Ireland: Sr Magdalen Fogarty PBVM wins major charity award

Sr Magdalen Fogarty PBVM

The 2019 Charity Trustee of the Year has been awarded to Sr Magdalen Fogarty of the Presentation Sisters. Co Waterford-born, Sr Magdalen, set up Clann Credo in 1996 to make loan finance available for local, grassroots development to deliver a positive social impact. It has loaned more than €120 million and supported over 1,000 projects in both urban and rural areas. Its support has helped create jobs, build community centres, sports halls and homes, and provide better services for the disabled, young children and the aged.

The Wheel, Ireland's national association of community and voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises, developed the Charity Impact Awards to promote best practice and to increase awareness of the significance and role of the non-profit sector in Irish society. It believes that people, through their participation in community, voluntary and charity organisations, play a central role in improving and enriching life in Ireland. The aim of the awards is to recognise and showcase this important contribution.

In establishing Clann Credo, Sr Magdalen created the first social finance provider in Ireland. Her first task was to convince religious communities to donate the resources required to set up a fund that had the capacity to make a major social impact and was also capable of sustaining itself over the longer-term.

Over 20 years on, Clann Credo is now the largest social finance provider in Ireland, making more than €16 million available in 2018 to help deliver positive social change at local level across the country. Clann Credo does not receive government funding and income from its loans is used to cover its costs. That this was achieved in such a short time span speaks volumes of the commitment, drive and vision that lay behind the foundation of Clann Credo.

Her nomination stated: 'Sr Magdalen is possessed of a unique and keen understanding of the transformative role that finance can play in driving social change. Her key innovation was to devise the means and structure whereby those critical resources and supports could be directed where they were most needed. That took courage, perseverance and a remarkable sense of humility. As she acknowledged herself, there was no 'Eureka!' moment: 'I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I didn't have the terminology or the structure. This idea that was going around in my head, I absorbed it slowly and it evolved and gradually took shape over time.' Her example inspires all associated with Clann Credo to continually challenge themselves on how we can best deliver positive change across all levels of society.'

When Sr Magdalen entered the Presentation Sisters it was a closed congregation. Little did she suspect that she would rise to become the congregation's Bursar General and would travel extensively in its service. But she used that opportunity and experience to good effect, learning from examples and initiatives the world over on how finance could be utilised to advance justice and social equality. Her vision and conviction helped persuade the congregation to change how they invested their finances and so Clann Credo was born.

As a further recognition of her work, Councillor Martin Brett, Mayor of Kilkenny hosted a civic reception for her in the Town Hall, Kilkenny. Sr Margarita Ryan PBVM speaking at the reception said: "The Presentation Congregation from its very inception has been blessed with women of vision and courage, who like Nano Nagle, stood out from the crowd because of their ability to think outside the box in their endeavours to find responses that would promote the greater good of society. Sr Magdalen is one of those women of vision who certainly has stood out in terms of thinking outside the box and focusing on the greater good."

In a tribute to Sr Magdalen on receiving the award, the Presentation Sisters said: "Twenty-three years ago a radical new concept began to percolate through Ireland's community and voluntary sector, one that has challenged the conventional way of thinking ever since. Like all great ideas it was deceptively simple, and worked by pressing finance into service as an agent of social justice and social transformation.

"A key focus of Clann Credo's work is supporting and nurturing community and voluntary activity. It recognises that in every one of these often marginalised communities there are local heroes whose only goal is to improve the lives of those around them. These financially supported initiatives have sustained thousands of jobs and strengthened communities nationwide over the past 20 plus years" they concluded on what they called this "wonderful occasion for celebration and recognition of her considerable contribution."

In 2010, Clann Credo was commended by the United Nations in New York when Sr Magdalen addressed the global body's Civil Society Forum held on the eve of the 48th Session of the UN Commission for Social Development.

(Matt Moran is a writer based in Cork. His forthcoming book is 'The Theology of Integral Human Development'. He is a member of the Board of Management of Nano Nagle Birthplace at Ballygriffin, Killavullan, Co Cork).