Maine native Michelle Murdock joined the Catholic Answers development team in December 2022 and primarily manages the SOCIETY 315 monthly giving club. She not only oversees the club’s operation but also focuses on providing monthly donors with personalized support and guidance, fostering a sense of pride and fulfillment in their support of the CA mission. Working remotely from Dallas, Texas, Michelle secondarily supports the team’s major gifts outreach, foundation relationships, and grant-writing efforts.
Prior to joining Catholic Answers, Michelle worked in development for both a Dallas-Fort Worth human rights non-profit and an upstate New York organization supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. She had entered fundraising in 2018 after two decades in the museum world, serving most of that time as director of exhibitions for an upstate New York art museum, and holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Maine and an MA in museum studies from the State University of New York at Oneonta.
Raised in a small agnostic family, Michelle was introduced to the truth of Catholicism by her husband, Dan, who comes from several generations of Irish Catholics on his mother’s side. She converted to the Catholic faith in 1996 and is particularly inspired by the story of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian World War II martyr beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.
Michelle and Dan have one adult daughter and serve the Catholic Diocese of Dallas as engaged couple sponsors and marriage sponsors. In her free time, Michelle makes rosaries that have been sent around the world and—having spent much of her early life in rural parts of her native Maine—finds the natural world rejuvenating, seeking out the solace of God’s creation whenever she has the opportunity.