Texas Catholic Letters
February 19, 2009
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Taylor
Dallas, Texas
Dear Fran and Mike,
Thank you both for your congratulations and wonderful comment at the Catholic Foundation Award Dinner last week. The dinner was a great success with over 1,000 in attendance and it was especially exciting to honor Marianne Staubach with the award. As you noticed by the smile on my face, it was also a pleasure to announce that 2008 was a record year for contributions to The Catholic Foundation as we realized over $12 million in gifts. We are certainly experiencing remarkable success right now.
The good year could not have come at a better time. We all know what has happened to our investments because of the economic downturn. While many other foundations are pulling back on their grants, the new gifts have enabled the Foundation to sustain grant making during these stressful times. Unfortunately, the needs in our community are going to be up in a time like this so we believe that now is not the time to pull back. We are hopeful that our entire Catholic community will adopt the same attitude and continue with and hopefully increase their charitable giving in the coming year. Based on what I am hearing, any size charitable gift is going to be impactful and appreciated by the recipient.
The Catholic Foundation is grateful to our benefactors for making 2008 a great year and we are going to do all we can with those gifts to make 2009 a good year for all we serve.
I'm glad you enjoyed the award dinner and thanks for your support. It was a great evening.
Sincerely,
Edwin M. Schaffler
President and Chief Executive Officer