How the Diocese of San José is Transforming Faith Formation and the Foundation Grant That is Making it Possible
As part of its commitment to the Formation priority of its Pastoral Plan, Renewed in Christ, Together in Mission, the Diocese of San José is building a centralized Learning Management System (LMS) to expand access to faith formation by making it easier to find, register for, and track across parishes. To help make this vision a reality, the Catholic Community Foundation awarded a grant to seed this project from the Catholic Impact Fund. The project advances the Diocese’s goals for leader formation and cross‑parish collaboration, while dramatically improving the experience for parishioners, parish leaders, and diocesan staff alike.
This article presents an edited conversation between Marie Galetto‑Dugoni (Director of Engagement and Communications at the Catholic Community Foundation) and Veronica Duluk (Senior Director for Evangelization at the Diocese of San José). This article paraphrases and shortens portions of the original interview transcript for clarity and brevity.
Marie: What opportunities did the Diocese see that led you to pursue an LMS?
Veronica: We recognized that our existing processes, while functional, weren’t built to scale with the Diocese’s growing faith formation ambitions as outlined in the pastoral plan. We were dealing with a patchwork of manual processes. Every formation opportunity required a new web page and form, registrants had to re‑enter the same information each time, and individuals’ formation histories lived in countless spreadsheets—some going back decades. That fragmentation made it hard for people to discover opportunities beyond parish bulletins and created heavy administrative overhead. We saw a real opportunity to serve people better and to build the infrastructure our Pastoral Plan calls us toward.
M: What is an LMS and how does it expand what’s possible for formation across the Diocese?
V: A learning management system (LMS) is a centralized online platform that organizes, delivers, and tracks educational content, registrations, certifications, and events for learners and administrators. The LMS will centralize discovery and registration, maintain persistent user profiles with formation histories and certificates, and handle event management—registration, payments, reminders, and instructor tools. Parish leaders will be able to view their volunteers’ formation which will make recruitment and planning at the parish-level much easier. In short, it’s about making it easy for people to find formation opportunities and sign up when they’re inspired.
M: What are the immediate goals for this project in the first year?
V: Our goals for the first year include migrating existing online courses (for example, marriage preparation and an 18‑week pastoral ministry basics series), using the system for one major event, and data‑loading historical catechist certifications. We’re also exploring integrations for payments and Virtus for safe‑environment tracking. These goals are directly tied to the Diocese’s Formation priority under our Pastoral Plan which call to make formation more accessible, trackable, and scalable across Santa Clara County.
M: How did the Catholic Community Foundation grant make a difference for this project?
V: The grant was catalytic. The grant from the Catholic Impact Fund is going to fund the actual system implementation, the first year of licensing, and part‑time help from a business analyst for testing and documentation. Without the grant, this work would likely have been delayed for years.
M: What are the ongoing staffing implications?
V: Because the LMS reduces spreadsheet maintenance and repetitive logistics, we expect to shift existing staff time from logistics to content creation rather than hire new permanent staff. The grant will cover a short‑term business analyst to help with testing and implementation which is necessary for implementation. This means more time devoted to what our Pastoral Plan calls us to: deepening formation, not managing spreadsheets.
M: What impact do you expect for parishioners, parish leaders, and diocesan staff?
V:
- Parishioners will have a single place to discover formation—on demand, approachable, and accessible for everyone including young adults, parents, and newcomers.
- Priests and parish leaders will gain easy access to information about certifications and formation histories, making recruitment and planning easier.
- Diocesan staff will be freed from repetitive, inefficient logistics and can focus on creating content and expanding formation offerings. This means more energy directed toward the Formation and Structural Renewal priorities at the heart of Renewed in Christ, Together in Mission.
M: How does this position the Diocese to fulfill the formation vision of the Pastoral Plan in the years ahead?
V: The Diocese’s pastoral plan calls us to spiritual renewal. The LMS is one of the practical tools that makes that renewal scalable. It starts by migrating existing online offerings, but it points toward a future where parishes post events, video‑on‑demand content is available, and formation becomes discoverable and trackable across the Diocese. The Catholic Community Foundation’s grant made that first, decisive step possible—and the Diocese is now positioned to scale formation in ways that serve parishioners, leaders, and staff more effectively.
The Catholic Impact Fund is an unrestricted grantmaking fund of the Catholic Community Foundation. The fund is used to respond to the changing needs of our community as they arise and create impact in a timely manner. This fund is not endowed, so there is more flexibility for grantmaking. Grant timing and amounts are decided by the Foundation’s board.
To support the Catholic Impact Fund, visit https://catholiccf.org/catholic-impact-fund/