Meet Nate Harding, founder of the Global Flourishing Catalyst Coalition. Nate, who is currently starting his MBA at Oxford University, has been a social impact strategy consultant with Bridgespan, an international education and exchange program leader with World Learning, a leadership coach, and various other roles, including Contributing Editor at innoFaith. Raised in an interracial Christian family while influenced and nurtured by a diverse religious community in Los Angeles, Nate channels all of these diverse influences toward his vision of a world where everyone flourishes.
Faith leaders and communities, as uniquely powerful hubs of connection and belonging, have increasingly stepped up to combat the epidemic of social isolation, utilizing their deep-rooted networks to offer support and foster relationships. In fact, faith communities might be one of our most underutilized resources to combat this crisis. innoFaith has teamed up with Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute to host a conversation with leaders engaging faith communities as part of the solution. Join us on September 18!
Meet Victoria Strang, who holds the first full-time position at Human Rights Watch focused on building faith partnerships. Passionate about helping secular organizations develop authentic relationships with faith communities to advance work to create a more just world, Victoria previously did faith outreach for the Humane Society and organizing for the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty. Victoria, who lives in Rhode Island, is also an innoFaith Contributing Editor.
Meet Kimberly Daniel, Co-founder and Project Director of DO GOOD X and talented Brand and Communications Consultant. Kimberly, who hails from a small city outside of Myrtle Beach, SC, and has lived for over 16 years in and around Atlanta, GA, passionately uplifts and supports underrepresented innovators. She is also co-author of A Way Out of No Way: an Approach to Christian Innovation and an innoFaith Contributing Editor.
If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, she will make history not just as the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian president but also as the person with the most religiously diverse background to ever hold the role.
Meet Kerry Brodie, Founder of Emma’s Torch, a growing social enterprise that empowers refugees through culinary education. Inspired by the Holocaust survivors and immigrants in her own family, and concerned by the growing refugee crisis, Kerry set off to culinary school with the idea that food could be a tool to enable people who have experienced forced migration to thrive in their new communities. Kerry now lives in Potomac, MD, having recently expanded Emma’s Torch from NY to DC.
As faith communities, we engage in so many essential social service efforts in our communities. It is sacred work to be present to people marginalized by the systems of our societies. It is also sacred work to change those systems. As we serve, we have the opportunity to learn, collect data, spot patterns that can help point to systemic solutions.
With deep roots in economic migration patterns and organized crime, not to mention the manipulation of basic human needs and aspirations, human trafficking is a complex issue both very global and very local in its scope. The International Labour Organization estimates that 40.3 million people globally were in what they call “modern slavery” at any given time in 2016, about 60% of whom were in forced labor and the remainder in forced marriage. … While complex operationally, as a moral issue, human trafficking is about as straightforward as they come, which perhaps explains why it has been a galvanizing issue for faith communities. … Additionally, many secular organizations addressing the issue have been founded by faith-rooted social innovators. And there’s one that, unless you’re a trucker, you may not know about.
