Collaborating with the Church in a Spirit of Service

William Walz FSC, former President/CEO of Christian Brothers Services (CBS), reflected on the foundation, vision and mission of the Company as well as the collaboration that underlies the different products and services provided.

On the Founding of the Company

People often ask how Christian Brothers Services got started. As an entity, it was founded in 1985 to take over activities that formerly had been done by the de La Salle Christian Brothers. The activities go back much farther, probably into the 1960s. Originally, the programs were simply cooperative purchasing programs for the institutions of the Christian Brothers. As time went on, they began to grow and include other religious congregations until Christian Brothers Services was founded in 1985. CBS is now an independent 501 (c) (3) organization and the sole member is Christian Brothers Conference.

Br. Joel Damien was instrumental in the beginning of all or most of the programs at Christian Brothers Services. He had been working with Catholic organizations for quite some time. As the needs of these organizations grew, he devised programs to better address these needs. He was among the first to realize the advantages of pooling our resources – that the needs of Catholic institutions were better met through centralized resources, and that these resources could help to promote sound management practices.

Today, our vision reflects the same sound management practices. Our vision is "the Catholic Church working cooperatively to meet managerial needs cost efficiently, using our experience and leadership as an important resource and motivator." In terms of our mission, we see our service to the Church as rising from our experience, our expertise, and our leadership in developing cooperative programs. In that way, we serve the Catholic Church community by responding to its managerial needs.

On the Mission and Philosophy of CBS

The CBS service philosophy is based on cooperative programs comprised of Catholic Church organizations. These programs are what most people describe as belonging to the insurance field: health benefits for employees, a separate program of health benefits for members of religious institutes, a prescription drug program, retirement plans which include a defined benefit plan, as well as 403(b), and 401(k) retirement savings plans, and a property/casualty risk pooling trust.

We provide other services that did not begin as cooperatives, but they are becoming that way, such as web hosting and design. We also operate a travel agency, and other programs like an unemployment reimbursement program and a Student Accident Plan. We excel wherever there is an economy of scale that can be achieved by people coming together in a cooperative.

It is important to note that participants in the programs we administer are organizations of the Church. To enroll in any of the programs, an institution has to be a 501 (c) (3) organization listed in the Kenedy Official Catholic Directory. Since we administer cooperative programs of the Church, organizations joining the programs have to be part of the Church.

As an organization of the Church, CBS facilitates the Church working together to take care of its own needs. We don't see ourselves as a company that sells things to the Church. We are a division of the Church that specializes in working with other organizations within the Church.

As we work together cooperatively, we achieve economies of scale to accomplish more than any one of us could accomplish on our own. Plus, we do that cost effectively. CBS administers these programs; we don't own them. The members of the trusts own the cooperatives and hold their funds. The program trustees contract with us to administer their program. The programs are self-funded cooperatives owned by the members.

In a very concrete way, it is a reminder that while our organization was founded, sponsored and owned by Christian Brothers, we have expanded our mandates significantly to working together for the benefit of the entire Church. Even though all of these programs that both of our companies administer are called the “Christian Brother Plans” and their origins came from the Brothers, they really are not “our” plans. Sometimes I find that people think these are the Brothers' plans and everything there belongs to the Brothers. They really are Catholic cooperative plans.

On the Role of Faith in Our Mission and Work

The Holy Spirit has given us a task – a responsibility of service and ministry within the Church. We are doing it. We really don't have to do it, but we never walked away from it. We are serving the Church in a way that perhaps nobody else within the Church does. As an organization of the Church, we tell our employees that our work really is a ministry of the Church. It is a very specific ministry. Although what we do on a daily basis imitates a business model, we are a ministry of the Church. Our employees collaborate with each other to provide their time, effort, and talent in a form of ministry. I think that makes us very unique in the businesses in which we work.

All of the programs we administer follow the teaching of the Church, which can be very challenging regarding health care coverage issues. We have a responsibility as a Catholic Church organization providing services for organizations of the Catholic Church to adhere to the teachings of the Church. That can be challenging in the business where we work. Living our faith as a Catholic organization overrides almost every thing we do in terms of the programs that we provide or administer.

Mission is central to what we do at CBS. Our focus on mission makes our organization unique and distinct from the commercial marketplace. As the Plans we administer continue to grow, I think that we are facing a real opportunity. There are so many changes now taking place within the Church in the United States. It will be interesting to see what the Church is going to look like over the next two to five years. We know that one of the things we offer the Church is a model and a foundation for collaboration in many areas on a much larger scale than what is currently occurring within the Church.

We have many separate operations within the Church. Many dioceses and religious institutes have consolidated those resources together into a single operation, whether it's a pension plan or health care plan, or insurance plan. There is the opportunity to establish even larger Catholic Church cooperative plans.

Recognizing the great economic power that is possible as numbers increase, we are already working cooperatively with other groups. For example, in the Prescription Drug Program, we work with other church denominations that have health benefit programs like ours. The cost of prescription drugs is significant. Together we've created a very large purchasing cooperative that each denomination uses to reduce drug costs. The cooperative purchasing program gives us economic power in the marketplace far beyond what any one of us could accomplish separately.
By working together, we have attained something no one of us could have done on our own.

Christian Brothers Services was founded on the principle of encouraging the Church to work together. As we look to the future, this concept is still relevant today. We welcome the opportunity to help the Church bring about a greater spirit of collaboration to meet our collective managerial needs.