Gifts advance mission of the Church

One afternoon in June, a veteran schoolteacher who was attending a conference at the Catholic Pastoral Center stopped by the office of the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma. She had a legacy gift in mind.

The woman wanted to help lower-income children receive a Catholic education. She had witnessed the benefit of Catholic schooling throughout her teaching career. She also was inspired by the story of Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who attended a parochial school in Chicago, converted to the faith, and eventually became a bishop and archbishop before being made a cardinal by Pope Francis.

The initial visit by this teacher, who insisted on anonymity, started the process of creating a field-of-interest endowment fund through the Catholic Foundation that will provide annual grants, in perpetuity, to qualified children.

This is but one example of how the Catholic Foundation works with grateful and faith-filled individuals to bolster the work of the Church in central and western Oklahoma.

The Catholic Foundation also has designated endowment funds, which allow for focused giving to a specific parish, school or ministry; donor advised funds, which give donors significant flexibility for charitable giving; and custodial funds, which are managed by the foundation in support of parishes, schools or affiliated organizations.

Legacy gifts with the Catholic Foundation can take other forms, too, such as charitable gift annuities, which provide fixed income payments for life. After death, the remainder of the annuity benefits the ongoing work of the Catholic Foundation.

Qualified Charitable Distributions from traditional individual retirement accounts are another option. Annual distributions from IRAs to the foundation, up to $100,000 annually, can be made tax free.

The ultimate act of Christian stewardship is a gift in a will. To help facilitate this, the Catholic Foundation has partnered with FreeWill.com, a website where users can complete a simple, legally binding will in about 20 minutes ( cfook.org/freewill).

The Catholic Foundation’s mission is simple: To inspire generosity leading to endowments and charitable funds supporting parishes, schools and other ministries of the Catholic Church in central and western Oklahoma. 

To make a gift to benefit a parish, school or favorite Catholic ministry, call the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma at (405) 721-4115 or e-mail [email protected].

Owen Canfield is associate director for gift planning for the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma.