“The Church is the hope of the world, and the local parish is the hope of the Church,” says Tom Corcoran, co-author of ChurchMoney, a book that is part of the Rebuilt series. Tom’s experience in helping his own parish to be a thriving, vibrant community of faith inspired him, along with his pastor, Father Michael White, to help other parish communities throughout the world to experience the same renewal. Tom encourages parishes to develop a model of ministry and to invite other into that vision. Younger generations are less inclined to donate money to institutions, Tom notes, and so parishes need to shift the paradigm from supporting the Church to supporting ministry and mission. “People give to vision, and people give to people.” A renewed sense of discipleship will result in a renewed sense of stewardship.

“The way back to financial health in parishes is to start connecting the dots between money and following Jesus.” Tom has a plan for how parishes can raise givers, rather than just raise money. Since “money is a spiritual issue,” Tom stresses that raising givers begins with prayer as step one. He also notes that people will learn about money either from the culture with its emphasis on spending and saving, or from Scripture, which prioritizes giving and generosity. Frequent preaching on how often money is presented in Scripture, then, is crucial to a sound formation of Christian stewards. Giving may cause us to sacrifice parts of our lifestyle, but handing over what is dear to us—making a sacrifice—actually begets cheerfulness and joy. This is the central message that parishes must embrace, pray about, reflect on, and implement… to be brought closer to God requires us to imitate his generosity and freedom.

Guest: Tom Corcoran
Title: Author, Speaker, and Evangelist

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After completing her M.B.A., Jennifer Baugh went through a soul-searching period while waiting to start a new consulting job, asking God to deepen her faith. She came to a new and profound realization of God’s love and the mission to share that love with others. Not long thereafter, Jennifer established Young Catholic Professionals (YCP), an apostolate that has grown exponentially, signaling that Catholic professionals in their 20s and 30s have a shared longing for encouragement and for a community to support excellence at work integrated into a life of discipleship.

Now with chapters in over 40 cities across the U.S., YCP is a network as much a community aimed at instilling an authentic Catholic identity equipped for apologetics in the public square, providing community to breakdown isolation and build strong friendships, and inspiring members to action in response to God’s call to serve. YCP seeks to foster an awareness of stewardship and generosity among members with inspiring accounts from mentors who have experienced the joy of giving of time, talent and treasure. This is of vital importance, particularly in the face of decreasing church giving among younger generations. “Authenticity is what young people are craving,” Jennifer noted, and giving cannot be simply transactional for the young but more engaging and impactful.

YCP has strategies to grow geographically but also in evangelistic efforts in the cities where chapters are already established. Looking to the future, YCP wants to offer members increasing opportunities for spiritual enrichment, professional advancement, and more intentional networking so that members can live the authentic, integrated life to which God has called them.

Guest: Jennifer Baugh
Title: Founder and Executive Director, Young Catholic Professionals

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Responsible for faith-based and secular non-profit markets at Innovest, Sarah brings to bear her rich experience of non-profit development, marketing, and business development along with her faith and sense of stewardship in managing clients’ investment portfolios. In this episode, Sarah explores how building a morally conscious investment portfolio is more than avoiding “sin stocks,” but requires a deeper due diligence to ensure funds are not applied to causes antithetical to the Gospel and the Church’s teaching on faith and morals. Maintaining value alignment is important so that support is not given to causes that harm authentic Christian discipleship or true communion.

“Our clients are always at the center of every decision we make,” Sarah explains, emphasizing that in managing clients’ investments, establishing client mission over shareholder interest is essential to maintain value alignment. Making investment decisions based on shareholder returns can be “a big problem and conflict of interest” in a fiduciary relationship. As a secular firm with Catholic values, Innovest manages $45 billion for retirement plans, for non-profit foundations, endowments, operating reserves, and retirement plans, and for high net-worth individuals. Sarah said that, in keeping with the vision of Innovest’s founders, “we believe that we are stewards of everyone we come in contact with, whether that’s clients, people in the community, even our employees…we very much have a stewardship culture.” In addition to stewarding clients’ investments, Innovest seeks to be stewards of its own resources by providing educational opportunities for the underserved, monthly volunteer opportunities for employees, and by donating 1% of revenue back to their clients to help their missions.

