After 21 years of working with Catholic capital campaigns throughout the country, ISPD recently evaluated the differences between effective campaigns and ineffectve campagins. Using a cross section of 22 campaigns, the points listed below proved consistent. As a learning tool, this chart can be used to forewarn as weel as remind. Fortunately or unfortunately, there are no short cuts to an effective campaign. Everyone must step up, join the team and be a leader – starting at the top and filtering throughout the entire institution. Campaigns are a yardstick to measure quality.

Effective Approach

• Active, involved pastor/president/principal
• Clear case for support
• Organizational Plan is followed.
• Very best leaders are in place.
• Staff supports the campaign 100%.
• Consultant/coach/mentor in place
• Campaign materials are effective.
• Campaign grows out of long-range planning
• Effective Feasibility Study done in advance.
• Campaign leaders follow the advice of coaches.
• Proactive attitudes – feeling of “We can do this!”
• Excellent attendance at meetings
• All leaders willing to roll up their sleeves and work.
• Suggested timeline is followed.
• Campaign leaders give gifts right away.
• Organized and effective reporting system
• Communication system working across the lines
• Tight organizational structure with divisions
• Pacesetter divisions lead the campagin
• Right people are in the right divisions
• Effective Pacesetter Kick-Off Reception
• Public Kick-Off involves entire parish
• Personal approach is the norm.

Effective Results

• Campaign $$ goals are met.
• Campaign people goals are met.
• Parish, as a whole, feels sense of accomplishment.
• Stewardship of Offering increases.
• New leadership emerges.
• Planned Giving effort flows out of campaign.
• Donors are looking forward to tangible results.
• Groundbreaking is scheduled and used as visible proof of success.
• Development Office is seen as vital to the future
• Development Director has positive position in parish.
• Pastor is seen as the person who made this happen.
• Legacy is established for the future.
• Thoughts have already turned to future planning.
• Endowment is the next step.

Ineffective Results

• Adm. with limited involvement
• Unclear case for support
• Organizational Plan changes daily.
• Campaign leaders slow to give
• A lot of second-guessing
• Attitude is re-actionary.
• Leaders afraid to “ask for the order”
• Campaign/parish leaders always deferring to someone else
• Very little follow-up work is done.
• Lack of confidence in the leadership
• Reporting system not effective
• Invites not being done personally
• Many “dropped balls” b/c of lack of sustained commitment
• Procrastination is rampant.
• Communication system not working
• Not THE top priority to parish/school
• Not enough leaders engaged
• Too many chiefs, not enough Indians
• People not willing to make sacrificial gifts
• Recruiting people to help is difficult.
• Everything is driven by $$$$$$$.
• Campaign is seen as bothersome.

Ineffective Results

• Campaign does not reach goals.
• Feeling of failure
• A lot of finger pointing
• Struggle to decide where to spend $$$
• Campaign leaders looking to bail out
• People wondering what will happen
• Tentative environment is created.
• Development Office dissolves.
• Development Director position seen as not worth the money
• “Bunker” mentality pervades.
• “I told you so” attitudes prevalent
• Struggle to turn the effort into positive
• Total Stewardship not positioned well
• Database not clean
• Recovery and healing needed

CRISIS, CHALLENGE AND CHANGE:

THE REBIRTH OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES PARISH

Dedication Ceremony: May 15, 2010

Beginning in 2001, a Steering Committee was commissioned by Father Adrian Hall to begin working on a Catholic Development, Total Stewardship, and planning process for Our Lady of  Lourdes. Many plans, many meetings, a new Site Master Plan for facilities, but on August 29th Hurricane Katrina came ashore and all plans and life, as we knew it, drastically changed.

The following weekend, Liturgy was celebrated on the corner of Berkeley and Westchester. Our church had been destroyed; the rectory, the Parish Life Center, the school, the gym, and the entire campus literally devastated. The next weekend, 10-15 parish leaders met at the home of Sid and Judy Hebert to begin planning the long journey back.

