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Schottler’s first gift to the Katie Fund was $500, a stretch for any recent graduate. However, since her employer offered a three-times match for charitable donations, she knew she had to take advantage of the opportunity.

“If I want to meet this goal I have to start somewhere,” she says. “I knew that if I could give $500, they would give $1,500 to St. Kate’s. That was very motivating for me.” More than a decade later, Schottler continues to give to the Katie Fund. She says she likes the idea of her money being parceled out to meet a variety of the University’s needs: “I feel great about the leadership at St. Kate’s. I feel like I can trust them to discern what their greatest needs are right now and how best to spend the money.”

A gift to the Katie Fund is an ideal way for any graduate to mark their gratitude for their St. Kate’s experience, says Beth Riedel Carney ’82, vice president of development and alumni relations. The fund, which helps ensure the continued success of St. Kate’s each year, is a cornerstone of the University’s operations. Last year, for instance, 3,075 individual donors gave $1,810,588 to the Katie Fund, directly impacting some 3,589 students.

The Katie Fund, Carney explains, “is the place where people start their lifetime giving trends. It is an important way to engage and to say, ‘This University had meaning to me as a student, and as an alum, I want it to be robust into the future.’”

A call to care

While some donors say they like the idea of their gifts going to a specific project or need, Carney explains that the beauty of the Katie Fund is its flexibility: “This fund is for all. It benefits all Katies and the entire University.”

When specific needs arise at the school, the Katie Fund is there to fill in the gaps. Because it welcomes gifts of all sizes, the Katie Fund is a place where many first-time donors direct their donations. And after they learn about the significant impact the fund has on the University’s daily operations, many continue to give.

“Some people just love the Katie Fund and they always want to make their gift to it,” Carney says — and, when combined with the generosity of thousands of other donors, even small gifts have great impact: “The Katie Fund is the place for both $25 donations and $50,000 donations.”

Alecia Adney-Hernandez ’17 has known about the Katie Fund for years, but since graduation she’s been busy working as a housing coordinator for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and hadn’t yet made a gift. Then, not so long ago, she got a call from a student from the Digital Engagement Center seeking donations for the Katie Fund.

“She explained that she felt compelled to help future Katies,” Adney-Hernandez recalls of the caller. “I decided I wanted to show that I care as much as she did.” While she can’t afford to give a large up-front sum, Adney-Hernandez realized that small gifts over a long time could add up. She signed up for a program as a sustaining donor where a small donation to the University is automatically charged to her credit card each month.

“I like this approach because I don’t have to remember to pay it,” Adney-Hernandez says with a chuckle. “But it is in the back of my mind. I feel good because I know I am helping somebody at St. Kate’s every month.”

Because scholarships from the Katie Fund helped finance her St. Catherine degree, Adney-Hernandez says she feels that the fund is the best place to direct her giving. She wants to help other Katies build lives with meaning.

“I got into social work to save the world,” she says. “Since graduating from St. Kate’s, I realized my role is to help guide people and support them in finding their own strengths. My donation is to help support that vision and that lens. Sometimes people need a little bit of support — I’m happy to be able to help.”

Giving for a reason

Like Adney-Hernandez, other St. Catherine alumni say that it is important to them to give to an institution whose graduates make the world a better place. Each year, two big days of giving help facilitate this in a community-minded spirit: Give to St. Kate’s Day, in November, and Give to Honor Her, in February.

Give to Honor Her encourages community members to make a gift in honor of a woman who has had a positive impact on their lives, while also helping provide critical scholarships and programs for current students.

Last year alone, donors gave in honor of 726 inspiring women — with 726 meaningful stories.

Take Julie McCarthy Napoleon ’73, who gave a gift to the Katie Fund in honor of Helen Lemmer ’54. Over the course of the years, the two were student and professor, fellow alumnae, and, eventually, colleagues at St. Kate’s.

“Whenever I am asked to think of the person who had the greatest impact on my professional life, without a second’s wait, Helen Lemmer comes to mind,” Napoleon says of her mentor. “I will be forever grateful to Miss Lemmer for all she did for me as a student, colleague, mentor, and friend.”

A second-generation Katie, Mary Russell ’78, MAOL’13 always knew she wanted to give back to the University that helped form her worldview. She began donating to the Katie Fund near the beginning of her career, when a colleague (and fellow alum) encouraged her to jump in and start giving back to the school.

Russell recalls that she started with a small base-level gift to the Katie Fund. As her human resources career progressed, she was able to give more, and even after retirement she’s continued to make regular gifts to the fund. She wants her money to support an institution that provides a well-rounded education.

“I’m a huge believer in the liberal arts,” Russell says. “It prepares you to be adaptable and agile and approach the world from multiple perspectives. When I was a leader in an organization and had the opportunity to hire folks, I would always look at their resume and if they had a liberal arts background, I was more inclined to interview them.”

For Russell, giving to the Katie Fund — and supporting future scholars of the liberal arts — feels like she’s putting her money where her mouth is. “Creating broader access to college-level education for people who might not otherwise be able to afford it is really, really important,” she says. “This is a way I can do that.”

For Schottler, one part of St. Catherine’s mission that speaks to her is the University’s commitment to making education accessible to students for whom earning a college degree may have seemed out of reach. She believes that scholarships from the Katie Fund play a key role in supporting scholars who have had to face hurdles to higher education.

Schottler’s personal commitment to social justice has its roots in her time at St. Kate’s, and she’s proud to support a school that lives out its founding principle that everyone — not just the most advantaged — deserves the opportunity and support to earn a college degree. “My gift is an opportunity to create upward economic mobility,” she says. “I’m proud to be able to do that even in a small way.”

When Covid hit, Katie Fund came to the rescue

The Katie Fund’s flexibility to fill in the gaps when needs arise at the University became even more evident at the beginning of the pandemic, when colleges and universities worldwide were forced to shift much of their operations from in-person to online.

At St. Kate’s, that was a big lift, says Jean Guezmir, senior vice president and chief information officer.

“Pre-pandemic,” Guezmir says, “our instructional means of doing things was largely in the classroom. Now, every single student needed a computer to connect, and professors needed training about how to hold classes online.”

When government-ordered shutdowns happened, the University needed to pivot — fast.

“COVID forced everybody to very significantly adopt a different way of doing business almost overnight,” Guezmir says.

With help from the Katie Fund, the University was able to upgrade their technology, and today, Guezmir says, St. Catherine students and faculty are able to seamlessly interact online. “Technology is prevalent across every student and staff area. All of that was made possible through the gifts and investments we have made.”

She’s grateful that the Katie Fund existed, and that in the middle of a crisis, University administration was able to direct the money where it was most needed. “Technology is one of those things that just needs to happen. Support from the Katie Fund really made all of this doable.”

Think of the Katie Fund as “the fund-for-all,” Carney adds. “Any level of gift can respond to any need and new opportunity, in any and every year. Whatever happens in a given year, it can plug in and respond to that.”