event, ideas, inspiration
Danielle Goldstone
Beyond Teaching Kids to Give, Entrusting Them ...

innoFaith recently facilitated and supported a collaboration that modeled a different approach, one in which the community recognizes, honors, and supports children as important civic contributors and teaches giving not as sacrifice or something nice to do, but as a core aspect of children's participation in their community. In this approach, instilling the values of community, compassion, and gift become less about the fortunate and less fortunate and more about understanding the varied experiences of people and the varied ways that children can and already do help. This approach also requires adults to entrust kids with real decisions about engagement in their community rather than telling them what to do.

Beyond Teaching Kids to Give, Entrusting Them as Civic Actors
Meet an innoFaither, inspiration
Danielle Goldstone
Meet an innoFaither: Rayce Lamb

Meet Rayce Lamb, Founder of Faithonomics and Baptist pastor seeking to inspire wild imagination. Rayce, who is also a certified financial education instructor, is passionate about supporting faith-rooted leaders to flourish spiritually and financially while pursuing creative ideas for good. He has just launched the Doers Creative, a digital community for faith-inspired creators, and also leads the Wild Imagination Fund, which seeks to eradicate poverty in his home city of Winston-Salem, NC.

Meet an innoFaither: Rayce Lamb
research, ideas, inspiration, theology, report
Danielle Goldstone
Faith to confront society's biggest challenges: ...

In January, the World Economic Forum released a report, Faith in Action: Religion and Spirituality in the Polycrisis, arguing for the relevance of religion and spirituality in a time of complex, intersecting, global social challenges. It features several examples of collaboration between business and faith-based organizations to address some of these challenges, as well as important insights and lessons for faith, business, and other leaders. It is an invitation to forge more multi-sector collaborations that leverage the wisdom and assets of faith to drive impact at scale.

Faith to confront society's biggest challenges: A report from the World Economic Forum
Meet an innoFaither, inspiration
Danielle Goldstone
Meet an innoFaither: Marcia Dinkins

Meet Marcia Dinkins, Founder and Executive Director of Black Women Rising and creator of the Black Appalachian Coalition. Based in Ottawa Hills, OH, Marcia is elevating Black voices to help drive positive change. In Appalachia, where Black stories are particularly invisible in the narrative of poverty in the region, Marcia is engaging the Black community to tell their stories and advocate for solutions to regional issues like air pollution and healthcare access.

Meet an innoFaither: Marcia Dinkins
book, ideas, inspiration, theology
Danielle Goldstone
Insights for Change: Liberate leadership from ...

Like every institution in the 21st century, religion today confronts existential questions about its future, uncertain of its place in an era where trust in institutions has eroded and traditional hierarchical organizational structures have started to flatten. The formerly reliable foundations of our religious life feel insecure–for no one more than clergy, who are largely trained to be solo, prophetic leaders of congregations. But in this uncertainty lies possibility. A new book by two religious leaders, Rev. Kathleen McShane and Rabbi Elan Babchuck, will help clergy, and all faith-rooted leaders, embrace the liberating opportunity this current moment provides. It’s time to adopt a new form of leadership, free of the burdens of pyramid-shaped empire that have shaped our past. 

Insights for Change: Liberate leadership from the pyramid

ideas

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Our great creative project: Pope Francis helps us turn the page to a post-2020 world

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Our great creative project: Pope Francis helps us turn the page to a post-2020 world

In October, Pope Francis published his third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (Brothers and Sisters All). For those not versed in papal encyclicals, they're significant communications from the Pope on particular aspects of Catholic doctrine, though they may speak to a broader audience than just Catholics. This Pope’s previous encyclical, Laudato si’, is a widely-read, profound, and pioneering statement on the ravages of climate change and our need to act, which has inspired numerous new initiatives and collaborations.

But an encyclical about brotherhood honestly sounded a little mundane to me. I sat back and started skimming, expecting a prophetic but predictable exhortation to love and neighborliness. By the end, I was quite literally at the edge of my seat, reading and re-reading portions. This wasn't prophetic, it was something better: real, relevant and actionable.

