Parish Leadership and Management Programs at the Institute of Pastoral Studies are an outgrowth of the ten-year experience and learnings of the INSPIRE Project, a Lilly Endowment, Inc. Sustaining Pastoral Excellence (SPE) partnership grant between Loyola University Chicago and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. The project worked with the staffs of Catholic parishes to build excellent Pastoral Leadership Teams.

In October 0f 2014, INSPIRE held its concluding Milestone Conference at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus. "Milestone" marked the final phase of the grant’s work, and paved the way for INSPIRE’s values and learning to be sustained and further developed through IPS Parish Leadership and Management Programs. A research project designed to assess INSPIRE's methods, achievements, and limitations laid the foundation for a professional conference that created space for dialogue between academics, pastoral ministers, church leaders, and educational professionals. Local, national, and international speakers and panelists focused on future initiatives in parish leadership and mission, consultation, and social and theological research.