By Sr. Laura Goedken, OP
The Catholic Foundation for the Diocese of Davenport was established in the State of Iowa as a nonprofit corporation in February 2009. Its assets now total $8,815,058.
All income from the capital campaign, Moving Forward in Faith and Hope, went into the Catholic Foundation. Parishioners made pledges payable to the Catholic Foundation over a period of three to five years. At this point 77 percent of pledge payments have been received. The diocese is most grateful for this.
Part of the capital campaign case statement was that 20 percent of the income given by parishioners would be returned to their respective parishes. To date, $3,419,131 has been sent to our parishes. To see a listing of parishes and the amounts received, go to the Catholic Foundation page on the Diocese of Davenport website, www.
davenportdiocese.org.
A Board of Trustees governs the Catholic Foundation. This board meets quarterly. The board membership is also listed on our web page. This board follows the State of Iowa laws for a nonprofit. An audit is conducted each fall. This will be posted on the website for your review.
The board has investment and spending policies which can be found on the web page along with other policies. The spending policy is to distribute 4 percent of the average financial assets of 12 consecutive quarters annually to the various funds as specified in the campaign’s case statement. The Diocese of Davenport received $177,054 in July to be used for seminary education, deacon formation, chancery support and the offices of Faith Formation, Social Action, and Catholic Charities. The Catholic schools received a total of $33,224 distributed to the schools on a per-capita basis.
The Catholic Foundation accepts additional donations and various kinds of estate gifts. These are invested in funds as specified by the donor and will live on for many years to come to benefit the ministries of the Diocese of Davenport and its Catholic schools. For more information please contact Sister Laura Goedken, OP, at goedken@davenportdiocese.org or (563) 888-4252.
(Sr. Goedken is director of development for the Diocese of Davenport.)