CCHD Project Criteria

Funded primarily by the annual Second Collection for CCHD, CCHD projects go through a careful process of review before funding.  National projects are reviewed by diocesan and national CCHD staff and approved by the bishops of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ CCHD Subcommittee.  No national project is funded without the approval of the Bishop of the diocese in which it is located.

Here in Arlington, applications for both national and diocesan grants are reviewed by diocesan staff and by the volunteer members of the CCHD Diocesan Advisory Committee. Informed by this review and by personal visits to the applicant programs, the Committee makes funding recommendations to Bishop Michael Burbidge regarding local or national grant applicants located within the Diocese. 

Funded projects must meet the following criteria:

• They must abide by the moral and social teaching of the Catholic Church;
• They must address the root causes of poverty by creating economic development opportunities within the low-income community (such as new businesses), or by helping to change structures and policies that keep people in poverty.
• They must be planned and implemented, with training and assistance, by low-income people themselves.

In the current fiscal year (2017, ending June 30, 2017), our diocese has one nationally funded and four diocesan projects.

We participate in the education mission of CCHD by helping to form the faithful of the diocese in awareness of poverty and how our faith calls us to stand with the poor. 

Among the ways we do this is by sponsoring the annual CCHD Multimedia Youth Contest, in which 7^th through 12^th graders are invited each spring to learn about poverty, reflect on our faith-inspired response, and to submit work in any media that addresses the contest theme.  The theme of the 2017 contest was “Being Neighbors in our Common Home.” 

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