Networking Calls
The Church Properties Initiative hosts a Diocesan Real Estate Networking Group, which meets monthly by Zoom. These calls are open to professionals responsible for managing church property for a Catholic diocese or religious order, and occur on Wednesdays from 4 -5 p.m. ET.
While diocesan leaders are served by professional associations including the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference for CFOs and the Conference for Catholic Facility Management for diocesan facilities managers, the role of diocesan real estate director is often a new one and reaches across specializations to open new questions. Recognizing a desire among these professionals to continue conversations born out of the CPI fall conference in 2023, CPI launched a series of networking calls in early 2024.
The quarterly, hour-long calls brought together dozens of diocesan-level real estate directors across the U.S. and Canada, along with industry experts and researchers, to create an infrastructure for networking, knowledge sharing, and peer learning. The purpose of these calls went far beyond serving as a space for networking, though this was an important goal for the community of practice. Some themes included presentations from dioceses in the midst of parish restructuring, discussion of relevant case studies, and surveys collected by CPI to identify priority areas for future research and resource development. In 2025, the frequency of the calls has increased to monthly.