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Howard Lemke

Special to the Intermountain Catholic

The Diocese of Salt Lake City has many needs, great and small – from erecting a new building to maintaining a parish’s flower beds – that often are first recognized by individuals within our community. To that end, the Catholic Foundation of Utah (CFU) was established in 1984 by the Most Rev. William K. Weigand, seventh Bishop of Salt Lake City, to assist donors in creating meaningful and lasting impacts in strengthening and planning for the future of the Catholic Church of Utah. Through financial donations and planned giving, endowments are established by CFU to provide a perpetual source of income for the growth and maintenance of programs and institutions throughout our state’s Catholic diocese.  

A single endowment is a portion of the total that CFU shepherds that is set aside to benefit the specific purpose the donors designated when they created their endowment. It then becomes the CFU’s duty to ensure that purpose is fulfilled. CFU manages both permanent endowments, which are those funded in perpetuity to provide distributions from the earnings on the investment; as well as temporary endowments, which are those operating like savings accounts, again with earnings, for entities within our diocese.  

By combining resources to maximize fiscal leverage, the CFU invests and administers the pool of funds from those many donors who name their endowments and designate their beneficiaries. The contributed funds are managed by the Bishop of Salt Lake City and the CFU Board of Trustees, who take guidance from professional financial advisors to shepherd well over $50 million from more than 450 diocesan endowments that already have been established. Beneficiaries of these current endowments include, but are not limited to, support for diocesan seminarians who are studying for the priesthood, various Catholic parishes and schools, education scholarships, youth ministry, Bishop’s Future Fund, Catholic Community Services, Hispanic ministry and the Good Samaritan Program.  

Although permanent endowments require initial funding of $10,000, the CFU can hold smaller amounts in temporary endowments until they, through future gifts and earnings, reach the $10,000 threshold. Individual donors or like-minded groups such as families, graduating classes, RCIA classes or neighborhoods are encouraged to approach CFU about an endowment to benefit a need that they uniquely identify. CFU welcomes any gift, large or small, to be contributed to an existing endowment for a parish, school or other service. You can find a list of the CFU’s existing endowments at www.dioslc.org, under Ways to Give.

The Catholic Foundation of Utah invites you to remember the Church in your will, estate planning and ongoing charity. And please don’t hesitate to contact the CFU office at 801-456-9306 or email the executive director at nevah.stevenson@dioslc.org to learn more about establishing or contributing to an endowment.  

Howard Lemke is president of the Catholic Foundation of Utah’s Board of Trustees. He and his wife Nancy established the Irene C. Sweeney Endowment for the benefit of the Madeleine Choir School; they are St. Vincent de Paul parishioners. Other trustees are Kristine Rogers, CFU vice president and St. Vincent de Paul parishioner; Tom Marriott, CFU board treasurer and St. John the Baptist parishioner; Kevin Murphy, CFU secretary and Cathedral of the Madeleine parishioner; Patrick Porter, a St. Thomas More parishioner; Cece Holt, a Cathedral of the Madeleine parishioner who is serving her second term on the board; Becky Duberow, a St. Ambrose parishioner who is serving her second term with the CFU board; Tim Clark, a member of St. Ambrose Parish; Msgr. Terence More, a retired priest of the diocese; Karla Padilla, director of admissions for the Madeleine Choir School; Fr. Christopher Gray, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish; Patrick Garcia, a member of the Knights of Columbus and a St. Pius parishioner; and Maria Devereux, a member of St. James the Just Parish and the wife of a deacon.