Salon: The Faith and Organizations Project: Findings and Process

SALON:  The Faith and Organizations Project:  Findings and Process

May 9, 2012

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Interactive discussions

Snacks and drinks provided (please register if you are planning to attend)

Home of Stan Yoder and Jill Mac Dougall

216 St. Lawrence Dr.

Silver Spring, MD

Description:

The Faith and Organizations Project is a trans-disciplinary, multi-methods ethnographic project looking at the relationship between faith based organizations and their founding communities.  The project recently completed a Lilly Endowment funded project comparing 81 faith communities and organizations from Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Jewish, Evangelical, Quaker and African American Christian traditions.  The project model involves agency hosts and practitioners as active participants in all aspects of the project, creating products for a variety of audiences.  This presentation will briefly outline key findings, talk about project process, and discuss experiences working as anthropologists in trans-disciplinary projects.

Presenters:

Jo Anne Schneider (PhD, Temple) is the Principal Investigator for the project.  She is an urban anthropologist focusing on the dynamic among non-profits, government and communities in social welfare policy and opportunity structures for marginalized populations. Schneider’s book on welfare reform, Social Capital and Welfare Reform (2006, Columbia U.P.) insightfully discusses the successes and failures of efforts at welfare reform in the U.S.

Isaac Morrison holds a MA in Anthropology from the George Washington University. He is currently an Associate at Innovation Network, a Washington DC-based nonprofit evaluation, research, and consulting firm.

Laura Polk received a Masters in Applied Anthropology from University of Maryland, College Park.  She is currently a Program Consultant at Trinity Volunteer Corps.