Fund for Vocations

Founders Corey and Katherine Huber started the organization that would become the Fund for Vocations in 2004 through a private foundation they had established three years earlier, upon Corey’s retirement from AOL. Their pastor told them about a man who wanted to enter religious life: he was within six months of the upper age limit for entering his religious order and had about $40,000 in outstanding student loans that had to be eliminated before he could enter religious life. How was he going to repay $40,000 in six months? Corey and Katherine explained to their pastor that their foundation was prohibited from giving money to individuals outside of an approved grant program. At the same time, they were sympathetic to the man’s plight. So the Hubers went to their lawyers and explained the problem. The lawyers searched for a solution and found an IRS ruling that denied a tax exemption to a similar program operated by a group of Protestants who wanted to encourage men to stay in ministry. Using this ruling, the lawyers were able to design a program to meet all of the objections the IRS had raised to the program that failed. The Hubers joke that the entity that eventually became the Fund for Vocations was designed in collaboration between the Holy Spirit and the Internal Revenue Service. As the word spread, the Hubers received more inquiries and applications. From 2004 through 2006 they issued thirty-one grants to young men and women entering a variety of religious institutes and orders. Over the summer of 2006, as the Hubers continued to receive applications, they realized that the funds for issuing grants were not unlimited. Each grant entails a commitment to make payments over a period of 10 to 15 years. It’s vital to make sure that the money will be on hand in the future to cover the commitments we make now. Thus, in August 2006, at the final meeting of the foundation’s application review board, there were 10 applications but only enough resources to make five grants. That was a tough meeting! That was when, in consultation with the review board, the Hubers decided to launch a new charitable organization to give the public the opportunity to share this great work with us. The Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations (Fund for Vocations) was incorporated in November 2006 and received its tax exemption from the IRS in February 2007. Since then, the Fund for Vocations has been receiving financial assistance from the Catholic faithful and issuing new grants each year.