It’s not every day that a Catholic school system receives a nine-figure donation.
So when Bishop Robert McClory of Gary, Indiana learned that his diocese was being given $150 million to invest in its Catholic schools, he realized what a historic moment it was for the local Church.
And he realized he’d have to figure out what exactly to do with all that money. Especially since it has to be spent in the next 10 years.
“It’s a jaw-dropping number,” McClory told The Pillar. “It’s quite extraordinary.”
The Diocese of Gary announced the financial gift last month, calling it “the largest single investment ever given for PreK-12 Catholic education.”
The donation comes from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation, which focuses on community improvement initiatives in northwest Indiana. The foundation is donating the money to the Big Shoulders Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that supports Catholic education in Illinois and Indiana, to be invested specifically in the Diocese of Gary over the next 10 years — and not used for long-term endowments.
The diocese has collaborated with the Big Shoulders Fund for about five years, on various educational matters including professional development, capital needs, and staffing assistance.
But a $150 million donation is unlike any the Diocese of Gary’s Catholic schools have ever seen - unlike any donation most Catholic school systems in the country have ever seen, for that matter.
And Gary Bishop Robert McClory believes it’s going to open incredible doors for Catholic education.
“We were just delighted when we heard this news,” he said.
While many Catholic school systems are simply trying to manage decline, the $150 million gift means Gary Catholic schools can lead a conversation about growth, the bishop said.
But how do diocesan leaders even begin to think about spending a sum that large in the next 10 years?
McClory said it’s going to take time.
While the Diocese of Gary had previously outlined strategic priorities, they were based on a much smaller budget. Having $150 million gives the diocese the freedom to step back, look at the bigger picture, and evaluate priorities anew.
It’s a matter, McClory said, of asking “what if?”
“What if we had the resources to be able to imagine, plan, and fulfill a vision for Catholic schools, what might that look like? And in our case, the ‘if’ has been given to us. We have an opportunity to have those conversations.”
McClory said the diocese’s schools already enjoy a strong relationship with both civic and community leaders.
The state of Indiana has a robust school choice program, which allows parents to choose the school they believe to be the best fit for their child, funded through educational tax vouchers.
The program has relieved the financial burden for families who may otherwise struggle to afford Catholic school tuition, the bishop said.
In addition, totally separate from the recent donation, the Catholic Foundation of Northwest Indiana has announced plans to establish an endowment for school employee compensation in Gary. The goal is to eventually grow the endowment to $50 million, specifically to supplement salaries.
McClory said these factors, combined with the $150 million donation, leave the diocese well-poised to “fulfill an extraordinary vision going forward.”
What exactly is that vision? The details remain to be seen.
At a practical level, McClory said, each of Gary’s 17 parochial elementary schools and three diocesan high schools will see an initial infusion of money to help with immediate needs and goals, including deferred maintenance. The bishop declined to give specific numbers, but said it would be “substantial.”
In addition, he said, the diocese has already begun working to conduct “a deep dive assessment - to look at all of our schools, to see their strengths, to see opportunities, and practices, and the needs of our current schools. As well as to also assess areas where there might be some unmet needs, where we also don't have a current Catholic presence.”
Diocesan officials have already begun meeting with pastors and principals – asking about their immediate needs, but also asking, “What would be some of your dreams for our Catholic schools going forward?”
Being able to ask school leaders about their hopes and dreams – rather than focusing simply on practical sustainability – is a huge blessing, McClory said.
And eventually, those conversations will be shaped into a strategic plan to move forward.
Dr. Colleen Brewer, superintendent of schools in the Diocese of Gary, told The Pillar that she believes that in-depth assessment will take about a year.
“This first year is going to be looking at data, looking at analysis, looking at trends, talking to major stakeholders to say, ‘Okay, what do we need? And how can we best serve the entire diocese?’” she told The Pillar.
She said diocesan officials have realized that they need to shift their thinking – from a paycheck-to-paycheck mindset to dreaming big.
“It took us months to even wrap our head around the amount of money that there is being donated towards this,” she acknowledged. “At first, we really got in the weeds quite a bit, and then we were able to think a little more big-picture, broadly, and really start thinking about how do we make impactful, systemic, long-term investments, rather than thinking short-term.”
So far, she said, conversations have been largely procedural, not so much looking at how to invest the money, but at who should be part of the discussions about how to invest the money.
“Just putting the structures together to be able to be very intentional and be able to discern how we spend the money, rather than jumping in and really saying, ‘Here's our priority list. Let's go’.”
Brewer said the diocese wants to consider all stakeholders: members of the Dean and Barbara White Foundation, the Big Shoulders team, diocesan officials, pastors, principals, and school families.
As the process moves forward, school leaders will be able to ask themselves big questions about what they think Catholic education would look like in an ideal world.
Does it make sense for the diocese to open new schools, or to expand existing ones? Can the local Catholic schools better accommodate children with special learning needs? Are there any new governance or academic models that would be a good fit?
“The foundation has encouraged us, really asked us to look at other models around the country, and to see if there are some best practices that are in place elsewhere that we could learn from,” McClory said.
Brewer said that decisions about whether to adopt a new educational model – such as STEM or classical – will be decided on a school-by-school basis.
“The benefit of having 20 schools is we can really decide what's best for each school,” she said.
“A lot is happening right now in education… Thinking about 10 years, a lot can happen in 10 years. So we're definitely open to that.”
McClory said diocesan officials want to be good stewards of the tremendous gift that they have been given. As schools plan for the future, he said, there will be an effort to look at both Catholic identity and academic performance, to ensure that the schools are forming minds, hearts, and souls.
The bishop told The Pillar he would love to see something similar happen in other parts of the country.
“I hope that perhaps others, who hear the magnitude of this commitment, would be inspired in other parts of the country to reflect on their own desire to financially support our Catholic schools,” he said.
“It’s our goal to be able to really create a model here that, pray God, would be able to be replicated elsewhere.”
Brewer said that however the donation ends up being distributed, she hopes to see Catholic schools “open our doors a little more widely, and to serve our students and families in a deeper, broader way.”
“I think there's families and students out there that would love to be part of our schools, that we just haven't been able to serve them because our schools might have a waiting list, because they might have specific learning needs that we haven't been able to support them, or whatever else might be going on,” she said.
Ultimately, Brewer said, the donation is an answer to decades of prayers by Catholic teachers and administrators.
“It’s just really exciting to be able to have this and be able to dream. So often we're reluctant to dream about what we could do because of the realistic boundary, sometimes, that money is,” she said.
“And with the school choice vouchers happening in Indiana and the flexibility with that, as well as the $50 million endowment we're looking at…for teacher staff salaries, and then also this other donation, with all that, really we can do almost anything that we want to. So it's really exciting.”
