By Kathleen Mahoney, Program Consultant, Global Development

Convinced that Catholic sisters make valuable spiritual and social contributions to society, GHR’s board of directors launched the Sister Support Initiative in 2012.

• Its vision: a landscape populated with congregations of women religious—well led, well resourced, powerful in their spiritual witness and effective in service to those in need.
• Its goal: strengthening congregations during a period of profound change.
• Its strategy: making capacity-building investments in the areas of leadership, vocations and resource development in the United States and Africa.

In keeping with GHR’s commitment to continuous learning, in 2014 we commissioned a developmental evaluation of our U.S. strategy and grant making.

GHR is indebted to sisters and other partners who generously contributed their thoughts and time to this evaluation. Responses to surveys, answers to interview questions, and extended conversations helped Touchstone Center for Collaborative Inquiry prepare a report which has already proven useful as we chart a course for 2016 and beyond.

In short, GHR will stay the course strategically in its U.S. Sister Support funding, with continued capacity-building investments in the areas of leadership development, member recruitment and resource development. We will continue to prioritize investments in younger sisters. But we will make some early-course adjustments by encouraging innovation and investing more in diversity and communications.

What follows is a high-level summary of what we learned from the evaluation and its implications for our work in years to come. You can also learn more about the results of the evaluation through an interactive overview.

What we learned from the evaluation
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• Our partners value our approach, reporting that long-term partnering fosters learning and helps organizations and projects scale up
• Three hundred sisters and associates have benefited from leadership development training, although some struggle to find outlets for newly accrued leadership skills
• Younger sisters find inspiration and critical support in peer networks
• Congregations are becoming far more diverse in terms of the age, race, ethnicity and life experiences of members; diversity is a blessing and a challenge
• There is a very significant number of sisters from other countries in the United States who come to serve, study or work
• There is a steady stream of women entering religious life, but a paucity of new members remains the most critical challenge for many congregations
• Equipping congregations with a spiritually-grounded approach to fundraising has produced some promising early results
• Sisters feel a need to build capacity in the area of communications

Seeking to ensure a vital future for women’s religious life in the U.S., GHR will continue to invest in leadership development for younger sisters, vocation ministry, and resource development.  We will encourage and support innovation as sisters live into a future that will look quite different.

GHR will sharpen its focus by leaning into diversity with regards to vocation ministry. We will be more attentive to the presence of sisters from other countries who are in the United States. We will begin to explore how congregations might build capacity in the areas of communications.
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We will continue to partner with women religious with gratitude, confident that women religious will continue to enrich both church and society, through their spiritual gifts and service to those in need.
Thank you for your dedication to helping congregations of Catholic sisters realize strong futures. To learn more about GHR’s Sister Support Initiative or ask about our evolving approach to funding, feel free to contact me directly.

GHR Foundation's Sister Support funding seeks to ensure a vital future for Catholic sisters marked by congregations that are well-led, well-resourced and powerful in spiritual witness and service. In Africa, GHR seeks to ensure vitality for congregations through capacity-building investments in leadership, education and formation.

Recently, GHR funded the creation of Voices of Courage—a first-of-its-kind collection of scholarly texts on the work of Catholic sisters in Africa. The volume, edited by Sr. Jane Wakahiu LSOSF, Peter Gichure and Ann Rita Njageh, includes case studies, research and scholarly reflection on the contributions of and challenges faced by women religious in East and Central Africa.

The book’s goals are to:

• Encourage congregations to track their own histories and key learnings in adapting to new challenges in a changing society
• Inspire deep conversations about issues that affect many African sisters, including the role of sisters in church and society, the importance of education and formation and cultural influences in religious life

​Drawing on empirical studies, the book documents the commitment of sisters to the education, healthcare and spiritual enrichment of people, especially those struggling with poverty. The book also identifies challenges sisters face, making case-by-case recommendations for strengthening the ministry of sisters across the continent.

This publication is an important, constructive resource for those interested in the future of women’s religious life in Africa. To learn more about Catholic sisters in Africa, read an excerpt of one of the chapters of the book by Sr. Jane Wakahiu. To learn more about GHR’s Sister Support Initiative, contact us.

Recently, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta met with traditional leaders of the Kaya community of Eastern Kenya. The discussion highlighted results from the Dialogue and Action Project (DAP), an initiative funded by GHR’s Inter-Religious Action Initiative where Catholic Relief Services (CRS) engages traditional and other faith leaders in a three-year effort to reduce child marriage.

The visit with President Kenyatta and elders involved in DAP included discussions on peacebuilding efforts to ensure security on the coast, as well as engagement in the Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics, which partners on DAP with CRS and the Catholic Diocese of Malindi. The DAP representatives advocated for government support in improving education standards on the coast and establishing affordable schools. With DAP’s focus on preventing early marriage, school retention is key to reducing vulnerability.

