Mission Statement
The mission of the Foundation's Faith Initiative is to create more and better interfaith service capacity and volunteering in concert with the Volunteer Center National Network. This effort seeks to deliver training, resources, and expertise to congregations and the millions of individuals who volunteer based on the principles of their faith.

Service and service training are vehicles to connect the social capital of diverse communities and expand overall volunteer infrastructure and supply.  The Faith Initiative believes this is enhanced when diverse faith cultures and communities serve together, tapping the immense supply of volunteers provided by congregations. 

The Foundation and its Faith Initiative are well positioned to be a central networking agency because of the depth and breadth of their networks, and the ability to cross public and private sector boundaries, working both as social entrepreneur and as an intermediary with larger federal agencies and a broad range of community and philanthropic partners. Key among these partners are the nation's Volunteer Centers and a host of national faith-based and secular organizations, non-profit groups, foundations, and federal, state and local agencies.

The Faith Initiative has developed training and resources, replicable models for communities and a track record of successful interfaith training and service that is unmatched in the nation.  It has a particular interest in engaging young people of faith in volunteerism, diverse interfaith service and service learning.

POLF Faith Initiative Highlights

• Martin Luther King Day of Service: 192 sites in 2005;  $180,000 in disbursed funds
• Summer InterFace: hundreds of young people engaged in intercultural interfaith contemporary youth service and volunteering in Washington, DC (including Washington Post feature news article)
• 1st & 2nd Annual National Conference Faith Institute: several hundreds of faith and service leaders gathered as part of the Points of Light Foundation Conference to work on advancing the Faith and Service agenda;
• Interfaith leadership across the country with hundreds of the largest and most influential interfaith service organizations;
• Resource Materials, tip sheets and service event plans throughout the year;
• 20,000 faith site database;
• Faith and Service Task Force to research and develop faith-based programming for volunteer centers
• Americorps VISTA Strengthening Communities Project (initiated by the Faith Initiatives of POLF and CNCS) largest VISTA project in the country

Want more information? 
Contact Faith@PointsofLight.org or visit www.PointsofLight.org/networks/faith/taskforce.cfm