Mission Appeals 2020
Raising Friends and Funds During a Pandemic

 
The faithful welcome summer mission appeals – when missionaries visit parishes across the country, share their stories, and gratefully accept a second collection to fund their missions, formation programs, and recruitment efforts. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are raised through appeals. Essential funds for religious orders, diocesan missions, volunteer programs, and parish missions.
 
The Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 threatens to severely reduce, or eliminate mission appeals this year. Dioceses are struggling to decide what to do to preserve their mission cooperative programs because their mission offices rely on a percentage of these collections to fund their operations.
 
Through USCMA’s Accompaniment and Solidarity effort to keep missionaries connected with each other and engaged in the universal mission of Jesus Christ, we learned of several approaches to the mission appeal challenges for 2020. USCMA is creating its own response to this need.
 
Joliet Model
 
The Diocese of Joliet has accepted mission groups for its 2020 appeal program. They are listing the names of all the groups, where they serve, and a description of their work and ministries with pictures. This information will be shared with the parishes through email, social media, and the diocesan website with clear instructions on how they can contribute to the 2020 mission appeal.  The participating groups need to provide a 500-word description of their work and ministries with pictures. All contributions will be pooled and distributed equally to the participating mission groups at the end of the year. For more information, contact Sr. Nancy Schramm, OSF – nschramm@dioceseofjoliet.org.  
 
Milwaukee Model
 
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is offering a modified mission appeal program for 2020 with appeals later in the summer and from fewer groups. Each group that is accepted is asked to provide a written description of its program, what the funds will be used for, photographs of the mission and, if possible, a video. These materials will be sent to parishes via email and uploaded to a dedicated website created and maintained by the mission office. For more information, contact Dr. Antoinette Mensah – MensahA@archmil.org.
 
Pontifical Mission Society Model
 
The Pontifical Mission Societies USA is offering a program to dioceses to use Missio to honor mission appeals. Essentially, the missionary group would be invited to create a project in Missio and that project could be sent to all parishioners within a parish for the Sunday they would have given their appeal. To get more information, contact Fr. Andrew Small, OMI at asmall@missio.org.
 
USCMA
 
The purpose of the USCMA 2020 Digital Mission Appeal is to raise essential funds for missionaries during the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic and its aftermath by complimenting diocesan efforts through a social media campaign. There are four major goals for this initiative:
 

1. To form an alliance of missionary organizations to participate in the digital mission appeal by providing and delivering content for the 14 weekly appeals.
2. To educate the faithful about mission through social media.
3. To raise $500,000 for missionaries over the summer – the traditional mission appeal months.
4. To evaluate this collaborative effort and assess its impact on the faithful, parishes, dioceses, and mission sponsoring organizations.

 
To accomplish these goals and fulfill its purpose, USCMA is forming a task force from among its members to oversee the program. It is also raising $40,000 from Catholic Foundations and Donors to underwrite the costs for a robust social media campaign and administrative costs. USCMA will partner with Yellow Line Digital – an expert in social media efforts with a deep sensitivity to the Catholic community – to promote 14 mission appeals over the summer. Beginning with Pentecost, and ending the last Sunday of August, USCMA members will provide a Gospel based mission appeal for mission itself and their involvement in mission. All funds will be pooled and equally shared among the participating mission groups. For more information, contact Dr. Don McCrabb – dmccrabb@uscatholicmission.org
 
Closing Thoughts
 

1. Funding is not the only reason for mission appeals. There are at least four other purposes – nurturing the missionary impulse within the faithful, educating the faithful on the breadth and depth of mission, build relationships with and among the faithful, and invite the faithful to reflect on, and discern, their own call to mission implicit in their baptism.
2. Mission appeals are organized by each diocese. It is important to stay in regular communication with the dioceses we are in relationship with understanding that they, too, are dealing with the challenges of the pandemic, may be working remotely, and may have furloughed staff.
3. We are missionaries first. We want to be with and for others in their context; what are the struggles the local church is facing as it weathers this crisis.
4. USCMA is committed to accompanying all mission related organizations through the pandemic – and beyond. It is who we are and what we do. We will be reaching out to all mission related organizations. We would love to hear from you just to know how you are doing with mission appeals and other aspects of your missionary work.

 
Dr. Donald R. McCrabb
April 9, 2020

Members can download this document: Mission Appeals 2020 Report on Models