FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2018
CONTACT: Heather Cabral, 202.550.6880, heather@westendstrategy.com
Rhonda Smith, rsmith@piconetwork.org, 202-308-0514
Nation’s Largest, Faith-Based Organizing Network Changes its Name, Introduces New Look
PICO National Network will Change its Name to Faith in Action
WASHINGTON – As part of our work to organize people of faith and reflect moral courage, PICO National Network will change our name to Faith in Action on May 1, 2018. The name change reflects our commitment to live out our faith organizing tradition and carry on the action-oriented legacy of faith leaders such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Catholic convert Dorothy Day and others who have led transformative social movements. The name change comes following a recent announcement on the hiring of our new executive director, the Rev. Alvin Herring, who begins on May 1. Rev. Herring succeeds Scott Reed, who will retire on June 1, 2018, ending a 40-year tenure with the National Network.
“Our new name, Faith in Action, more accurately conveys our core mission of helping to equip ordinary people to bring their deep moral and faith commitments into public life and build a more just and equitable society,” said Rev. Alvin Herring, Faith in Action’s executive director. “Powerful faith lives in the streets and not in buildings. In defining faith, we define the direction of our country.”
Along with our new name, Faith in Action will unveil a new logo, offer customized logos to our 45 state and local federations, and international federations in Rwanda, Central America, and Haiti. They will also launch a new website, www.FaithinAction.org, and change our social media handles. Faith in Action will celebrate this change with a gala on May 9 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Later in May they will also host an open house to introduce Faith in Action’s new leadership and discuss the future of faith organizing in the Trump era. Details on these events will be shared in the coming days.
Following a multi-year strategic planning process, Faith in Action determined that a new name, look and feel would help attract a wider range of grassroots leaders, policymakers and allies inside and outside the faith community to join in faith-based campaigns to achieve systemic change. Currently, more than 1 million families and 1,000 congregations from 40 different denominations and faiths are affiliated with Faith in Action.
Faith in Action was founded in 1972 as PICO under the leadership of Father John Baumann, a Jesuit priest who had learned community organizing in Chicago. PICO began as a regional training institute to support neighborhood organizations in California. With guidance from Dr. Jose Carrasco, a veteran organizer and teacher, and Scott Reed, PICO developed a new congregation-community model. In this model, congregations of all denominations and faiths serve as the institutional base for community organizations. Rather than bring people together simply based on common issues like housing or education, the faith-based or broad-based organizing model makes values and relationships the glue that holds organizations together. These innovations have resulted in the development of a national network of powerful, long-lasting community organizations.
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Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO National Network, is the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States. The nonpartisan organization works with 1,000 religious congregations in more than 200 cities and towns through its 45 local and state federations.
