MissionTree is a non-profit organization, providing channels for anyone, anywhere, to participate in the efforts of Catholic missions around the world.

Simply put, the need for an organization such as ours is greater than it might seem at first glance. Within the worldwide Catholic Church, many dioceses (mission dioceses, as they are called) lack the resources necessary to minister to the people of the local community. As a result, people's spiritual needs cannot be met, which is disheartening when the passion and desire for God in these communities is usually so tremendous. One way of helping to alleviate this problem is by placing greater emphasis on the formation and ordination of new priests. However, even these good intentions often fail to produce results. As one example, the Chipata Diocese of Lusaka, Zambia had to suspend the formation of 15 of their returning 45 seminarians in Fall 2009 due to insufficient funds. At MissionTree, we are committed to doing all we can to enable men and women religious to complete their formation and provided vital ministries to their communities. As such, we have put together a beta version of a website (http://www.mission-tree.org) that provides profiles of seminarians in need and gives visitors the opportunity to login and donate money or prayers to these individuals. Once the total need is met, the total amount, which covers one year of tuition, is transferred to the seminary in the name of the receiving individual. Then, to build a strong and lasting bond between donor and recipient, seminarians write personal letters to MissionTree (which are distributed to interested donors) providing updates as to life in seminary. The benefits (as you might imagine) have enormous value: the local community has another priest to serve them, bonds have been built and strengthened among people all over the world, and the Gospel message continues to spread.

Our home is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but our pilot partners are with the Chipata Diocese of Lusaka, Zambia. Our hope (and expectation) is to scale to a worldwide operation over the long-term.

6 months

Our plan is to have an international community of donors who believe in and have offered support for this cause and a sustained level of support for our internal operations. Most importantly, however, we hope to have raised $50,000 support for specific missionary causes in the Catholic Church.

Let's face it. We're a start-up non-profit that has worked extremely hard to build a base of support and infrastructure. However, there is much yet to learn! Our organization's efforts would be greatly facilitated by additional resources in a number of areas. Our hope is that Lavego can provide us connections to those who are interested in providing assistance in these areas at greatly reduced or no expense.