Catholic Life Publication of the Diocese of Sale
Free
ISSUE 180
February 2014
Charitable fund relaunch
DIOCESAN administrator Fr Peter Slater (right) and Trinity Families executive officer Colin Coomber launch the new name.
TRINITY Families is the new name for what was previously known as the Bishop’s Family Foundation. It is being relaunched this week in an attempt to revitalise the Diocese of Sale’s charitable arm by moving it more into the wider community. It was established 12 years ago by Bishop Jeremiah Coffey to serve the needs of struggling families in the area covered by the diocese. In that time it has successfully raised more than $2 million dollars from the Catholic community and the return on invested funds has meant more than $1 million has been able to be handed out to charities providing programs to assist families. The name Trinity Families was agreed to by Bishop Christopher Prowse prior to his appointment to the Archdiocese
of Canberra and Goulburn following a review into operation of the charitable fund. As part of the revitalisation, he appointed Colin Coomber as the part-time executive officer and charged him with raising the public awareness of what has become Greater Gippsland’s biggest charity. Businesses across the diocese will all be encouraged to make annual donations so that the trust fund can grow and more struggling families can be helped. Mr Coomber said the old Bishop’s Family Foundation had been highly successful because of the way it had been set up. The aim was to establish a large trust fund to earn enough income so that other charities did not have to be continually raising funds. “To that end we have been highly successful because we have been able to
Trinity FAMILIES
provide over $1 million, but if we had been able to meet all the requests for funding, we probably could have given away three times that amount.” He said Trinity Families would have a higher profile than the previous entity and would also eventually take on an advocacy role whereby it would assist other charities in making submissions to governments for funding. Mr Coomber said there were hundreds of charities collecting funds in the region but it was unfortunate that these funds often never returned to provide assistance in the area in which the funds were raised. Trinity Families raised the money in the Greater Gippsland area and only funded charities providing services in Greater Gippsland. He said many organisations collecting funds in Gippsland purported to be charities but did not have deductible gift
recipient status and so donations to them could not be claimed on tax. People would be disappointed to learn that sometimes more than half of their donations disappeared in advertising, wages and even bonuses to collectors who were paid a percentage of the money they took. Trinity Families would continue to be supported in the background by the Catholic Church and all donations received would be paid into the trust fund to earn more money for distribution. Mr Coomber said Trinity Families operated in the area covered by the Cities of Casey and Latrobe, and the Shires of Cardinia, Baw Baw, Bass Coat, South Gippsland, Wellington and East Gippsland. Trinity Families is in the process of setting up a new web site which will allow people to make secure on-line donations.
A new name but a million reasons to keep your charity local. We ask you donate generously to help grow our charitable fund so we can help more families.