Building for the Kingdom

By Dennis J. Gerber, Jr.
President and CEO, Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund

Earlier this month, more than 500 Catholic entrepreneurs, executives, investors, priests and leaders gathered in Denver for the annual SENT Summit. I had the privilege of attending, and I came away encouraged by what this gathering represents for the Church.

SENT brings together successful entrepreneurs and business leaders who take both their professional vocation and their Catholic faith seriously. These are men and women who have built companies, employed people, invested capital, taken risks and created things of value. They also recognize that their experience, relationships, resources and talents can be placed at the service of something greater. They are building for the Kingdom.

That spirit is evident throughout the Summit. Conversations about leadership, investment, technology, growth and entrepreneurship take place alongside Mass, confession, Eucharistic adoration and conversations about faith and vocation. There is no need to separate professional excellence from Catholic identity. In fact, the Summit makes a compelling case that the two should strengthen one another.

For those of us involved in Catholic philanthropy, one of the most interesting parts of the Summit is the Mission Showcase. Each year, SENT identifies promising Catholic apostolates addressing important needs in innovative ways and introduces them to a community that can offer far more than financial support. The entrepreneurs, investors, executives and philanthropists in the room can provide expertise, relationships, mentorship and capital to help these organizations grow.

SENT describes what it is looking for in these organizations as the potential for “radical fruitfulness.” I think that is a helpful way to think about Catholic philanthropy more broadly. We should respond generously to immediate needs, but we should also be looking for the people and organizations with the potential to bear extraordinary fruit for the Church.

Three organizations featured in this year’s Mission Showcase particularly caught my attention:

Vinea Research

Vinea Research brings professional market research to the work of evangelization. Its founder, Hans Plate, spent more than 25 years in the research industry before applying that experience to the needs of the Church. Vinea helps dioceses, apostolates and Catholic organizations better understand the people they are trying to serve.

The premise is straightforward. If we care about reaching people with the Gospel, we should care enough to understand them. Why do Catholics stop practicing the faith? What keeps someone away from Confession? What do people actually believe? Where might our assumptions be wrong?

Vinea gives Catholic leaders better information so they can make better decisions about how they evangelize and serve.

National Society of Priestly Vocations

The National Society of Priestly Vocations is applying a similar entrepreneurial approach to one of the most important needs in the Church: priestly vocations. There are young Catholic men who may have a vocation to the priesthood but have never seriously considered it or connected with a vocation director.

NSPV uses digital advertising, social media, content and other modern communication tools to reach Catholic men between 18 and 35 and introduce priesthood as something worthy of serious discernment. The organization is not trying to tell a young man that he has a vocation. That discernment belongs to him and the Church. Instead, NSPV helps create the opportunity for that discernment to begin and connects interested men with their local vocation directors.

Petrine Properties

Petrine Properties addresses another growing challenge: the isolation experienced by many young Catholic men after college. Petrine creates intentional Catholic homes where men in their twenties live in fraternity centered on prayer, formation, accountability and friendship.

What makes the model particularly interesting is its approach to real estate. The Church owns significant property, some of which is underutilized. Petrine works with dioceses, parishes, religious communities and other Catholic institutions to put these properties back into active mission. An underused rectory, convent or other property can become a home where young men are formed in their faith and prepared for their vocations as husbands, fathers, priests, religious or Catholic leaders.

Our opportunity as Catholic philanthropists

These organizations are very different, but together they illustrate something important about Catholic philanthropy.

The Church has extraordinary spiritual resources, but Catholics also possess tremendous human and financial capital. We have entrepreneurs who know how to build organizations, investors who understand how to allocate capital, executives who know how to scale, professionals with specialized expertise, and philanthropists who want their resources to make a meaningful difference. The Mission Showcase brings those gifts together.

What I saw in Denver was not simply three organizations asking people to support their work. I saw Catholic leaders asking a much more interesting question: How can we help good people doing important work become more fruitful?

Sometimes the answer is a charitable gift. Sometimes it is an introduction, professional expertise, mentorship, a business relationship or simply helping an organization think differently about a problem.

That is an important vision for Catholic philanthropy. Our responsibility is not simply to give resources away. It is to be thoughtful about where those resources can bear the greatest fruit and to help create the conditions in which good Catholic missions can flourish.

When Catholic entrepreneurs, philanthropists, apostolates and institutions bring their respective gifts together in service to the Church, we begin to see what it truly means to build for the Kingdom.

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