Andy Gustafson, director of the BFCGI, presented at the recent CBFA annual conference at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. His talk was about how Protestant business faculty can utilize Catholic influenced teachings on business, otherwise known at Catholic Social Thought. His talk was generally well received and he is grateful for the opportunity to present and engage the CBFA members.
Joan Duggen was quite successful in business, made a lot of money, and then began an Economy of Communion company which she helped co-run for 22 years, tutoring students. She has an inspiring story and the Economy of Communion Project was fortunate to be able to interview her for 2 days at Creighton in early October. She is the first of more than 12 EoC entrepreneurs who we will be interviewing in the next few months.
The Business, Faith and Common Good Institute has been awarded a 1.2 Million dollar grant for the Economy of Communion Project– an effort housed in the Heider College of Business at Creighton University to promote the Economy of Communion Movement by creating content and materials for professors to use in the classroom, and for students and business people to use to learn more about an Economy of Communion approach to business practices.
Creighton will be providing infrastructure and support for the project. Staffing which is funded by the grant will include the director (Andy Gustafson), associate director, an assistant director, and at least 2 interns, employed by Creighton but funded through the grant. Aspects of the project include a symposium event the 2nd year which will bring noted scholars to Creighton to present papers which will be published in a book. The project involved also doing extensive interviews with at least 12 entrepreneurs. The footage from those interviews will serve both as a basis for an edited-down 1 hour video, as well as snippets which will be paired with case studies on various EoC examples of how to treat customers, employees, competitors, how to approach marketing, economics, entrepreneurship, leadership, etc with EoC values. Also short essays will be commissioned from various professors, teachers and experts to give brief overviews of focused topics such as “an EoC Approach to HR, with examples” and “How an EoC approach to Economics differs from traditional Economics” and other similar essays for classroom and lay use. Finally, we also will be putting together an EoC course which will be available for free to any university who may want to use it. So many classroom-friendly deliverables will result from the project. The materials are aimed at those who participate in business generally, not just those who own businesses of their own. More can be seen on our website at the EOC Project page.
(by Andy Gustafson)
I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to Rome last week. While there, I was able to attend the East Asian Economy of Communion annual meeting, and also to attend the Shape the World Summit 2025, put on by Consulus (Singapore) which brought together leaders from around the world.
I also got to travel to Castle Gondolfo, just south of Rome, and Roca di Papa, the worldwide central headquarters of the Focolare movement, a Catholic-inspired organization who founded the Economy of Communion movement in 1991. While at Roca di Papa, I was able to meet with Margaret Karram the president of the Focolare, as well as Ruperto Battison and Genevieve Sanze who oversee the Focolare work and sharing operations worldwide. We also had supper with Jesus Moran, the president of the Economy of Communion movement. None of this would have been possible without the help and support of Loretta Raushuber, who lived in Italy for 17 years and knows everyone it seems.
I also got a chance to finally meet in person Lawrence Chong, who is one of the most active Economy of Communion entrepreneurs in the world, and co-leader of Consulsus, an international consulting group. He is fully committed to the Economy of Communion way of doing business– putting people first, and seeing business as a means to bring communion with others and social transformation. He is inspirational, and it was very interesting to hear the various leaders speak at the conference Thursday.
It was a wonderful trip (although being away from Celeste and the kids for 5 nights was tough) and I think the connections made will have a lasting and ongoing impact on my life and work.
The Business, Faith and Common Good Institute had a substantial impact on the discussions at Creighton University this last schoolyear.
Of course our speaker series which included Andreas Widmer (Catholic University), Joe Vukov (Loyola Chicago), Alex Salter (Texas Tech) and Zach McDonald (Omaha Entrepreneur) provided wonderful public forum opportunities for students, faculty and the larger community to learn and discuss contemporary issues regarding business, faith and society.
A new and impactful piece of our curriculum development was Gustafson’s “Social Media, AI, and the Meaning of Life” course, which is aimed to help students consider and reflect and then act on the issues arising from the growing influence of social media and AI in our society. One of the most powerful assignments in the class, it turns out, was the 5 minutes of silence and nonactivity which every student was supposed to practice every single day, and then reflect and report on 3 times during the semester. Students reported that at first it was the most difficult assignment they had ever had, but then as the semester went on they reported that that 5 minutes was the time they looked forward to the most. Substantial habit changes have happened for students due to the course, each of the 3 times it has now been offered (spring 2024, fall 2024, spring 2025).
Creighton is a wonderful place to get to work at living out one’s values in business. The BFCGI is fortunate to get to have the support and freedom afforded from Creighton.
Andy Gustafson, Lead Colleague of the Business Faith and Common Good Institute
We know it feels like winter, but we have an amazing lineup of people coming as part of our BFCGI speaker series this spring! Last week former Swiss guard and entrepreneur Andreas Widmer came to campus from Catholic University and provided a fantastic discussion on faith and entrepreneurship, thanks to the generous support of Dean Tony Hendrickson and co-support from the Menards Family Center for Economic Inquiry.
We have 4 more fantastic speakers this spring– 3 speaking on AI and its effects in business and society, and another on economics and society. They are:
Josh Fershee, Dean of Creighton Law School
Zach McDonald, Owner of Clay Pigeon Marketing and entrepreneur.
Joe Vukov, Professor from Loyola Chicago and author of 3 books.
Alex Salter, Professor at Texas Tech and author of hundreds of articles on many economic issues, including distributism.
Andreas Widmer, from Catholic University, will be engage with Creighton’s own Alexei Marcoux this coming Thursday February 13th in the Auditorium at the Heider College of Business in the Harper Center at 5pm. All are welcome!
Widmer, formerly a Swiss guard at the Vatican, has a vision for entrepreneurship which brings faith directly to bear on business. His books include The Pope and the CEO as well as The Art of Principled Leadership.
These short documentaries are very well done and are quite inspirational! The Faith & Co. documentary film series and courses from Seattle Pacific University highlight the struggles and triumphs of people living out business as their calling. Filmed across three continents in a wide range of industries, these inspiring examples provoke questions and provide insights about how to act as a faithful follower of Christ in business. Check it out here: https://faithandco.spu.edu/
Please join us for a unique opportunity! Business, Faith and the Common Good and the Menard Family Center for Economic Inquiry are bringing Dr. Andreas Widmer, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Art & Carlyse Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America to Creighton, with generous help from the Heider College of Business and other sponsors.
Business, Faith, and the Common Good Institute 