This article was originally printed in the Hospitallers Newsletter Volume 20 Spring 2020, Page 4. 

When the Strategic Planning Committee looked over the horizon last year to where the Association wants to be, one recommendation they made was to double the endowments for the Malta Human Services Foundation and The Order of Malta Pilgrimage Foundation. The Board of Councillors unanimously approved the recommendation and the project was announced at the Annual Meeting in November 2019.

President Peter Kelly started the process by appointing Gail and Joe
Berardino to lead the work. We have engaged CCS, the preeminent strategic development firm in Catholic fundraising campaigns, to help a study group evaluate the timing and feasibility of fundraising.

Our Chancellor Ed Delaney joins Andy Aoyama, President of the Malta Human Services Foundation, FJ McCarthy, President of the Pilgrimage Foundation and Dr. Peter Kelly, President of the American Association, to work with Joe and Gail, Dr. Trexler and Ray LaRose to oversee the study. This study was begun prior to the awareness of the pandemic that the world has been facing; its completion will assist us as we move forward when this global crisis is behind us.

Whereas the Strategic Planning Committee was looking strategically over the long term horizon, the study group is conducting grass roots, exploratory conversations with approximately fifty Association members through one-on-one interviews conducted by CCS.

Through these confidential interviews, we will learn from a cross section of our members their vision for the works of our Order, the needs identified by our local Areas, their appetite to help with fundraising and their assessment of the proper size of our endowments to meet the anticipated growth of our members and our challenge to defend the faith and serve the sick and the poor. These interviews will be conducted over a three-month period and should be completed and analyzed by early summer.

Our charism calls us to serve the sick and the poor. We know the Order will survive this pandemic. We also know that our members will seek today, tomorrow and decades from now to continue and enhance our works with the sick and the poor. Endowments are necessary to provide financial means to support these works in good times and in bad. Many of our members desire to leave a legacy of hope and support that will transcend current and future challenges, while ensuring the charism of our beloved Order is preserved for Knights and Dames in the years to come.

Although the interview process is in its early stages, we are gratified, as always, with the selfless responsiveness of our members and their strong endorsement that we need to tend to both the spiritual and temporal needs of those we are called to serve in the Order. As things progress, we will keep you informed.

This article was contributed by Gail and Joseph Berardino, Co-Chairs of the Capital Campaign.