Detroit — The endowment fund made possible by the Stewards for Tomorrow campaign of the mid-1990s continues to help children attend Catholic schools and to benefit the Archdiocese of Detroit in many ways.
In a letter to the faithful this month, Archbishop Allen Vigneron disclosed that the fund has distributed more than $55 million to Catholic families for the purposes of Catholic education. (Read letter online.)
“Stewards for Tomorrow and the endowment are among the brightest chapters in our 300-year archdiocesan history, and serve as recent examples of sound planning and good stewardship,” Archbishop Vigneron said in the March 10 letter, which was distributed to parishes.
Catholic families continue to receive grants from the Archdiocese of Detroit Endowment Fund to help with the cost of sending their children to Catholic schools — which was the primary goal of the endowment, while it also benefits seminarians, lay catechists and senior priests, and makes it possible for the archbishop to support the work of other Catholic organizations.
In the current, 2010-11 school year, 811 students from 653 families received grants totaling $567,700 to attend Catholic high schools; 1,751 students from 1,069 families received a total of $1.051 million to attend Catholic elementary schools.
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Only students from Catholic families qualify for the grants – as other sources of assistance do exist to help non-Catholic families send their children to Catholic schools.
“Concluding in 1995, Stewards for Tomorrow was a great success,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “Parishioners contributed more than $84.5 million. Through the campaign formula, parishes retained $19.3 million of that total, and the archdiocesan endowment fund was created with $65.2 million in campaign gifts.”
During the campaign, some may have remembered a $100 million goal being in place. The campaign actually had received pledges in excess of that, but some pledges were never fulfilled; of those unmet pledges, most are now considered uncollectable, while a small portion are in the form of testamentary gifts that won’t be realized until the donor’s death.
As of June 30, 2010, the end of the last fiscal year, the $55 million distributed by the Archdiocese of Detroit Endowment Foundation had been put toward thousands of tuition grants to Catholic students in Catholic elementary and high schools, as well as support to Sacred Heart Major Seminary, financial aid for the education of catechetical instructors, supplementary income for retired priests, direct support for seminarians, and for the work of other Catholic organizations and institutions.
The total asset value of the Endowment Foundation stood at $71.4 million, of which $19.6 million was in parish endowment accounts — many parishes having decided to place their individual endowments with the archdiocese to benefit from the professional management aimed at earning a market return.
Although the value of the foundation’s investments suffered in the market turmoil of several years ago, it has recovered somewhat as the market has recovered. During the 2009-10 fiscal year, the fund earned a 12 percent return, and it continued to appreciate, standing at $80 million as of Dec. 31.
“The generosity of the people to the Stewards for Tomorrow campaign continues to bear fruit for our school kids and seminarians, as well as for other people in the archdiocese,” said David Kelley, archdiocesan director of development and stewardship.
Kelley noted that, although the current Changing Lives Together campaign is primarily designed to strengthen parishes, Archbishop Vigneron has indicated that a portion of its proceeds will also go into the Endowment Fund in order to provide even more assistance to help Catholic children attend Catholic schools.
The formula for distributing funds from the Endowment fund calls for annual distributions equal to 3 percent of the three-year moving average of the value of the invested assets.
In a good year, that could mean the entire distribution would come out of the fund’s earnings, with something left over for reinvestment. In a year that foundation earnings are less than 3 percent, the foundation will make up the shortfall from foundation principal so the programs can enjoy an annual distribution equal to 3 percent.
More details about the Stewards for Tomorrow campaign and the endowment can be found online at www.aodonline.org/sharingthelight
