Planned giving director is passionate about philanthropy and faith

By Sean Gallagher

Ellen Brunner is the new archdiocesan director of planned giving.

She comes to the position with more than a decade of experience in philanthropy and planned giving after having worked at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and the Columbus Regional Hospital Foundation in Columbus.

Brunner is glad to come to the archdiocese because of the way her position will bring her faith into direct contact with her professional life.

“This really will marry two things that I’m passionate about—philanthropy and my faith,” said Brunner, a member of St. Bartholomew Parish in Columbus.

As the director of planned giving, Brunner will be working with parishes across the archdiocese to encourage their members to consider ways of supporting the Church. That, as her title suggests, usually requires a bit more planning than simply writing out a check.

“[Planned giving] is a good description because it requires a little bit more planning than maybe just your annual giving,” Brunner said. “My goal is to work with donors who may be looking a little bit more long term, and thinking about some more creative and unique opportunities for giving.”

These opportunities can include various kinds of bequests, charitable trusts, charitable gift annuities, gifts of life insurance, and gifts of property and real estate.

David Milroy, executive director of the archdiocesan secretariat for stewardship and development, sees this kind of giving becoming more important in the years to come.

One reason for this, he said, is that the first members of the baby boom generation are starting to retire, and many of them are considering decisions about what to do with their wealth for the long term.

Another reason, Milroy pointed out, relates to the economic instability of the past few years.

“I think [it’s] causing a lot of people to re-examine the role of money in their life and, in particular, how it relates to faith,” Milroy said. “They’re thinking about consumption or overconsumption and financial instability versus the merits of having a well-disciplined financial life where you’re also able to take care of other people and share some of your gifts with other people.”

Milroy is excited about working with Brunner because he knows there has been a good planned giving program in the archdiocese in the past.

“There is a lot of work to do,” he said. “Somebody with Ellen’s experience and energy and faith will help us re-ignite that and move us to the next level.”

Part of Brunner’s experience included the challenge she faced in 2008 when Columbus Regional Hospital received extensive flood damage and was closed for four months.

Looking back, she sees it as a time of grace that can benefit her in her new work in the archdiocese.

“The experiences that I had there would help me in any non-profit

organization because we’re all challenged to be good stewards of the resources that we have,” Brunner said. “I think when you’re put in a position where your resources are even fewer because of the situation, [you] work very creatively to encourage giving and think differently about how to communicate with donors, how to best meet the needs of the donors.”

Brunner sees in her new position its own set of blessings and challenges.

“The challenge is that I want to be a resource around the archdiocese and there’s only one of me,” she said. “So I need to learn from our parishes how best to create a program that meets the needs of every parish.

“The blessings are that there are more people. There are more opportunities to talk about these terrific ways of being able to give to charity with having the rewards and benefits that come with making a charitable contribution.”

(For more information about planned giving in the archdiocese, log on to www.archindy.org/ccf/planned.html or call Ellen Brunner at 800-382-9836, ext. 1427, or 317-236-1427.) †