DAP’s goal is to delay marriage of 5,000 girls ages 9-18 years until adulthood, with targeted communities actively advocating for child protection and prevention of child marriage, and with households improving their economic situation through participation in community savings groups.
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Our partnership with CRS is already showing impressive results, and we look forward to exploring more partnerships to improve development results in Kenya and around the world. To learn more about how GHR is using partnerships to grow our inter-religious work, contact us.

By GHR Chair & CEO Amy Goldman
Re-posted from Devex

The global development community has spent the last three years in conversation on how to eradicate extreme poverty and structure the now-ratified Sustainable Development Goals. During this same period, Pope Francis has urged those in positions of power not to forget the marginalized, while personally visiting those who are often ignored.

His moving words — exceeded only by his powerful acts of compassion — have given energy and encouragement to those striving to end poverty. In light of this, it seems shortsighted that local faith communities are often at best an afterthought and at worst sidelined in the current global development equation.

Agreement on the global goals is a major step forward, but the conversation must now turn to an even greater challenge: How do we realize these ambitious targets?

Many experts agree that completing the “last mile” in the fight to end poverty will be the most challenging. Communities in extreme poverty are often the most difficult to reach and represent areas where current development approaches have not found success.

Recognizing a need for greater creativity, courage and inclusion, we must heed the words of Pope Francis to the United Nations General Assembly. In the spirit of striving “to serve the common good,” we cannot afford to leave any willing partner out of the process. We cannot continue to ignore the central role of faith leaders and communities in fostering hope and opportunity where it is needed most.

Last week, GHR Foundation participated in Pope Francis’ historic visit to the United States. We had an inspiring view of the way he is using the papal office to give voice to the voiceless. Pope Francis highlighted the systemic and deeply personal need to end global poverty. He brought new legitimacy to global development priorities and put faith at the center of the discussion in a powerful new way.

Through GHR Foundation’s efforts to advance inter-religious action, we have seen great progress in the effort to integrate faith into traditional aid models. Government agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. State Department, as well as nongovernmental funders like Humanity United, are bringing faith leaders to the table. However, Pope Francis has shown us that as leaders in global development, we need to push beyond talking to the people at the top. We need to get to the local level, and substantively engage faith communities on the ground.

All of us working on development issues need to see local faith actors as more than vehicles for implementation — we need to engage local faith communities as partners, respecting their self-determination as the most appropriate architects of the path out of poverty.  

In many areas, faith-based groups are the backbone of the community, and in some regions, represent the only health infrastructure. Results recently published in The Lancet show how working with religious leaders and communities improves health outcomes. GHR Foundation funded efforts in Nigeria to engage faith communities to increase insecticide-treated bed net usage and prevent malaria. In Kaduna state, independent research found net use increased to 85 percent from 18 percent as a result of outreach through religious communities. We have seen that when churches and mosques collaborate on issues of common concern, it helps build the kind of trust that can prevent violence, address health risks and drive economic opportunity.      

Not only do faith-based organizations bring needed resources, expertise and networks to the table, they also bring diverse perspectives that can help drive innovation. In 2014, Pope Francis urged Catholics not to make the church into another nongovernmental organization, but a caring and compassionate “mother” for all. When the same old development formulas and aid structures fail to make an impact, adding the extra dimension of faith-based care and compassion can be the difference.

The Global Goals have set an ambitious roadmap to ending extreme poverty. But to achieve them, we must be committed to more effectively engaging faith leaders and local faith communities. Pope Francis’s address to the U.N. General Assembly showed that the mission of the global development community and many faith leaders are aligned. He built a bridge between those with a common interest in building a better future for all. With humility and new energy, we should cross that bridge and work together to end global poverty.

​GHR Foundation's Catholic Schools Initiative works to explore best practices and incubate new models that drive school excellence. Recently, GHR staff traveled to Philadelphia and Camden, N.J. with several Twin Cities education partners to learn more about innovative governance approaches and discuss ongoing collaboration.

The trip was organized by GHR and the Healy Education Foundation, and included representatives from the Schulze Family Foundation, Office of Mission for Catholic Education, the Catholic Schools Center of Excellence, MN Comeback and Our Lady of the Lake Catholic School. Participants discussed approaches to governance, finances and fundraising.

Key takeaways included:

• Schools that serve a large number of low-income students benefit most from centralized or regionalized governance
• Governance is key to building community engagement and fundraising, leading toward more stable schools
• State funding remains crucial to bringing models to scale, and there are new approaches to access these resources

​These insights will be valuable as we continue to fund innovative new Catholic school models in the Twin Cities. To learn more about our work to ensure urban Catholic schools in the Twin Cities are faith-filled and academically excellent, contact us.