In Catholic investing, the USCCB’s investment guidelines serve as a starting point for morally responsible investing. Dioceses have an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) which includes language on how the IPS adheres to the USCCB guidelines and in what asset parameters investments can be made. Sarah stresses the importance of having a “Catholic ecosystem of resources” to help Catholic entities manage and invest funds in a manner truly harmonious with the Church’s mission. Vendors, banks, investment companies, development professionals, asset managers, etc. must all embrace the mission of the gospel. This ecosystem helps ensure morally responsible investments. For example, companies earn ESG (environmental, social and governance) scores depending on how well they fulfill their responsibility to the community in these sectors. A high ESG score gains more investors. But a secular perspective on ESG causes does not prescind from Catholic anthropology, which in turn means that companies’ ESG initiatives often do not advance authentic human flourishing, thereby compromising value alignment. A Catholic ecosystem will help mitigate poor investment decisions and help guide Catholic entities to make the best return on investment, advance the gospel, and bring authentic human freedom, joy, peace and flourishing to the world.

Guest: Sarah Newman
Title: Vice President, Innovest

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Lino Rulli, aka “The Catholic Guy” on Sirius XM Radio, came into a greater appreciation of his Catholic faith in college after experiencing a tragedy that prompted life’s big questions. A communications undergraduate major with a graduate theology degree, Rulli later discovered an opportunity to start a tv show at a local parish, which later was syndicated across the US and won Emmy awards. His broadcasting career on matters relating to the faith was born.

“My goal has not necessarily been to find new ways to advance the Church’s mission,” Rulli explains. He seeks, rather, to maintain broadcasting professional standards while being himself. That’s what builds relationship, which is the premise for good communication. Whether it’s social media, broadcasting or pastoral leadership, the Church’s ability to communicate requires the trust that relationship builds. Rulli points to Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, as an example of a pastor who fosters relationships well. As the cardinal’s personal media advisor, Rulli shares his firsthand experience of how Cardinal Dolan helps build a bridge with Catholics and non-believers alike, a bridge that carries the gospel to wide audiences. “What are we afraid of? Is there someplace we’re not supposed to be proclaiming the gospel?” Rulli asks, warning, “the reason religion shrinks is religion keeps talking to itself.” Communicating is about telling your story and to tell it with honesty, vulnerability, and passion. Just as the Lord communicated with stories, and always based on relationship, so must Church tell the story to engage hearts and minds for mission.

Guest: Lino Rulli
Title: “The Catholic Guy” on Sirius XM Radio

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In this episode, Ian Rangel describes the history, mission, and impact of The Papal Foundation, the only charitable organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to fulfilling the requests of the Holy Father for the needs of the Church. The foundation aims at providing the resources to address capital, humanitarian and vocational needs throughout the developing world or, as Ian puts it, to serve “the underdogs of the Church.”

Begun in 1988 during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, the foundation, a separate 501(c)(3) organization, has provided over $200 million in response to requests for assistance from across the globe. A donor becomes a Steward of Saint Peter with a minimum contribution of $1 million in support of the foundation’s mission. Stewards of Saint Peter and their families are invited to make an annual pilgrimage to Rome, which includes an audience with the Holy Father, and are invited to support his Petrine ministry through prayer. Ian describes the support the foundation has given to the Center for Working Families in Quito, Ecuador to assist families in abject poverty learn skills and trades to provide them a better life. He also explains how the foundation’s aid to the Church in Poland helped them provide shelter and essentials for Ukrainian refugees. The foundation’s St. John Paul II scholarship fund provides priests, religious men and women, seminarians, and men and women in formation for religious life from the developing world to receive their education and formation at one of the fifteen pontifical universities in Rome.

Ian reflects, ”To walk in partnership and journey with our Stewards of Saint Peter, who in many ways have seen their own neighborhoods of the Church grow as they are supporting the work in a very generous way at levels that are just phenomenal, is just a humbling experience.”

Guest: Ian Rangel
Title: Vice President of Steward Development, The Papal Foundation

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Bishop Andrew Cozzens is the Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston and currently Chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, in virtue of which he is tasked by the bishops to spearhead the three-year National Eucharistic Revival. In this very theological episode, Bishop Cozzens explores how Christ’s gift of himself in the incarnation is perpetuated in his gift of self in the Eucharist. “The Eucharist is the heart of the Church, which means it is the heart of the disciple,” Bishop Cozzens explains. In the Eucharist, we receive “our greatest good,” namely Jesus himself, which inspires us to live as he lived. “How does Jesus live? Well, he gave himself away to us,” Bishop Cozzens states. “My response is, I need to give this back. I need to give myself back. And, of course, that’s what stewardship is. Stewardship is making a gift of my life.”

