Luce Foundation awards $100,000
to extend original grant to
Faith And The City Leadership Institute

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
July 23, 2007

The Faith And The City Leadership Institute announced today that it has been awarded a $100,000 grant by The Henry Luce Foundation. The funding extends a $300,000 grant awarded in 2005 to help fund the interfaith Institute’s first two annual classes. The current grant will provide substantial support for an Institute-initiated coalition, Fairness for Georgia Families, which is working to expand faith community involvement in living wage issues.

The Faith And The City Leadership Institute is an interfaith leadership-development initiative designed to bring a broader moral dimension to civic dialogue by preparing faith leaders and their congregations to more effectively engage public issues throughout the Atlanta metropolitan community.

Leadership Institute participants are recruited from the ranks of religious leaders and emerging religious leaders from the Atlanta metro area and its diverse range of neighborhoods and congregations. Members of the first two classes reflect a cultural, ethnic, and racial cross-section of the region and include Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Baha’is.

During its first two years, Leadership Institute participants gathered several times annually for workshops and retreats to explore, through theory and practice, public religious leadership skills. During the Institute’s third year, graduates from the first two annual classes are playing leadership roles in the Fairness for Georgia Families living wage project, which will help them hone the public religious leadership skills developed in their earlier Institute activities.

“We are grateful for this generous $100,000 extension of our original grant from The Henry Luce Foundation,” said Doug Gatlin, executive director of Faith And The City. “It will enable the Leadership Institute to fulfill its commitment to the Fairness for Georgia Families Coalition and give our Institute graduates some collaborative hands-on experience with important living wage issues in the regional Atlanta community.”

The Leadership institute was developed and is administered by Faith And The City, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that has initiated a range of programs to nurture a sense of community and encourage active engagement with public issues by people of all faiths. The organization developed plans for the Institute in partnership with three Atlanta-based seminaries – the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, and Columbia Theological Seminary.

Faith And The City, an Atlanta based nonprofit organization, has helped enhance graduate seminary curricula, published opinions on public issues, televised weekly interfaith public affairs dialogues, sponsored forums, created interracial and interfaith congregational partnerships, and conducted a range of other programs to encourage a sense of community throughout the metro region. For more information, visit www.faithandthecity.org.

The late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., established The Henry Luce Foundation in 1936. Today it has assets of about $700 million. The Foundation’s grant making focuses on interdisciplinary initiatives in higher education, increased understanding between Asia and the United States, the study of religion and theology, scholarship in American art, opportunities for women in science and engineering, and environmental and public policy programs. For more information, visit www.hluce.org.

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