Initiatives
Featured Initiatives
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Addressing a Global Need: Educating Through Webinars
At the invitation of the Global Institute of Church Management, FIRE has developed five webinars on Church property issues for a global audience and is publicly available for all interested. These webinars feature leading academic and industry experts as well as Notre Dame faculty, staff, and alum exploring the following topics:
- Innovation and Church Property
- The Role of the Rural Church
- Urban Church Property: Challenges and Opportunities
- Church Property and Legal Legacies
- Innovative Real Estate Financing
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Convening the first Church Properties Conference
FIRE is leading a global conference at the Notre Dame Global Gateway in Rome called “Real Estate and the New Evangelization” in April 2022.
The event will bring together Church leaders, academic experts, and industry leaders from architecture, finance, law, and real estate to explore how to leverage real assets into places of encounter in the 21st century.
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Educating the Hearts and the Minds of Notre Dame Undergraduates
Launching in Spring 2022, “Church Real Estate: Land and The Lord” focuses on the intersection of the Catholic Church and real estate. Notre Dame students will explore the theological and philosophical underpinnings of how the Church views property. Enrolled students will also be introduced to basic real estate concepts including finance, law, architecture, engineering, urban planning, and art design. They will critically examine how the Church can and should be using the Church’s real assets.
The class is open to all undergraduate majors and has been approved as a Catholicism and the Disciplines (CAD) course.
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Forming the Next Generation of Catholics
In 2021, FIRE inaugurated the first cohort of Church Property Fellows with over 60 undergraduates, graduate students, and seminarians with backgrounds in 20 majors spanning every college at Notre Dame. Fellows will participate in research, workshops, conferences, and speaker series on church properties throughout the year. The fellowship also provides unique opportunities for students to meet and engage with Church, academia, and industry leaders.
To become a CPI Fellow, please submit this Google form.
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Solving Real Estate Pressure Points Utilizing GIS Data & Industry Best Practices
Through a pilot program with the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, FIRE students are working with local Church pastors, school principals, and religious leaders to help assess and solve real estate pressure points utilizing GIS data and industry best practices. This new program aims to help the Church put its land to the highest and best spiritual use.
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Supporting Church Property Innovation
FIRE affiliates Martin Ford (ND IDEA Center ‘20), founder of San Francisco-based Harbor, and Kevin Angell (ND ‘20), president of Chicago-based QuoVadis, are both reusing empty convents and rectories to house young Catholic adults through their non-profits. With the support of FIRE, these non-profits received necessary resources and networks to help their ventures build fiscal, social, and spiritual capital out of assets the Church was struggling to use. Read more about the partnership here.
Both non-profits were finalists in the OSV Innovation Challenge and are finding creative ways to address Church property issues from coast to coast.