Grantee Directory

Co-Implementation is a model of on-the-ground spiritual renewal support where a team from the archdiocese, including a parish renewal leader (PRL), spends 10-15 hours per week at a parish supporting the implementation of transformational renewal. The PRL engages in a co-responsible relationship with the pastor around spiritual renewal: the task of forming parish communities that hold as primary a culture of evangelization and the process of accompanying individuals and families in their relationship with Jesus Christ. The relationship includes the setting of priorities, executing on the formation and tools needed for renewal, and aligning parish leaders to the vision of a missional church. The PRL — with support from team members experienced in evangelization, communications, and operations — forms and leads key parish leaders in realizing this missional culture change in the life of the parish. The pastor, along with his key leaders on this journey, is invited into a renewal community, which brings together parish teams from across the Archdiocese that are engaging in the renewal process. This community is meant to provide varied experiences for both individual leaders, as well as parish leadership teams, as the groups share learnings, best practices, and are themselves renewed through the community for the missional ministry ahead. In Co-Implementation, the parish engages in realizing the core elements of spiritual renewal—prayer, vision-casting, team leadership, hospitality, and accompaniment—and the culture-shifting building blocks found on the Archdiocesan Discipleship Pathway—Explore, Encounter, Grow, and Go.

Catholic Extension, which works with people in America’s poorest regions, defines a thriving parish as a place where its people not only feel “welcomed,” but actually feel “at home,” where they are able to express who they truly are as a people of God and are empowered to live their mission in the world. In our experience, the pillars of a thriving congregation are found in a community where its people find beauty, fellowship, and mercy in abundance. Our program focuses on helping our parishes that serve marginalized communities to thrive in two main ways. First, we create new avenues for the marginalized faith communities in our network to share their beautiful traditions, art, and wisdom that are rarely seen or heard in the wider Church. Second, we seek to provide opportunities for leaders of these diverse parishes to be included in ecclesial gatherings that they are typically absent from due to cost or other obstacles. These convening opportunities provide diverse participants with opportunities to give greater clarity to their parishes’ mission and to share their values with the leaders of the wider Church, as well as the chance to glean insights and wisdom from others with whom they come in contact.

In 2017, Catholic Leadership Institute launched a groundbreaking initiative to comprehensively support thriving faith communities and their leaders: Next Generation Parish. This transformative four-year journey renews parish life, fosters engagement among parishioners, strengthens parish identity, deepens relationships with God, and encourages a missional love that pours out into the larger community and the world. The pilot is at work in five founding dioceses: Orlando, Jackson, Biloxi, Fort Wayne-South Bend, and Philadelphia. Catholic Leadership Institute is in a position to learn more, do more, and share more support, data, and visionary leadership with our Church. Catholic Leadership Institute is poised to extend the reach of Next Generation Parish and the learnings gleaned from this dynamic initiative to more dioceses and parishes across the country who are ready to look to the next generation and face the future with fortitude, faith, and a solid foundation upon which to build.

Catholic Rural Life (CRL) is a national, 100-year-old nonprofit organization that joyfully promotes and supports Catholic rural life in America. Our vision is thriving families, farms, and rural parishes, centered on faith, community, and care of creation. CRL’s Thriving Rural Congregations (TRC) project will complement our growing network of Christians who view the rural landscape with the eyes of faith. Our pastors need both a greater response and extra support from their lay parishioners to increase their reach in their communities and meet the growing needs of rural America.

We will implement a collaborative, regional model of youth ministry, anchored by Dominican University, that establishes a centralized hub to leverage collective resources, accompany practitioners, and form the next generation of youth leaders for the Church and society. In collaboration with local, regional, and national partners, we will strategically integrate and nurture three community-based ecologies that support the flourishing of youth through the following strategies: 1) Establish centralized youth ministry hubs in Vicariates III and IV of the Archdiocese of Chicago, creating a new model of youth ministry that reflects and accommodates new parish structures. 2) Increase the capacity of Catholic school teachers to understand, teach, and model the Catholic faith through developmentally appropriate strategies that prime youth for long-term participation in parish life. 3) Prime parish decision-makers to exercise a preferential option for youth that creates the structural and environmental conditions for them to thrive within the congregation. Ultimately, we envision a robust ecosystem where youth-facing practitioners and congregations have the skills, resources, and confidence to effectively accompany young people throughout their faith journeys along a continuum of developmentally and culturally appropriate engagement opportunities.

This initiative pairs young adults from Catholic colleges and universities with parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in an effort to create bridges between university campus ministry and congregational life.