a catholic priest on a computer at a desk

Parish Management 101

For Clergy

Priests and deacons have barely enough time for their ministry, never mind the administrative and operational tasks. PM 101 accelerates your performance in operations with powerful tools so you can concentrate on your vocation.

5.0
Beginner
10 Sessions

Course Benefits

  • Run effective meetings on time, with action plans, and great communications
  • Interact with difficult parishioners in highly effective ways by recognizing when to intervene
  • Learn the basics of financial reports to effectively supervise business managers and accountants
  • Develop skills to lead a parish through hiring, firing, and management aptitude
  • Understand typical frauds that rob parishes of precious funds
  • Learn powerful ways to manage time using new tools to cut stress and spend minimal time on administration while remaining effective
  • Avoid typical attacks on your physical, emotional and mental health by an horarium of daily habits

Course Description

Today younger priests are being asked to lead parishes or apostolates without:

  • the prior influence of experienced priest mentors
  • the benefit of a series of progressively higher level assignments from junior/assistant roles all the way to in-charge status
  • the benefit of specific parish management training, past business leadership or entrepreneurial experience

These are not faults. Rather, they are factors that lead to a potential need for training.

Inexperience and lack of knowledge may lead to hesitancy in leadership, at least, or at most, high-risk errors or disasters.

PARISH MANAGEMENT 101 assists priests to de-risk their placements, whether it's a newly ordained priest, a priest in his first pastorate, or an experienced priest.


Your instructor is Henry Kutarna, CEO and mentor to CEOs for 30+ years. He has been the parish council chair at a large Cathedral parish for 5 years. Henry was chief MC and headed fundraising at a smaller parish for 20+ years. He is also an advisor and confidant to several priests, bishops, abbots, and prioresses. He has taught this course in live sessions to priests in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand and continues to teach live sessions to groups of priests.

Henry's business, government, and board experience aided the resolution of unique complexities faced by a series of assigned priests who led an apostolate. He is a board member of the charitable holdings corporation for the same Catholic apostolate. and led 22 sub-committees/task groups within the smaller parish to assist priests to focus on their priestly role. He is a CEO mentor and operates The Catholic CEO, a consultancy that prepares business leaders to be successful and fully Catholic.

Henry is available for private one on one discussions for any student of this course if desired.

Skills You'll Gain

  • Financial management
  • Parish administration
  • Meeting leadership
  • Project management
  • Leadership and communication
  • Health and wellness
  • Conflict resolution
  • Time Management
  • Delegation techniques
  • Stress Management

Lead your Catholic mission with confidence

Stop putting out fires and start leading your Catholic nonprofit with clarity, confidence, and real results. In six focused, prayerful sessions, you’ll tackle fundraising failures, conflict, burnout, and broken systems with practical tools that actually work.

BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL

Course Outline

Fundraising

Learn how to break out of stagnant, copy‑paste fundraising and design bolder, more effective strategies that actually attract new donors and rejuvenate existing ones. You’ll walk away with practical, immediately usable ideas to expand your funnel, sharpen your messaging, and professionalize your fundraising efforts.

Death by Meeting

Turn long, frustrating, unproductive meetings into focused, efficient, and action‑oriented sessions that people are actually glad to attend. You’ll get simple structures and techniques to control the agenda, engage every voice, and ensure clear decisions, accountability, and follow‑through.

Are People the Problem?

Move from endless people problems and tension to a clearer, stronger structure for staff, volunteers, and board members. You’ll learn how to set expectations, measure performance, and address issues with Catholic clarity and charity—without lowering the bar.

Conflict Resolution

Stop avoiding or enduring conflict and start dealing with it in a calm, structured, and spiritually grounded way. This module gives you tools and language to distinguish normal friction from real conflict, and to resolve issues with staff, boards, donors, and stakeholders before they become crises.

Time Management

If everything feels urgent and nothing truly important gets done, this session will help you regain control of your calendar and your peace of mind. You’ll learn practical methods to prioritize, schedule, and structure your work so you can focus on what really moves the mission forward.

Accelerate Your Leadership Skills: The Catholic Angle

This module helps you raise your own leadership game using both proven tools and the richness of Catholic teaching on work, authority, and service. You’ll discover concrete ways to grow as a leader, build a healthier culture, and guide your organization with deeper confidence, prayer, and purpose.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict arises in interactions with superiors, peers, staff, volunteers, and parishioners. This topic covers the typical cases and effective solutions.

Health and Wellness

A great danger to the newly ordained is in habits that creep in regarding physical fitness, health, and work-life balance.

Leadership and Communication

All aspects of leadership, communications within and outside of the parish/apostolate, including the use of various media and social media platforms. It also considers timing, frequency, content, and balancing the content and flow of information (too much v. too little).