Liturgy was moved to the old gym; the school moved to the St. Margaret Mary campus for the 2005-2006 school year. Town Hall meetings were held after Mass, and yet pieces of normalcy were still hard to be found.

More formal meetings with parish leaders began in late October, and in November 2005 the architectural firm of Fountleroy and Latham was hired to assist with developing a Site Master Plan for the future.

We were faced with both short term and long term challeges.

• What buldings could be salvaged?
• What to do with the old church?
• What about portable structures for the school?
• Could we use the school cafeteria as our worship space?
• Where would we locate a new church?
• How much would it cost?
• Where would the money come from?
• What could we expect from the Archdiocese? From FEMA? From donors?
• What would we do with the old school?
• How many parish families would be coming back?
• What about the Parish Life Center and the rectory?

In December 2005, Father Hall formed a Buliding Committee to address these questions. And while all of this was going on, the clean up continued throughout the campus and throughout our neighborhoods.

On March 2006, Father Lipps and Father Kyle Dave joined OLL and the journey continued with parish leaders.

Over the next 6-8 months, negotiations continued with FEMA, portable buildings were moved on campus for the school, and Town Hall meetings continued as the means of communication.

On November 18 – 21, 2006, two site plan options for the OLL campus were presented to parish families at OLL, and in December 2006, a survey was conducted seeking input on whether the church would go in the middle of campus or at the end of Westchester. 62% said the end of Westchester, and 73% said to launch a campaign to help fund it.

In February 2007, we received permission from the Archdiocese to conduct a Financial Feasibility Study. It was determined that a campaign could generate between $1.8 – $2.2 million.

In June 2007, OLL got three pieces of great news from the Archdiocese:

• We were given permission to move forward with our new church.
• OLL would be given priority in dealing with FEMA
• We could go ahead and complete plans for the new school.

Campaign leadership was formed and on November 16, 2007, the Campaign kicked off to invite three gifts for the new church: the Gift of Prayer, the Gift of Service, and the Gift of Financial Participation.

Meanwhile, other parts of the campus continued to be re-shaped – by our parish families, by members of this community, and by very special parishes from other parts of the country who volunteered and gave so many resources. The Parish Life Center was renovated; the rectory was remodeled; the campus was cleaned. We also continued to worship in the old cafeteria; school continued in the portables; the old church and old gym had been torn down, and ever so slowly, a new OLL campus began to emerge.

The Pacesetter Phase of the Campaign wrapped up in early April of 2008, and the Public Phase kicked off on April 12th – 13th. Operation Homestretch! was held on November 1 – 2, 2008 and on May 16-17, 2009 we celebrated the success of our Campaign. 1,020 Gifts of Prayer, Involvement, and Financial Participation. And $2.2 million pledged!

There was wonderful news in Novemebr 2008: groundbreaking on the new church and school was held.

And now, the wait is over; the anticipation is nearing its end. One daywe will all look back at these past five years and talk about “the way things were back then” — when Mass was celebrated out on the street the weekend after Katrina, and the old gym was the place we welcomed back more and more families as they showed up weekend after weekend, and chaos was normal, and being a steward and a neighbor meant more than most any other time in our lives, and life as we knew it back in the Fall of 2005 was entirely different from the way we were in Spring of 2005. 

The road back has been a long one for so many individuas and so many families — some are still with us, others have moved on, and still others we keep in our prayers and memories. One glance around the campus today, and it is plain to see  that a lot of progress has been made — with the old buildings gone, and just a few left standing, the landscape of Our Lady of Lourdes has been changing every day for the past few years.

To heap praise on a few people or one group would be unfair — it has been a Lourdes Community effort. More than 95% of our parish families have participated in our Campaign; hundreds and hundreds have spread the news and the word of our mission throughout the country; committees and teams and ministries have met for thousands of hours since that fateful day in late August 2005 to bring us all to this one focal point in our history — the dedication of our new church. Thank you to those who drove, flew, and came to help us rebuild. And, thank you to the leaders of Our Lady of Lourdes – our pastors, and especially all of you, the parishioners — together we have built our place of worship for families of today and for many future generations. Yes, it is good to finally be home.