as the agency kicks off a new three-year strategic plan focused on Building Roads to Hope. With five main goals, the plan’s objective is to create new paths toward self-sufficiency for vulnerable families and individuals living in the 14 counties the agency serves, including:
Living out our Catholic Identity.
Serving our most vulnerable neighbors, including the homeless, the working poor, our seniors, refugees, and immigrants on their journey to self-sufficiency by providing faith-based life skills classes, effective case management, community integration through warm hand-offs to our partners, and affordable legal pathways to citizenship.
Protecting life and supporting families by giving every person, from conception through natural death, the best chance at a fulfilling life by equipping families with the support needed to flourish, while enhancing our adoption services.
Nourishing and healing the heart, mind, and soul by providing compassionate, affordable, accessible, faith-based counseling services.
Building organizational capacity to serve more people through operational efficiencies and volunteer engagement, while diversifying and expanding our funding streams.
The agency plans to use this providential gift to invest in the future of the 101-year-old agency, as well as seed money for the new strategic plan.
“As part of our plan, we are building new faith-based life-skills classes,” said Dan Florin, CEO of CCFWSB. “For families struggling each month to make ends meet, we will be launching a new series of life-skills classes meant to teach important fundamentals, like financial literacy, emotional resiliency, and healthy relationship skills. We also plan on investing in the sustainability of our clinical services. This program provides counseling support to 13 Catholic schools and mental health navigation services to parishes through the Clinical Liaison.”
Florin continues, “This gift will also aid us in our plans to create a bigger presence in other communities to better serve our whole diocese.”
This generous gift comes from an anonymous benefactor who had supported the agency for many years.
For more information on CCFWSB’s new strategic plan, please visit: www.ccfwsb.org/strategicplan.
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About Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend:
Catholic Charities is a private 501 (c) 3 incorporated in the state of Indiana to act as the coordinating and administrative agency for the charitable activities assigned to it by the Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend; to plan for, initiate, direct, support and coordinate Catholic social-services programs for the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical welfare of persons in need; to seek and determine the causes of social problems in order to better promote preventative social-action programs; to participate in community planning and organization, and work cooperatively with other individuals and groups in the field of social work. The service area for Catholic Charities includes the 14 counties of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, encompassing 2,236 square miles, with a population of 1,247,850. Currently, Catholic Charities has offices in Fort Wayne (Allen County), Auburn (DeKalb County), and South Bend (St. Joseph County), Indiana. In Fiscal Year 2022-2023,CCFWSB served almost 22,000 individuals at a fiscally responsible rate of 88 cents of every dollar dedicated to client services. The agency’s mission is to serve all those in need as Christ calls us to do.