Faith In Action

Last updated
Faith in Action
Motto"Unlocking the power of people"
Formation1972
FounderJohn Baumann
TypeNonprofit
Purpose Community organizing for progressive public policy change
Headquarters Oakland, California
Methods Faith-based community organizing
Executive Director
Rev. Alvin Herring
Revenue (2013)
$8,242,723 [1]
Website www.faithinaction.org

Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO National Network, is a national network of faith-based community organizations in the United States. The organization is headquartered in Oakland, California, with additional offices in San Diego and Washington, D.C. The organization believes in a society free of economic oppression, racism and discrimination. Its stated mission is "to increase access to health care, improve public schools, make neighborhoods safer, build affordable housing, redevelop communities and revitalize democracy." [2]

Community organizing process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest

Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.

Oakland, California City in California, United States

Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 425,195 as of 2017, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.

Washington, D.C. Capital of the United States

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington or D.C., is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, first President of the United States and Founding Father. As the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is also one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually.

Contents

Faith in Action supports full citizenship for undocumented immigrants. [3] [4] The organization also supports universal health care. [5] [6] [7]

Universal healthcare is a health care system that provides health care and financial protection to all citizens of a particular country. It is organized around providing a specified package of benefits to all members of a society with the end goal of providing financial risk protection, improved access to health services, and improved health outcomes.

History

Faith in Action was founded in 1972 by John Baumann, as the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), headquartered in Oakland, California. In the late 1960s Baumann had worked with community organizing projects in Chicago, where he became familiar with Saul Alinsky's ideas. During the 1970s, Faith in Action worked with five neighborhood-based organizations, recruiting individuals and families. As neighborhoods experienced the economic and social upheavals of that decade, the neighborhood-based model of organizing became less viable as communities fractured. [8]

Chicago City in Illinois, United States

Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. As of the 2017 census-estimate, it has a population of 2,716,450, which makes it the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, and the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often referred to as "Chicagoland." The Chicago metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States, the fourth largest in North America, and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area.

Saul Alinsky American community organizer and writer

Saul David Alinsky was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals (1971).

Following a staff retreat in 1984, Faith in Action shifted to a congregation-based model based in part on the experience of COPS, a federation in San Antonio, Texas developed by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. As it expanded beyond the West Coast, in 2004 PICO characterized its acronym as standing for People Improving Communities through Organizing. In 2005, it renamed itself PICO National Network, emphasizing the autonomy of its affiliated organizations, and its role developing national strategy, training, and consultation. [9]

The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and businessman and founder of the Chicago Sun-Times Marshall Field III. The IAF partners with religious congregations and civic organizations at the local level to help them build organizations of organizations, referred to as broad-based organizations by the Industrial Areas Foundation, with the purpose of strengthening citizen leadership, developing trust across a community's dividing lines and taking action on issues identified by local community leaders.

The shift to faith-based organizing has emphasized the importance of religious culture to Faith in Action. Its base in northern California meant that Faith in Action could draw on the traditions of a variety of denominations. Sociology professor Richard Wood, who serves on Faith in Action's board of directors, writes that this includes "the social Christianity of the historic black churches, the Social Gospel and Christian realist perspectives in moderate and liberal Protestantism, the strongly evangelical but socially responsible orientation of the Church of God in Christ, and the intellectual resources, working-class commitments, and Hispanic cultural ties of Roman Catholicism." [8]

Northern California Place in California, United States

Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.

The Social Gospel was a movement in Protestantism that applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labour, inadequate labour unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. It was most prominent in the early-20th-century United States and Canada. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to operationalize the Lord's Prayer : "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". They typically were postmillennialist; that is, they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. The Social Gospel was more popular among clergy than laity. Its leaders were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the progressive movement, and most were theologically liberal, although a few were also conservative when it came to their views on social issues. Important leaders include Richard T. Ely, Josiah Strong, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch.

Evangelicalism movement within Protestant Christianity

Evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, transdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity which maintains the belief that the essence of the Gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ's atonement. Evangelicals believe in the centrality of the conversion or "born again" experience in receiving salvation, in the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity, and in spreading the Christian message. The movement has had a long presence in the Anglosphere before spreading further afield in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.

In May of 2018 PICO National Network officially changed its name to Faith in Action. [10]

Activities

PICO's California Project led a $190 million public bond initiative for public school infrastructure. [11] PICO's New Voices Campaign, launched in 2004, seeks to help low-income communities have an impact at the national level on such issues as immigration reform, health care, education, and rebuilding the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. [12] In October 2008, PICO announced plans for a mid-November meeting in Washington, D.C., in which its affiliates would lobby Congress, the United States Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to help people keep their homes when facing foreclosure. [13]

Funding

The Ford Foundation is a major donor to Faith in Action. [14] In 2015, Faith in Action was added to the list of the Democracy Alliance's recommended funding targets. [15] Faith in Action has received funding from the Open Society Foundations. [16]

See also

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Occupy Homes

Occupy Homes or Occupy Our Homes is part of the Occupy movement which attempts to prevent the foreclosure of people's homes. Protesters delay foreclosures by camping out on the foreclosed property. They also stage protests at the banks responsible for the ongoing foreclosure crisis, sometimes blocking their entrances. It has been compared to the direct action taken by people to prevent home foreclosures during the Great Depression in the United States.

References

  1. ↑ "IRS Form 990 2013" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  2. ↑ "About Us". Faith in Action. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  3. ↑ "Campaign for Citizenship". PICO National Network. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  4. ↑ Maule, Alicia; Lee, Traci (October 13, 2014). "Immigration advocate works to hold both parties accountable". MSNBC. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  5. ↑ Woodruff, Judy (May 28, 2007). "Advocates Push to Extend Children's Health Insurance Program". PBS. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  6. ↑ Gilgoff, Dan (August 10, 2009). "Religious Progressives Flex New Muscle in Pushing Healthcare". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  7. ↑ Farris Rosen, Anne; Clement, Scott (October 8, 2009). "Religious Groups Weigh In on Health Care Reform". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  8. 1 2 Wood, Richard (2002). Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   9780226905952.
  9. ↑ Walls, David (Summer 1994). "Power to the People: Thirty-five Years of Community Organizing". The Workbook: 52–55. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  10. ↑ https://www.faithinaction.org
  11. ↑ Espinosa, Gastón; Elizondo, Virgilio; Miranda, Jesse (2005). Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States. Oxford University Press. p. 148. ISBN   9780195162288.
  12. ↑ Wuthnow, Robert (2007). Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. CQ Press. p. 198. ISBN   9780872893238.
  13. ↑ Carolyn Said (2008-10-28). "Faith-based effort to avert foreclosures". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
  14. ↑ "PICO National Network". Ford Foundation. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  15. ↑ Carrasquillo, Adrian (April 15, 2015). "Latino Leaders Frustrated At Liberal Donor Plan To Fund 35 Groups, Zero Latino Groups". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  16. ↑ Riddell, Kelly (January 14, 2015). "George Soros funds Ferguson protests, hopes to spur civil action". Washington Times. Retrieved 4 June 2015.

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