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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — The Eparchy of Parma has hired a full-time director for its new Development Office. Judith Matsko of North Royalton, Ohio, began as development director Oct. 10. She hit the ground running, pulling together the eparchy’s annual Stewardship Appeal that launched in mid-November.
The former high school teacher began her foray in fundraising in 1993, when she served on a committee that would bring the Race for the Cure to the local community. This project eventually led her to other fundraising opportunities in the nonprofit sector.
“I began serving on nonprofit boards focusing on fundraising and helping organizations grow their revenue,” she said. “Having raised well over $2 million for those less fortunate, I wanted to take the skills I learned as a volunteer and parlay them into a second career.”
After 32 years of teaching, Matsko worked as a development director with Project EverGreen, a national nonprofit that preserves green spaces, Menlo Park Academy, a K-8 school, and Rose-Mary, an agency of the Diocese of Cleveland that serves people with disabilities.
She said the Eparchy of Parma’s ad for a development director led her to reflect.
“I thought to myself that I have helped so many people and organizations in the Greater Cleveland and Akron communities, but I had not helped my church,” she said.
Matsko, who recently joined St. Joseph Parish in Brecksville, was baptized at Holy Ghost Parish in Cleveland. She attended St. Stephen Parish in Euclid as a child. Her family later moved to Mentor, where her parents, John and Bertha Matsko, were founding members of St. Andrew Parish, later Holy Transfiguration, now suppressed and merged with St. Stephen to form Holy Resurrection Parish.
“My primary (career) goal was to be with an organization that was mission-driven and had a leader who had a vision and wanted their organization to be No. 1,” she said. “Bishop Milan (Lach) is that type of leader and I want to help him reach his goals.”
Her main responsibilities as development director “are to create, plan, develop and maintain a strategic comprehensive fundraising program. This program includes securing financial resources through the Stewardship Appeal, grants, special events, major gifts and planned giving,” she said.
In this role, Matsko reports directly to another recent hire, the senior advisor to the chancery, John Kurey, as well as to the chief financial officer, Martin Kopmeyer.
“My goal is to develop relationships with our parishioners and community stakeholders to advance the mission and fundraising initiatives of the Eparchy of Parma,” she said. “Relationships need to be cultivated … Bishop Milan and I look forward to growing the outreach for the eparchy.”
Matsko has won a number of awards for her service, including “Women of Distinction” from the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio, “The Society’s Hope Award” from the NOH Chapter of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, “Distinguished Alumni Award” from Mentor High School, and the “Ruth T. Lucas Award” from the Junior League of Cleveland, Inc.
Caption: Judith Matsko began as Parma’s new development director Oct. 10. (Photo courtesy of J. Matsko)
As published in Horizons, Dec. 8, 2019.
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