Early family tragedy drives new CCF director to ‘help people and my Church’

By Natalie Hoefer

There can be defining events in life that affect the course of one’s future.

For Elisa Smith, the archdiocesan Catholic Community Foundation’s (CCF) new director, that moment occurred at the age of 18 when her father, just 46, died suddenly of a heart attack.

“My mother had a real mess on her hands with my dad not having a will,” she says. “The laws were more complicated at that time. Things didn’t just go to a surviving spouse. … My mom had a lot of estate administration to work through with attorneys, and a lot of estate taxes to pay. I saw her dealing with all that, plus the grief of losing my dad.”

And dying without a will, says Smith, “he couldn’t make a gift to his Church or to a charity because, without a will, assets are distributed according to state law, and state law doesn’t look at charitable interests.

“So I decided that I wanted to help people with their estate plan give to their charitable interests. This is an avenue where I can help people and help my Church.”

Serving as CCF director will provide Smith such an opportunity. The foundation gives Catholics in central and southern Indiana the opportunity to provide for future parish, school, agency and archdiocesan ministry needs through endowment funds, bequests, annuities, trusts and other long-term giving methods.

Smith, 54, a lifelong Catholic and Fort Wayne-area native, is not new to working for the Church. She served as director of planned giving for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for eight years.

The difference in size between her former diocese and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis does not alter Smith’s goal as CCF director: “that everyone, every Catholic in the archdiocese, is aware of CCF and its mission to provide long-term financial stability for charitable, religious and educational organizations in the archdiocese.”

As she becomes more familiar with her role, Smith plans to start a campaign to make Catholics more aware of the help CCF can offer them to leave a lasting legacy.

“Planned giving and estate planning—it’s not like your taxes that have a deadline every year and you know you have to do it,” she explains. “Estate planning is driven so much more by emotion and by life events. If someone has a death or sickness in the family, or a marriage, or a baby, or a divorce, they think, ‘I’ve got to get my will done.’ You never know when someone is going to wake up one morning and say, ‘I’ve got to do this now.’ ”

Smith adds, “A Catholic estate plan is different than a regular estate plan.

“It incorporates gratitude and stewardship to God for what God has given us over the years, looking at that and being grateful and saying, ‘OK, God, you have blessed me with this. Now I look at what I can return to you with happiness. I have to be a good steward and find the proper place for those gifts to go—to family, loved ones, my Church.’

“Church is just like a family member. The Church has been a big part of you. It is very appropriate to include it in your estate planning.”

Smith started working for the archdiocese on Oct. 10, one day after then-Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin learned he was named to the College of Cardinals. He has since been named to lead the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J.

“It was awesome coming in, and the first thing I did was go to the press conference regarding the news of then-Archbishop Tobin’s elevation to cardinal. That was pretty exciting!” she says.

“I haven’t known him that long or worked with him that much, but being in his presence I could just feel that positive energy, that love that he has for God and God’s people.”

Smith recalls the first time she met the cardinal.

“I brought him a couple of books,” she says. “He thanked me. I said I wanted to bring him something unique from Fort Wayne-South Bend, and he said, ‘Why didn’t you bring me a Notre Dame football victory?’ ”

Smith, who is still deciding on a parish to register at along with her son, who is a senior in college, says the archdiocese’s patroness, St. Theodora Guérin, played a role in her new position with CCF.

At New Year’s Eve Mass last year, she says, the priest set out a basket with saint names on slips of paper for each person to choose.

“That was to be our saint of the year,” she explains. “I picked St. Mother Theodore Guérin. And [the priest] said, ‘Just remember, you’re not picking the saint—they’re picking you.’ ”

Smith was working for an accounting firm at the time, but missing her work with the Church.

“So I prayed to her,” says Smith. “How ironic that she brings me to the archdiocese here where she is patroness!”

Smith says she feels “very blessed to be here. Everyone here has been so wonderful, welcoming and helpful. It’s truly a good group of people.”

(For more information about the Catholic Community Foundation, log on to www.archindy.org/ccf.) †