“Fewer people understand that the heart of the Eucharist is about receiving a gift and giving a gift,” the bishop noted, and it’s why the bishops are eager to lead the faithful into a deeper appreciation of this truth. All the sacrifices we make in our daily lives “become truly valuable as we unite them to Christ’s” in the Eucharist. The US bishops have noted a Eucharistic crisis in that many in our secular culture do not know they’ve been invited to the Banquet of the Lamb. Bishop Cozzens retraces the steps by which the US bishops came up with the plan for a Eucharistic National Revival, describes its structure and presents the aim of each of the revival’s three years. The National Eucharistic Congress scheduled for July 2024 in Indianapolis, is the first such congress in 83 years. By the revival, the bishops seek first to enflame Catholics’ Eucharistic faith so that, in turn, there starts a missionary fire – not a program – to burn away indifference, false idols, and selfishness in the heart. This will open the way to stewardship, generous giving and joy.

Guest: Bishop Andrew Cozzens
Title: Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston

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In this episode, Twelve Wicker Baskets shifts from the philanthropic focus of supporting the Church’s mission to the perspective of those who generate the resources for that support through entrepreneurial business ventures. David Niccolini, a husband, father, and innovating founder of four successful companies, shares his career journey from the perspective of faith, noting that entrepreneurial work is very creative and, when done in cooperation with grace, is a co-creative act with how God creates.

Each of us has a God-given purpose and God delights in us when we live and work fulfilling that purpose. We are most alive and are most creative when our work flows from our overall purpose, avoiding a false separation between our life of faith and our daily work lives. Faithful entrepreneurship prioritizes relationship over transaction and operates from a mindset of abundance over scarcity. Innovation in business requires a step into the unknown in a way that parallels how the prophets were invited by God to step out of the familiar and venture into a mission that required them to rely on his grace and call moment to moment. All of us can relate to this experience when we encounter the Lord, whose invitation to discipleship requires a trusting act of faith. What God, the Original Entrepreneur, wants to do with each of us is innovative. Each of us is needed; each of us has a unique purpose, but all of us must rely on God’s promise, mercy and love to fulfill it.

Guest: David Niccolini
Title: Entrepreneur

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Matt Vuorela became Chief Executive Officer of the Steier Group in August 2023. In this episode, Matt shares his perspective that many of the discouraging trends we see in the Catholic Church in the United States today are actually opportunities to be bold and creative. From his seat at the head of the firm, he also speaks to other trends in the fundraising/development sector that point to some very positive news.

The bishops of the United States have recognized that the Church is in a crisis. Less than half of Catholics in the United States understand or believe in the Eucharist, Mass attendance is at an all-time low, and many young people are disaffiliating from the Church. This crisis of faith is at the heart of what could be called a crisis of stewardship in the Church. Giving to religious charities decreases with each passing generation. This means that the Church’s strongest supporters tend to be an older demographic. From a development point of view, this is a great challenge. “My call to everyone is not to accept these trends,” Matt said. “Be bold in your thinking. If you think you’re going to fail, you’re probably right. There is nothing that says we have to accept these trends. There is nothing that says we only have to survive, rather than thrive."

There are other, more regionalized, trends, however, that give great hope. Steier Group campaigns for the Church in southern states are in support of rapid growth, new parishes, and strong ministries. Matt notes as well that our campaigns for many religious communities with younger vocations have garnered support. School and Newman Center campaigns have done exceptionally well. In fact, major donors want to get behind campaigns to support the faith for high school and college students. “I would contend there is no investment a major donor—or any donor—can make in the future of the Catholic Church, the future of our faith, than at the Newman Center or Catholic high school level. Why? Because this is where you either keep young Catholics invested in the faith or you lose them.”

Another key opportunity in the face of these trends is to incorporate planned giving to help people make a lasting impact in support of the Church’s mission. Matt advises that an emphasis on planned giving “needs to be a more central part of every development office’s efforts now and into the future. It is absolutely critical that the office must stay on the radar of those who will give the wealth away, but also to develop relationships with the younger generations who will be inheriting it.”

Guest: Matt Vuorela
Title: Chief Executive Officer, The Steier Group

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