by Bill McCarthy
Every day, I am proud to be part of Catholic Charities. I am privileged to work with all of you – people who work tirelessly day in and day out to help and support our brothers and sisters in need. And I am humbled to lead this organization with its rich history of helping people since the 1800s. It is very important to me that everyone who is part of the Catholic Charities family has an opportunity to learn more about some of the things that make this organization so special — our mission, our values, our foundations and history and our amazing breadth of service.
Over the next year, Catholic Charities’ Mission Integration Committee will be introducing several videos that focus on the mission, identity and breadth of Catholic Charities. These videos will explore what makes us different from other organizations – our roots, our mission, our vision and our values. These things are not “extras”; they are fundamental to the work that we do. They have guided the way our history as an Agency has unfolded and help guide the decisions we make moving forward –including the decisions each of us makes every day as we serve others and interact with one another.
“Catholic Charities of Baltimore: Our Story” – a new orientation video welcoming our new colleagues – is now available through our Ultipro website and by DVD and will be rolled out so that each of our 2,000 colleagues has an opportunity to view it and talk about it during the summer months. The concepts highlighted in this video – our mission, vision and values – have always been important to our organization, and integrating them more intentionally became a priority based on what we learned through our last strategic planning process. In addition to this first video, we have begun that integration Agency-wide in many ways. Framed posters are now on the walls of our sites displaying our mission, vision and values. Monthly story posters displayed at our sites highlight how individual employees demonstrate our values in their work. The Human Resources Department is incorporating this messaging throughout Human Resources processes. And six of our colleagues and four volunteers recently received our inaugural Mission in Action Awards at our Annual Dinner in April.
I think you’ll really enjoy watching the video, which features a number of our fellow employees who speak with passion about the work they do. It reminds us that, no matter where we work and what job we do every day, we all have something very important in common. We are all colleagues here at Catholic Charities working in ways that reflect our shared mission to improve lives, our shared vision of a Maryland in which each person has the opportunity to reach his or her God-given potential and our shared values to love, serve, teach and work for justice. That really is something to be proud of!