In today’s complex world, the pursuit of social justice demands that we not only confront systemic inequities but also build sustainable paths for change. The...
Editorial: Navigating the Pathway of Justice
Analyzing the Intangible
by Gaea Denker
Every nonprofit wants to think it’s helping the world. But in a field as intangible as peacebuilding, where small interactions slowly build trust over generations, how can peace proponents know their efforts are really working?
A Bold, Flagship Experiment in Living Well Together...and a query
by Bud Heckman
Numerous efforts have been made over time to bring people of different walks of faith together and think creatively about the meaning of community and accountability. Yet few visions are as refreshingly bold as what has been happening in Omaha, Nebraska.
Joy at the Grassroots
The faces … it is the faces of people from communities around the world that I remember most from this past year, visiting global grassroots interfaith groups. A year ago, I began my work as executive director of United Religions Initiative (URI), a rare opportunity to contribute to an extraordinary movement dedicated to building peace among the peoples of the planet. [Photo: URI]
Returning Home: A Transformation in Self and Worldview
by Rev. Jennifer Bailey
My story begins on the back roads of Bainbridge, Georgia in the summer of 1950. On a hot summer afternoon, my 19-year-old grandmother carried two suitcases…
Funding Grassroots Interfaith in San Francisco
Grassroots Activists with a Global Outreach
Environmental Activism in Your Own Backyard
Religion’s New Face in the World
All of Heckman’s categories deserves attention and will find their way into The Interfaith Observer. Before concluding this overview, though, consider one other category – “Social issue(s) and action groups.” Dozens of social justice causes – immigration rights, the death penalty, economic reform, environmental responsibility, peace in the Middle East, and many more – organize as interfaith nonprofits.
Global Interfaith Grassroots Organizing: The Record So Far
Since its Charter was signed in 2000, United Religions Initiative (URI) has grown to include more than 530 grassroots groups and organizations in 78 countries. Each Cooperation Circle has its own name, size, governance and mission, but they all share in their commitment to and practice of diversity, and to advancing the central purpose and principles of URI. As URI’s director of Organizational Development for over 15 years, I’ve had a good seat from which observe and participate in developing an institution that believes in the power of people to self-organize in order to fulfill their aspirations for peace, justice and healing.
Three tips for Grassroots Interfaith Organizers
A few days before the Kansas City “Gifts of Pluralism” interfaith conference opened 10 years ago, as one of the planners, I said I thought the effort would be a success if 50 people showed up. Some 250 folks participated and, at the end, applauded.