FADICA

Established in 1976, Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA) represents 47 private foundations with shared interests in the church's mission and work. The organization was formed through the leadership of a dozen family foundations convened by the Raskob Foundation of Wilmington Delaware. Three important influences led to FADICA's creation: the Second Vatican Council's vision of the laity with its emphasis on community and service, a trend within American philanthropy favoring collaboration, and growing wealth and influence among American Catholics.

The association, headquartered in Washington, D.C., regularly convenes its members for their continuing education on trends of importance to the church's ministry and internal life. Biannual symposia, research studies, and jointly funded initiatives, enable FADICA's philanthropists to play an active part in Catholic life.

Collective giving on average has exceeded two hundred million dollars. Among FADICA's achievements are its role in launching multi-million dollar programs to address the retirement crisis of American religious; engineering the creation of a U.S. church initiative to aid in the rebuilding of the church in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe; facilitating financial management reforms in the Holy See; persuading the U.S. hierarchy to address the subject of stewardship through a pastoral letter to American Catholics; developing better homiletic curricula in U.S. seminaries; and instituting the first national training course for vocations directors.

On the threshold of a new century, FADICA's shared concerns revolve around questions of how church institutions will maintain their Catholic culture and character as they transition from clergy and religious leadership to lay supervision and governance. There is also the change of attitudes and priorities among the trustees. A new generation of trustees, largely formed in the years after the Second Vatican Council, bring to the foundation an entirely different experience of the church. They have no first-hand memory of the dense Catholic subculture of the twentieth century which gave rise to FADICA. Intentional efforts to reach and mentor a new generation of foundation trustees in Catholic philanthropy are priorities with the FADICA organization.

Bibliography: j. t. ellis, Of Faith and Giving, An Historical Narrative of Catholic Philanthropy (Washington, D.C. 1981). m. j. oates, The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America (Bloomington, Ind. 1995).

[f. j. butler]