Attendance at 2010 Petrus Leadership Conference Sparked Giving for Organization
“There are many campus ministers out there who think that their campus ministry center or campus is just too small to benefit from development efforts, but I want to tell you that such thinking is incorrect,” said Fr. Doug Baily. This Director of Catholic campus ministry at Florida Institute of Technology ministers at a very small non-denominational private technological University consisting of approximately 2,000 undergraduate students and about the same number of graduate students. Upon arrival at the campus, Catholic campus ministry shared a three bedroom house with the Protestant Campus Ministry and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. The organization had $11.65 in the checking account. There was little interest from either of the other campus ministry programs to engage in any form of development or expansion. The chapel was in a garage and after the Mass was finished, Fr. Doug would hit the garage door opener and say, “Go, the Mass is ended.”
A conscious decision to expand the ministry and help was needed. After consulting with a professional Catholic fund-raiser and attending the CCMA development Institute, an endowment to support Catholic Campus Ministry was established before the world wide recession. Today Catholic center enjoys a two hundred seat chapel and a 40 seat side chapel for daily Mass.
Fr. Doug describes their current development efforts in this way, “After the market collapse, I decided that we needed to bulk up our endowment and so I attended the Petrus Conference in Orlando. I came away with two excellent ideas. We have been remodeling our kitchen as a result of a generous contribution from a former student. We utilized the “baby shower for a new kitchen” idea that I picked up from the Conference and raised just under a thousand dollars. But the best idea was the matching Sunday collection. Our normal collection is slightly under $800. But on the matching collection and endowment Sunday we raised $7,985 that will be matched by a donor for a total of almost $15,000 to go into the endowment. I don’t remember how much I paid for the Conference but in the few months since the event that has to be well over a ten-fold return on the investment in the conference.”
Congratulations Fr. Doug and Catholic Campus Ministry at Florida Institute of Technology!
The 2011 Petrus Leadership Conference will be held January 2-5, 2011. This annual conference provides workshops, presentations and training for Catholic organizations seeking to advance their fund development efforts. Beginning and advanced level tracks will be offered again this year. Conference details and registration information will be available in early summer.
