Emerging Threads
Our role in this work is
to hold a broad vision,
to bring together partners and
shift the landscape of possibilities.
The threads that have emerged early are tangible and collectively invite in a diverse sets of actors:
Investor networks in congregations. We’re finding an intriguing number of social investment groups emerging out of congregations. Individuals who worship together are building financial mechanisms to invest together in the social and environmental needs of the community. Steve Monti is a former IBM executive who is developing a social venture fund in his Catholic congregation in Durham North Carolina. We are actively seeking to identify many varied models.
Financing faith and health. The synergies between faith and health are increasingly acknowledged within medical models. As an extension of this thinking, what are the financial models that recognize churches as part of a broader value chain of health care delivery? How are faith-based hospitals called to serve their community and its economy needs?
Seminaries as an enterprise. Seminaries are essential to building the leadership and the theological imagination of the church. And, the business model of seminaries has been functionally broken for many years. We have highlighted this church institution as a key leverage point in understanding.
Denominations as financial intermediaries. As national denominations struggle with their relevance in the shifting terrain, we are exploring the idea of denominations as financial intermediaries. How can denominations play a role in building market mechanisms, reducing the costs of transactions, and facilitating coordination of capital within churches and with the broader social capital markets?
Parishes as local living economies. What if we understand geographic parishes as local living economies? How does this change our understanding of the church as part of a local economy both as an actor and implicated in its well-being.
Parish based enterprise development. Building a grocery store that sells fairly priced fresh food in a food desert is ministry. Providing loans for local businesses, the local laundromat where the credit crisis has brought the owners to the edge, is a mission of faith. Converting the church kitchen into a commercial kitchen for local women who have informal catering companies is service to God’s kingdom.
Energy Efficiency in churches and church-related buildings. Churches and church-related buildings comprise approximately 1% of the carbon footprint of the United States. How can we design the funding mechanisms, service models, and distribution mechanisms to take isolated efforts in church facilities to scale? These transactions need to not be seen as isolated economic transactions but as a broader response to how churches are economic beings.
Additional Threads in exploration: Justice and Labor, church-affiliated international development, church as a distribution system (for fair trade goods or other products and services).
