November 20, 2023 // Diocese

Catholic Charities Officials Announce $2 Million Legacy Gift

Todays Catholic

On Wednesday, November 15, Officials for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend announced that the agency has received an approximate $2 million legacy gift, to be received in installments throughout the next two years.

“We are so thankful for this very generous gift,” Matt Smith, Chief Development Officer at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, said in a news release. “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.”

According to the news release, the gift comes as the agency kicks off a new three-year strategic plan with the theme “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 the Catholic Identity of Catholic Charities.

• Serving the organization’s most vulnerable neighbors, including the homeless, the working poor, seniors, refugees, and immigrants on their journey to self-sufficiency by providing faith-based life skills classes, effective case management, community integration through hand-offs to partners of Catholic Charities, 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 its 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 its funding streams.

Catholic Charities plans to use this 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 Catholic Charities of Fort Wayne-South Bend. “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.”

According to the news release, the approximately $2 million gift comes from an anonymous benefactor who had supported the agency for many years.

For more information on Catholic Charities’ strategic plan, visit ccfwsb.org/strategicplan.