Dear Friends:

I am honored to welcome you to the West Virginia Catholic Foundation website. In the following pages, you will learn more about how the Foundation is structured, what funding is currently in place, how donors may contribute to or establish a Foundation fund, and review information on planned giving opportunities that may provide donors with significant tax savings or even lifetime income.

Since it established in 1997, the West Virginia Catholic Foundation has set forth on a journey to establish a separate organization dedicated to preserving the charitable intentions of donors. In many cases, these donors want to create an everlasting tribute to their family name, their home parish, a Catholic school, or a host of Catholic charities. In addition, several clergy, religious and lay leaders entrusted the Catholic Foundation with a portion their finances, and most importantly, we asked them to help us carry the mission of the Foundation to their key donors and volunteers.

The benefits to participating Catholic organizations are numerous. At this time, parish funds in the West Virginia Catholic Foundation are exempt from Diocesan assessments, meaning more income is available for the work of our local faith communities. Charitable organizations and ministries managed by Catholic Community Services and the Diocesan office of Catholic Charities are enhanced by allowing employees and volunteers more opportunities to focus on those they serve, while leaving financial management and investment decisions to the Foundation Board.

Catholic Schools may stand to benefit the most from endowments that support operations and scholarships. There is an endowment fund created for each school in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. Many of these schools have taken advantage of the unique opportunity to grow their long-term asset base with the Foundation, and they have in turn been provided with a secure source of third source funding. Furthermore, each cemetery in the Diocese also has an endowment fund with the Catholic Foundation.

As you read ahead, I ask you to keep in mind the warm, generous feeling our contributors and collaborators may have experienced when they first joined the Foundation. For it is with this happy, satisfied feeling that they have made the West Virginia Catholic Foundation the "Window to Our Hearts and Souls."

With warmest personal regards, I am,

Sincerely,