The following story first appeared in the Autumn 2004 Glenmary Challenge.
For a free copy of the next issue

Father Bishop Legacy Society
Planned gifts of 600-plus members help ensure
future of home mission ministry
By Margaret Gabriel

PREMIER GATHERING: Father Bishop Legacy Society charter members who attended the June 11 Mass and luncheon at Glenmary headquarters in Cincinnati.

A June event in Cincinnati honored a special group of mission partners who play a crucial role in helping to ensure the future of home mission ministry: The Father Bishop Legacy Society. Established in June 2003 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Glenmary’s founder, Father William Howard Bishop, this new society has 600-plus charter members who made estate or bequest commitments to Glenmary on or before June 30, 2004.

Twenty-nine charter members responded to an invitation to Mass in Our Lady of the Fields Chapel at Glenmary headquarters June 11. (Father Bishop died June 11, 1953.) Lunch followed at the Glenmary residence. While most attendees were from the Greater Cincinnati area, several traveled from northern Ohio and one couple came from as far away as Minnesota.

This gathering will become an annual event, says Glenmary’s planned giving officer, Susan Lambert. “Everyone seemed to really enjoy it,” she says, “and we want to keep letting planned givers know how much they mean to us.”

Nearly 40 percent of Glenmary’s operating revenue in a typical year comes from planned gifts such as bequests, charitable gift annuities, pooled-income funds, charitable trusts and the naming of Glenmary as beneficiary of insurance policies, IRAs or pension plans. “That’s why the Father Bishop Legacy Society is so vital to the future of the Catholic Church in the rural areas of the United States,” Susan points out.

“And planned giving isn’t just for the wealthy,” Susan insists. Those at the June gathering included folks from many walks of life: a retired teacher, a tailor, a doctor, diocesan priests, several retired Glenmary employees as well as Glenmary priests!

“Anyone can become a planned giver and a member of the Father Bishop Legacy Society,” she adds. “Anyone, for example, can arrange to bequeath a percentage of a retirement plan.”

One attendee, Father Harry Winca, is a priest of the Diocese of Cleveland who retired two years ago at the age of 85. He says he was happy to travel to Cincinnati to learn more about Glenmary’s work. Father Winca is one of many diocesan priests who have charitable gift annuities with Glenmary.

In becoming an annuitant, Father Winca followed in the tradition of his brother, Msgr. George Winca. “George had an annuity with Glenmary,” Father Winca says, “and after he died, I followed his lead.”

Father Winca particularly appreciated the gift given to each attendee: a copy of Every Day Is a Gift, a book of daily Scripture meditations signed by Glenmary president Father Dan Dorsey. “Every time I see that book, it reminds me that, through Glenmary, George’s work is still going on,” Father Winca says.

“Glenmary is grateful for gifts of any type,” says Susan Lambert. But she emphasizes that planned gifts enable long-term planning. “This kind of planning is not possible when all our ministry depends solely upon annual fundraising.”

People who make planned gifts to Glenmary are investing in the future, Susan says, by ensuring that Glenmary can continue to do God’s work in rural America for many years to come.

For more information on planned giving