As philanthropic scouts, the network of donors at The Foundation for Religious Literacy invests in the nation’s most effective religious literacy programs. As a public charity, we leverage these investments by connecting the recipients of our seed grants to the leading philanthropic organizations. We are honored that the following foundations supported the religious literacy projects that we seeded. We are grateful to the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations for supporting three of our seed projects: the ReligionAndPublicLife.org, the Leadership and Multi-faith Program at Emory University and Georgia Tech, as well as the Harvard Religious Literacy Project. We are grateful to the Coexist Foundation for supporting the Religious Literacy Roundtable project, the Germanacos Foundation for providing matching funds to start a religious literacy specialist position at the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, and the Henry Luce Foundation and the Once Here Foundation for supporting the Harvard Religious Literacy Project. We are grateful to the Lilly Endowment for supporting our early investments in the American religious history program at the Smithsonian. Interfaith America’s video series on interfaith leadership, published on ReligionAndPublicLife.org, was made possible thanks to generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. America Indivisible’s curriculum on Civic Inclusion published on ReligionAndPublicLife.org was made possible thanks to the generous support from the Faith in/and Democracy Fund, a project of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE). Virtues in the Public Square curriculum on ReligionAndPublicLife.org was made possible through the programmatic partnership with the Religious Freedom Institute and generous funding from the Fetzer Institute. The LEAR curriculum, “Liberty & Equality in American Religion,” published on ReligionAndPublicLife.org was made possible thanks to the generous support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Utah 3Rs Projects courses on civil dialogue and the Framers’ Debates on Religion were published on ReligionAndPublicLife.org and made possible thanks to funding from Utah Humanities. We are also grateful for the generous support from the Rodney and Beverley Hawes Family Foundation and the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation.
Convening Partners
In 2019, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, The Foundation for Religious Literacy, the Templeton Religion Trust, and The Issachar Fund, convened leading funders in religious literacy and interfaith leadership. The purpose was to identify overlapping goals, strategies, audiences, and philanthropic partnerships.
Academic Partners
The Foundation for Religious Literacy is proud to serve as a philanthropic scout and academic partner with the American Academy of Religion. Our leaders are active in the American Educational Research Association, where our managing director, Dr. Nathan C. Walker, chaired the Religion & Education SIG; he also currently serves as the associate editor of the peer-reviewed journal, “Religion & Education.” The Foundation worked closely with Dr. Stephen Prothero at Boston University and Dr. Diane L. Moore at the Harvard Religious Literacy Project, as well as with leaders of the LAMP program at Emory University and Georgia Tech. We are also pleased to be a member of the Religion and Education Consortium.
Managerial Partners
The Foundation for Religious Literacy is managed by the public charity 1791 Delegates, a delegation of First Amendment and human rights educators named after the year the Bill of Rights was ratified. Casner & Edwards provides legal counsel and Johnsen & Manzella, CPA, LLP provides accounting services. The Foundation’s assets are managed by the Barone Group at Merrill Lynch. QuickBooks ProAdvisor Brenda Graycarek at No Non-cents Bookkeeping serves as our bookkeeper. And we are grateful for the in-kind support of Headquartered at Berkshire Global Advisors for hosting our meetings in New York City.