St. Catherine of Siena Parish

 
The Building Our Future Campaign has two phases. We successfully completed the pledge solicitation phase and are now in the pledge redemption phase. The first section below describes the pledge redemption phase and the second section provides historical information on the solicitation phase.

PLEDGE REDEMPTION PHASE (DECEMBER 2009 - DECEMBER 2012)

We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our parishioners in the pledge solicitation phase. As of December 31, 2009, 255 households pledged $924,069 towards the campaign. Sr Mary joyfully thanked the parish during Announcement weekend on November 22, 2009.

Fulfilling a Pledge

The process for making pledge payments is as follows. Parishioners will not receive bills. This is a departure from past campaigns where bills were mailed out. Instead, Pat Cote, our business manager, will send out end of year tax statements that will itemize separately how much was donated in your weekly offering and how much was given for the capital campaign. These statements will be mailed in February. Additionally, in March and again in September, "reminder" thank you letters will be sent to parishioners explaining how much has been received on their pledge.

When making a payment toward your pledge, you are asked to indicate on the memo line of your check that the payment is for Building Our Future. Special Building Our Future envelopes will be available at church entrances and at the parish office. You may mail your check in a designated envelope to our parish office or drop it in the collection basket at Mass, according to the giving schedule that you have chosen, for example, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. You may also use your own envelope, addressed to Building Our Future Campaign c/o Pat Cote, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, 302 St. Catherine Circle, Ithaca, NY 14850.

If you did submit a pledge and have not received a confirmation letter from us, please call Pat Cote (257-2493) to see if your pledge perhaps is missing. It does happen, not often. We want you to be counted and not to be wondering why you've heard nothing from us.

Use of Excess Funds

The estimate for the five critical projects was $905,000. Some of this estimate included "contingency" funds for unexpected problems that might be encountered. Thankfully, we believe that we will be able to add back a portion of the contingency funds, so that actual expenses will be less than the estimate. Any Building Our Future pledge donations not needed for the critical repairs will be reserved in a special fund to revitalize the parish center in the future. These funds will be added to Fr. Mike's generous bequest of $262,000 and the $194,000 previously given in the Partners In Faith campaign in 2003.

PLEDGE SOLICITATION PHASE (MAY - NOVEMBER 2009)

We were humbled by the tremendous response to the RSI Financial Feasibility Study, conducted in May 2009. Over 160 Parish Households responded to the RSI survey. That response rate of better than 25% of all parish households far surpassed RSI's expectations, and led them to have great faith in the validity of the conclusions they drew from your responses.

Final results of the RSI Financial Feasibility study showed that St. Catherine's could hope to raise about one million dollars in a three-year fundraising campaign. This provides us with a starting point for getting to work. And work clearly must be done, and soon.

We have found that four of the church's 32 support beams have serious decay and need steel reinforcement to continue to support the roof. Many of the remaining 28 beams have internal decay, which can be corrected with epoxy injections and a wrapping of a protective aluminum skin. As you may recall, we had already determined that the church roof and the HVAC system need replacement as soon as these projects could be scheduled.

With these results in hand, the Pastoral Council and the Finance Council met and recommended moving forward on five critical actions relating to our facilities:

• Hiring an architect to draw up bid specifications for replacement of the church roof.
• Contracting with Dajon Associates of New Jersey to make repairs to the church's 32 laminated support beams.
• Soliciting bids for the repair or replacement of the Parish Center roof.
• Soliciting bids for the assessment of the air quality in the Parish Center, so as to ensure the health and safety of those who use the Center.
• Soliciting bids for replacing the church's obsolete HVAC system.

In concert with the Finance Council, the Pastoral Council also decided to go forward with these projects only when we were certain of the Parish's willingness to pay. Therefore, a sixth critical action relating to funding was agreed to:

• Hiring our Feasibility Study Consultant, RSI, to assist the Parish in planning and executing a successful three-year fundraising campaign to pay for the actions listed previously.

The final RSI Feasibility Study report is available here. A hardcopy also is available for review at the church office.

Funding

The estimated cost for funding these critical projects is $1.0 million. The Pastoral and Finance Councils will commit funds in priority order, using available funds and pledges. No long-term debt will be assumed. Pledges should pay back any borrowed funds in three years. The feasibility study shows current financial support of $1.0 million; the hope is that parishioners will give generously to support these necessary infrastructure repairs.

Schedule

In July 2009 we planned the fundraising campaign's three main phases. The Early Gifts phase ran during August, Advance Commitment Gifts phase during September, and Parish-wide phase during October 2009. On Commitment weekend, October 31-November 1, 2009, the parishioners will together offer during Mass their commitment cards in an act of worship and praise. We will announce the results of the campaign on at the Masses on November 21-22, 2009.

History

A complete history of how we got here is archived here.