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What's spirituality got to do with it? A new study offers some insights

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What's spirituality got to do with it? A new study offers some insights

In September, the Fetzer Institute published What Does Spirituality Mean to Us? A Study of Spirituality in the United States, a fascinating snapshot of spirituality across the country and its relationship to community and civic action. One of the most interesting takeaways from the study is that while it shows a strong correlation between spirituality and pro-social action, fewer people explicitly make a connection between the two in their own lives.

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An idea for honoring John Lewis, "the boy from Troy": Invest in young people

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An idea for honoring John Lewis, "the boy from Troy": Invest in young people

Over the past week, the world has bid farewell to civil rights icon U.S. Congressman John Lewis, with all the grandeur his life and legacy deserve. A final journey across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A procession through DC’s Black Lives Matter Plaza. The first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol. And a whole lot of talk of “good trouble,” Lewis’s own mantra and his parting advice to a new generation of activists. John Lewis will forever be remembered for his awe-inspiring life of service and leadership in pursuit of justice and equality. But let’s also remember him as “the boy from Troy.”

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Black Lives Matter. Now that we've said it, how do we change things?

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Black Lives Matter. Now that we've said it, how do we change things?

George Floyd’s agonizing death at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has galvanized a diverse coalition of people, organizations, companies across the country who are saying “enough is enough.” But let’s be honest, enough was enough a long time ago for our Black sisters and brothers and should have been for all of us. … We definitely have deep inner spiritual work to do. Likewise, we must name injustice and proclaim a different way. And as a systemic problem, racism also requires us to problem-solve.

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"How do we keep a people as old as Moses innovating?" Insights for institutional religion from a gathering of spiritual innovators

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"How do we keep a people as old as Moses innovating?" Insights for institutional religion from a gathering of spiritual innovators

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a gathering of the Kenissa network, a group founded by Rabbi Sid Schwarz, that brings together leaders who are re-imagining Jewish life and fostering "communities of meaning." Kenissa supports and connects these leaders to help their efforts and emerging communities to thrive. The gathering was representative of a growing movement of faith-based innovators operating outside the bounds of traditional religious institutions and a model of three characteristics I believe our religious institutions must learn to adopt if they are to flourish in the current era and into the future.

The 5 Essential Assets Faith Communities Bring to Social Innovation

The 5 Essential Assets Faith Communities Bring to Social Innovation

Social innovation has developed largely as a secular field despite its deep historic roots in people and communities of faith that have quietly and creatively responded to human and societal needs over centuries. It is essential that the faith sector take a place at the table because of the many assets it brings to the goal of solving our world's most pressing problems. Here are a few:

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When an activist innovates... Impact investing gets redesigned to tackle economic inequality

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When an activist innovates... Impact investing gets redesigned to tackle economic inequality

Social innovation requires us to 1) believe there is a constructive way to change seemingly intractable problems, 2) rethink problems and opportunities, sometimes flipping accepted wisdom on its head, and 3) apply concepts or frameworks from different disciplines to spot potential new solutions. Which is why we love this article from Forbes about what Deborah Frieze is doing in impact investing in Boston.

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We're not in the game: Religion and the data revolution

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We're not in the game: Religion and the data revolution

During a recent layover, I was wandering the airport bookstore and spotted Yuval Noah Harari’s bestseller Sapiens. “Everyone’s reading this,” I thought. “Maybe I should, too.” But then I saw his follow-up book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, which I had never heard of but the title of which sold me immediately. … Harari makes some frustratingly sweeping and aggressive statements about religion that seem unnecessary to make his point. But behind them is a truth that institutions of faith need to confront: We’re becoming irrelevant because we’re not in the game. Our traditions may serve a purpose for a while - as sources of comfort in a chaotic world that we don’t really understand, where people like Harari are talking about the imminence of unfathomable things like superhumans and cyborgs. But if that’s the only purpose we’re serving, then we’ve already lost the long game.

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Cooperatives: A new moment for an old idea?

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Cooperatives: A new moment for an old idea?

The Trump era in the US has triggered a lot of angst over the state of our democracy. There is a lot of blame going around. Everyone expresses concern about our civil discourse. New efforts to understand, restore, and strengthen democratic institutions and the social capital that undergirds them emerge daily. At the same time, there is a lot of talk about the economic inequality that may or may not, depending on who you listen to, have led to our current political reality. … Could one solution lie in the centuries old concept of cooperatives—shared ownership/management organizations for workers, producers, or consumers—renewed for the modern era?

