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INTERFAITH AMERICA That All May Feast

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INTERFAITH AMERICA That All May Feast INTERFAITH AMERICA That All May Feast Five-Year Plan 2021 through 2025 Table of Contents Toward a Potluck Nation .............................................................................................................. 2 America: Then and Now ..............................................................................................................................2 Organizational History ...............................................................................................................................4 Vision and Theory of Social Change ........................................................................................................5 Religious Diversity, Religious Pluralism, and the Civic Goods of Interfaith Cooperation ..................................................................................................................6 Interfaith Triangle ..............................................................................................................................8 Mission ..................................................................................................................................................10 Interfaith America: Program Approach ..............................................................................................14 Goals .......................................................................................................................................................15 Campus ..................................................................................................................................................16 Narrative ...............................................................................................................................................18 Young Interfaith Leaders .........................................................................................................19 IDEALS ............................................................................................................................................ 21 Innovation ............................................................................................................................................22 Organizational Learning and Logic Model ..........................................................................................23 Business Operations .................................................................................................................... 25 Budget ............................................................................................................................................................25 Revenue Strategy ........................................................................................................................................27 The Challenge ......................................................................................................................................28 Revenue Streams ................................................................................................................................28 Long Term Sustainability ........................................................................................................................ 30 Risk Mitigation .......................................................................................................................................... 30 External Risks ..............................................................................................................................................31 Talent and Governance ..............................................................................................................................32 Human Capital .....................................................................................................................................32 Board of Directors ..............................................................................................................................33 Infrastructure .................................................................................................................................... 34 Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 35 Senior Leadership .......................................................................................................................................35 Financial Projections ............................................................................................................................... 40 1 TOWARD A POTLUCK NATION America: Then and Now A century ago, America was a nation characterized by exclusion, extremism, and division. Organizations like the Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly. Prejudice was openly expressed from the highest office in the land. The nation understood itself as being built by and for a single racial and religious group. In the midst of this crisis emerged a group of interfaith leaders called the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ). The NCCJ held a very different vision of American ideals and potential, along with a plan to make that vision a reality. They trained rabbis, Protestant ministers, and Catholic priests to run TriFaith Dialogues, a program that was implemented across thousands of local communities and military bases. They recast the animus toward and exclusion of Catholics and Jews as fundamentally un-American. We owe the idea of America as a Judeo-Christian nation to them—indeed, they virtually invented the phrase. At IFYC, we believe the moment of crisis our nation currently faces presents a similar opportunity. We are not diminishing the challenges. Polarization is at record levels. Prejudice that would not be tolerated in the schoolyard emanates from the White House. 2 All of this is happening as the United States has become the most religiously diverse nation in human history. This diversity can descend into dangerous conflict, characterized by discrimination and bigotry, or can be engaged in a spirit of respect, relationship, and cooperation. Like the NCCJ in the last century, IFYC is committed to a narrative of partnership and pluralism—and we too have a plan to make it a reality. We seek an interfaith America, the twenty-first-century analogue to the NCCJ’s Judeo-Christian nation. In an interfaith America, people of different faiths, worldviews, and traditions bridge divides and find common values to build a shared life together. Interfaith America is captured by the image of a potluck nation. The contributions of all are welcome and improve the good of all. In fact, the more distinct the contributions to the potluck nation, the richer the feast. In an interfaith America, the contributions of diverse religious communities and individuals are welcomed in our shared civic life. Under the founding framework of religious liberty without state religion, religiously diverse democracy thrives. Tomorrow’s leaders adeptly bring people together across differences in religious and fundamental conviction, advancing common life and democratic vitality. To put it bluntly, our religiously diverse democracy demands an interfaith America and the potluck nation metaphor used to describe it. Left unchecked, tribalism will tear us apart, and discrimination will exclude too many of our citizens’ valuable contributions. To reprise interfaith leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., in this young new century, we either learn to live together as siblings or we perish together as fools.1 With a history of effective and empirically proven work to make pluralism a reality, IFYC is situated to set the potluck table. The creation of tomorrow’s interfaith America couldn’t be more critical. The contributions of all are welcome and improve the good of all. In fact, the more distinct the contributions to the potluck nation, the richer the feast. 1 Martin Luther King Jr., “Speech at St Louis, 22 March 1964,” St Louis Post-Dispatch 23 March 1964. 3 Organizational History IFYC received its first funding through a grant from the Ford Foundation in 2002, the year it was founded by Eboo Patel. Since then, we have made steady gains and deepened our efficacy in pursuing the vision of an interfaith America. Anchored by our mission of partnering with colleges and universities working to turn religious diversity into a positive force in our society, IFYC has: Advised the White House through the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Council, forging a partnership to establish the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, reaching all college and university presidents in the country. Partnered, advised, and supported more than 500 campuses on implementation of impactful interfaith programs. Along with leading faculty partners, inspired, created, and expanded the interdisciplinary academic field of interfaith studies, which has influenced over 350 courses, contains three dozen course sequences, and has been formalized in two known majors in interfaith leadership. Completed the largest-known longitudinal study on religious diversity in higher education, the five-yearInterfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey, which demonstrated improvements in religious pluralism through IFYC program engagement. Published seven books: Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action (Patrice Brodeur & Eboo Patel, 2006) Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (Eboo Patel,
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