Advancing the Mission of the Church: Best Practices in Stewardship and Development for Catholic Organizations

New book by Dan Conway to be published May 10!

Advancing the Mission of the Church: Best Practices in Stewardship and Development for Catholic Organizations is the result of Dan Conway’s more than 30 years’ experience in a profession that is frequently misunderstood. Even the name of this profession is controversial. Conway calls his work “mission advancement,” but it is also called “development” (or “stewardship and development”), “institutional advancement” or just plain “fundraising.” Most people have a very limited concept of what “development” means. They know it has something to do with raising money—not something most people understand or approve of, especially in the Church. But how one carries out this profession on a daily basis is a mystery to nearly everyone including those Church leaders who have to hire professional fundraisers, and work closely with them, in order to obtain the human and financial resources needed to carry out the Church’s mission.

In Advancing the Mission of the Church, Conway asks:

• What do the terms stewardship, development, mission advancement and fundraising mean?
• What do these concepts have in common?
• What separates or distinguishes them?
• What is the role of a bishop, religious superior, pastor or other Church leader in each of these activities?
• What roles do leadership groups (consultative bodies, boards or councils) play in each of these functions?
• What about key administrators and staff members? What about volunteers?

The concepts discussed in Advancing the Mission of the Church are part of a legacy, a body of professional knowledge and experience, that Conway believes was handed on to him by some remarkably gifted people who served with distinction in this frequently misunderstood area of the Church’s ministry. Conway says he has tried to practice what he learned from them, his mentors in the field of mission advancement, and to reflect on it and share it with others. His personal “mission-advancement story” is included at the end of his book, and in it he acknowledges the key figures who influenced him in his earliest years as a development officer, a fundraising professional and a stewardship educator.

Conway believes that the legacy he received from his mentors has been tested, and validated, in his own professional experience—first as a student working in a development office, then as a staff member and chief development officer in a Catholic seminary and in three archdioceses, and, most recently, as a full-time teacher, writer and consultant who has worked with dozens of dioceses, religious communities and seminaries in the areas of planning, stewardship education and fundraising. It is his hope that his reflections will help carry forward this body of knowledge and experience and, in the process, help others understand and practice what it takes to advance the mission of the Church in a professional and faith-filled way.

After more than three decades, Dan Conway is convinced that his professional calling—his life’s work—is to help the Church integrate principles of Christian stewardship with the practice of professional fundraising. The means to this end is what he calls “mission advancement,” a series of processes or techniques that can help bishops, pastors, religious superiors and other Church leaders develop the resources they need to advance the Church’s mission and, in so doing, to continue Christ’s work of teaching, healing and sanctifying all God’s people here and now.

Conway hopes that as he shares with others his experiences working in this frequently misunderstood area of Church life, he can provide some helpful insights into the challenges and opportunities facing Catholic organizations today. Above all, he hopes that his reflections on mission advancement will help Church leaders teach stewardship as a way of life and, in the process, develop the human and financial resources that are essential to carrying out Christ’s work. That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11)