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What is Social Innovation?

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What is Social Innovation?

At innoFaith, one of our goals is to bridge faith communities to the social innovation ecosystem - the universe of non-profits, start-ups, education institutions, companies, government bodies, and others who are developing, studying, implementing new responses to persistent social problems. And vice versa. But for many in institutions and communities of faith, social innovation is a new term, even if not a new concept. … Both charity and advocacy approaches are essential to social change work, but what if there were a narrative that could free us from the limits of charity, on the one hand, and ideology, on the other? That is the potential of social innovation.

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Lazy, dangerous, and apathetic? Let's stop telling our most powerful peacemakers to wait their turn

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Lazy, dangerous, and apathetic? Let's stop telling our most powerful peacemakers to wait their turn

On January 29th, in the midst of a DC snowstorm, an interfaith, intergenerational group of friends and strangers gathered at Church of the Holy City to talk about the power of young people to lead change. Along with co-hosts Peace First, FaithJustice Foundation, and the Swedenborg Center, we were thrilled to welcome Eric Dawson, Founder and CEO of Peace First and author of Putting Peace First: 7 Commitments to Change the World, and Yasmine Arrington, Peace First Fellow and Founder and Executive Director of ScholarCHIPS, to share their wisdom.

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Faith trends to watch

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Faith trends to watch

LinkedIn recently published 50 Big Ideas for 2019: What to watch in the year ahead. The list is full of interesting predictions regarding the economy, workforce, tech, leadership, and a couple on social movements. Underlying many of the predictions are issues of values, ethics, and inclusion. As society seeks better solutions to the challenges that confront us - climate change, the potential effects of artificial intelligence, inequality, political polarization, shifting workforce trends, and more - what role will faith communities and institutions play? And what would these predictions look like if offered by faith leaders rather than business leaders? We’re going to find out in the coming weeks by seeking the input of our network. We’ll report back on what we hear, but in the meantime, here are a few recent faith trends that we expect will continue to grow in 2019.

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Here's the church, here's the steeple. Open the doors, and see all... the luxury condos?

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Here's the church, here's the steeple. Open the doors, and see all... the luxury condos?

It’s hard to walk around Washington, DC, these days without finding a church that has been or is in the process of being converted into luxury condos. In a city struggling to provide enough affordable housing and other services to keep its lower income residents, the idea of community institutions being turned into housing for the wealthy can be discouraging, to say the least. And DC is not alone. … Fortunately, various groups are emerging to re-imagine the problem and find solutions.

"Capitalism at its best": The potential of impact investing for faith-based institutions

"Capitalism at its best": The potential of impact investing for faith-based institutions

Impact investing, the practice of leveraging private capital for social and environmental gains by making investments that produce social and environmental returns in addition to financial returns, has gained significant steam in the last several years. It has also begun to make inroads into the investment and mission strategies of faith-based institutions and investors.

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Toward theologies of innovation for faith in a changing world

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Toward theologies of innovation for faith in a changing world

For millennia, faith traditions have been innovating, adapting worship, theology, and social engagement to bring God to the people of different eras in a changing world and to meet the social needs of the times. Yet how rarely we talk about innovation as faith communities. We tend to consider it a value and expertise of the business or technology sectors, sectors we also tend to view with some skepticism. But the world is changing more rapidly than ever before, and the challenges driving social needs today are becoming more complex. We can’t afford not to talk about this. And, well, innovate accordingly.

Reconciling old and new power: In the era of networks, do institutions still have a role?

Reconciling old and new power: In the era of networks, do institutions still have a role?

We are living through a tectonic shift in power dynamics. With the evolution of digital technology and globalization, people all over the world have access to information and opportunity at an unprecedented scale. The promise and potential of a world where power can no longer be monopolized by an elite few is thrilling for the possibilities it creates for greater equality. But what might be lost in the process? In the era of networks, do institutions still have a role to play? Greg Jones at Duke Divinity School has been exploring the potential of Christian social innovation and the questions it surfaces.