- Religion News Service
The past year has tested our nation in profound ways. And yet, amidst the uncertainty and fear, we also witnessed powerful acts of courage and connection.
As nonprofits faced funding destabilization, philanthropies stepped up with creativity and conviction. Students, faculty, and staff reaffirmed their commitment to pluralism. As threats to our democracy intensified and communities faced unprecedented attacks on their neighbors, Americans of diverse identities and beliefs stood together to affirm a truth central to Interfaith America’s vision: our diversity is a foundational strength of this nation.
The 2025 Annual Report highlights the tangible ways that Interfaith America and our partners have empowered Americans to bridge differences to advance the common good. We invite you to celebrate the campuses, workplaces, civic institutions, and local communities committed to building an interfaith America – one where everyone belongs, and where respect, relationships, and cooperation form the foundation of a thriving society.
Your belief in our mission to inspire, equip, and connect leaders across lines of difference feeds our spirit and fuels our work. Thank you for your resilience, commitment, and courage. We are grateful to walk this road with you.
Eboo Patel
Founder and President
Toni Clark
Chair, Board of Directors
As colleges and universities navigate growing internal and external pressures, IA partnered with a broad range of campuses to strengthen cultures of pluralism and equip leaders with interfaith leadership skills for a diverse democracy. In 2025, IA delivered tools, resources, and opportunities that enabled students, faculty, staff, and administrators to advance interfaith engagement and pluralism through campus programs and policies. Highlights include:
A record-breaking 750+ attendees engaged in the 2025 Interfaith Leadership Summit
Held August 8–10, 2025, the annual Interfaith Leadership Summit attracted a record 550 registrants for the full weekend and an additional 200+ engaged overall. Centered on the theme Chords of Democracy, the Summit featured tailored training tracks for students, faculty, staff, and emerging leaders; opportunities for peer connection; an evening arts experience; and sessions highlighting best practices from IA’s higher education network, civic initiatives, and workplace partnerships.
Undergraduate BRAID Fellows
IA launched the Bridgebuilders Relating Across Interfaith Differences (BRAID) Fellowship, a new nine-month student fellowship that equipped student leaders with the tools and skills to create interfaith projects on their campuses. The inaugural cohort included 20 undergraduates from 15 colleges and universities. Fellows presented their work at the 2025 Interfaith Leadership Summit.
spotlight
A Computer Information Systems student at Livingstone College, Joel Omanye Thompson led interfaith storytelling sessions, game nights, and a Talk, Taste, and Theology Conference that brought students together across faith and culture. His project engaged 270+ participants, fostering connection through dialogue, food, and shared experience. Joel shared about his BRAID experience in IA Today.
Awarded in Higher Education grants
IA expanded campus engagement and deepened partnerships across higher education by prioritizing grantmaking through a cohort model. Offerings in 2025 included programs such as the Advancing Campus Pluralism Strategy Cohorts, implemented in partnership with the Council of Independent Colleges Virginia (CICV) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the Teaching & Learning Pluralism (TLP) Cohort, and the Strengthening the Campus Community Grants.
Participants, including university presidents, senior campus leaders, and philanthropy partners attended the second Advancing Campus Pluralism Conference on March 11, 2025, in partnership with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
At a convening preceding the Advancing Campus Pluralism (ACP) Conference, IA piloted a new workshop for senior administrators titled, “The Promise of Pluralism in an Age of Prejudice: Addressing Antisemitism and Islamophobia on College Campuses.” The workshop deepens understanding of campus antisemitism and Islamophobia and shows how pluralism can counter prejudice and bridge divides. IA is now offering this workshop as a campus consultation opportunity and utilizing it with an 18-month cohort of 11 campuses.
Substantively engaged campuses since FY21
Interfaith America advances pluralism as a social norm across American civic life. A healthy democracy depends on engaging differences in service of the common good. In a time of deep division, IA expands opportunities for Americans to build relationships across religious, ideological, and cultural lines. Over the past year, IA equipped a nationwide network of leaders with the skills and platforms to strengthen democracy through bridgebuilding in civic spaces. IA’s civic offerings included:
IA strengthened the Team Up Project, our community service partnership with Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity, and YMCA of the USA. In addition to embedding pluralism infrastructure across national partners, a second cohort of 38 affiliate sites received grants, training, and resources to design and carry out local bridgebuilding projects throughout 2025.
spotlight
Together with our national Team Up partners, IA highlighted local bridgebuilding through a new video series titled “Best of America.” The first episode featured Catholic Charities of Santa Fe’s refugee resettlement camp, created in partnership with the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Through this camp, Team Up built bridges among Muslim refugee families from Arab, Afghan, and African backgrounds; Catholic Charities volunteers and staff; and members of the hosting LDS Church. The five-week camp provided space to learn, share meals, and foster community across culture, language, and faith.
Awarded in Civic grants
The inaugural Interfaith Civic Pluralism Fellowship, launched in October 2025, supports a geographically, religiously, and ethnically diverse group of 16 civic leaders as they strengthen institutional cultures of pluralism, deepen their commitment to religious liberty, and collaborate across differences to promote social cohesion. This nine-month program builds on prior initiatives including the Vote is Sacred Fellowship.
Interfaith leaders in the Emerging Leaders Network
Members of IA’s Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) joined IA events as attendees and trainers, engaged in networking and mentorship, and received access to exclusive funding and fellowship opportunities. Last year, IA provided dozens of grants, fellowships, and networking opportunities for members of the ELN, including the Stewarding the Common Good Fellowship (formerly known as the Sacred Journey Fellowship); Interfaith Innovation Fellowship; and Building Interfaith America Emerging Leader Grants.
Through our work with leaders in corporate workplaces and professional fields, IA is embedding skills for advancing pluralism in institutions across the country. Through consultations, subscription-based membership, and granting and network building, IA is working to ensure that faith is recognized as a core part of individual identity in professional settings. Throughout 2025, IA offered a variety of workplace programs, including:
8 companies participated in RISE, including the 6 highlighted above
RISE (Religious Inclusion, Skill-building, and Engagement), a new annual subscription-based membership, launched in 2025. The inaugural cohort surpassed original recruitment goals, with 19 members from eight companies. Through RISE, members have access to a quarterly convened live, virtual learning space; an exclusive LinkedIn Group and newsletter; and access to carefully curated resources.
“I keep in touch with RISE members I’ve met in our meeting breakout rooms, and we share tips and tricks [for interfaith engagement]. Having a community to share my experiences with has been awesome. I would recommend every company with an interfaith employee resource group to send one or two staff members to RISE.”
– Richard Carter, National Interfaith ERG Lead, West Monroe
“As an early career HR professional, it can be challenging to know how to talk to staff and coworkers about religious diversity within the workplace without raising their concerns. RISE has given me a community of peers to engage our shared challenges and brainstorm unique solutions for each of our organizations.”
– Jay Lazur, HR Generalist, Charles River Community Health
IA continued to offer trainings for business leaders, such as a week-long virtual series in June 2025. “How to Cultivate Religiously Inclusive Workplaces” equipped professionals with skills to approach religious diversity positively and proactively. Following the series, participants reported increased confidence in addressing religious diversity, navigating legal considerations, and supporting interfaith ERGs.
IA provided customized corporate trainings for 9 companies with global reach
IA continued to offer to customized consultations for major retail, financial, and insurance companies that equipped leaders and staff to cultivate workplace environments inclusive of diverse religious identities and worldviews.
Awarded in Faith & Health grants
IA’s Faith & Health Network spans 28 states and Washington, DC
With generous support from the John Templeton Foundation, IA’s Faith and Health initiative continues to strengthen the role that religious identity and diversity can and should play in healthcare. In 2025, IA supported 15 Campus Grantees and 23 Pipeline Grantees from around the country and a wide range of health fields—including public health, mental health, and medical education. Grantees are integrating interfaith competencies into health‑related education and practice by designing new courses that explore faith as a social determinant of health, developing resources available to field leaders around the country, and creating programming that engage the broader community – including local faith leaders and health professionals.
spotlight
As a 2025 Faith & Health Pipeline Grantee and 2025 – 2027 Campus Grantee, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health continues to leverage IA’s Faith & Health resources and national network to build far-reaching and self-sustaining communities of practice, institutionalizing the intersection faith and health on campus. For example, as a 2025 Pipeline Grantee, the school convened 30+ leaders from faith communities, public health, academia, and community organizations for the Faith & Public Health Collaborative Convening in September 2025. The gathering brought students, educators, faith leaders, community members, and public health practitioners together to explore faith-based approaches to health equity.
They are now further institutionalizing this work as a 2025 – 2027 Faith and Health Campus Grantee. Through this grant they are continuing course development with the goal of creating a certificate program, building partnerships with faith leaders and health organizations, storytelling through multimedia dissemination on campus, and have already established a dedicated Field Experience Fund to support student immersion at the intersection of faith and health.
Resources updated in 2025
In 2025, Interfaith America significantly expanded and strengthened its learning resources to support leaders across sectors. IA updated 167 resources in our Courses, Curricula, and Tools library and created eight new externally-facing resources.
IA’s new Pluralism Playbook is an actionable resource that equips senior campus leaders to foster inclusive campus cultures and uplifts pluralism as a social norm. The Playbook distills over 20 years of research and experiential learnings into a guide for institutional change by outlining four key practices for transformation: institutional leadership, capacity building, curriculum and scholarship, and co-curricular engagement.
Interfaith America partnered with WETA-TV to create Faith & Freedom in America for THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Engagement Resource Center—a dynamic online hub designed to support public media stations, community organizations, educators, and individuals around the upcoming PBS documentary, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
IA expanded its Faith & Health Toolkit, which features resources that can help unlock the positive potential of religious diversity in health-related settings. IA also created the Teaching Tools: Engaging Religious Diversity in Health Fields. These modules, produced by Cagn Cochrane in collaboration with Research and Advisory Fellows, were launched on IA’s website, featured at the 2025 Summit, and shared across the Faith & Health network. Modules are designed for academic courses, cocurricular programs, and community-based instructional settings.
Use our Learning & Action Bridge to discover your next steps. The LAB offers you high-impact interfaith opportunities and resources based on your role and goals.
Interfaith America is recognized as tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Accounts independently audited by Plante Moran. For more details on Interfaith America’s financial position, our FY25 Audit is available to the public here. We are grateful to the donors, partners, and supporters who advance our mission-delivery efforts and strengthen our financial position.
Largest organizational budget to date
In granting across sectors
More than 2.8 billion impressions across platforms on IA’s “Shared Table” PSA with Ad Council
Programs launched
Learners engaged with online courses
Substantively engaged campuses since FY21
Affiliate sites received grants, training, and resources to design and carry out local bridgebuilding projects through the second Team Up cohort
Interfaith leaders in the Emerging Leaders Network
Average daily viewers of IA’s public pluralism ad in Times Square (April 10, 2025 – June 30, 2025) and 250,000+ related views across social media platforms
