| Actor |
Description |
Potential roles |
| Faith-based NGOS |
- Faith-inspired NGOs inhabiting both the faith and secular development worlds, requiring them to work effectively in both domains.
- Connected to faith constituencies, but can sometimes operate independently of faith hierarchies and exercise some autonomy and flexibility.
- Some larger international FBOs maintain sophisticated bureaucracies with significant technical and management capacity.
|
- Administer programs, including service delivery, advocacy and research/analysis.
- Mobilize faith constituencies for volunteer, financial or advocacy support.
- Facilitate greater linkages among local faith efforts and between local faith efforts and the broader development community, including knowledge exchange, partnership brokering, and resource mobilization.
- Build capacity of local faith efforts.
|
| Faith-based networks and intermediaries |
- Operate nationally, regionally, or globally, and comprised of faith-inspired members, sometimes representing different faith traditions and diverse perspectives.
- May represent large faith-inspired constituencies.
|
- Mobilize and represent a collective moral voice; engage in advocacy.
- Mobilize constituencies for volunteer, financial or advocacy support.
- Coordination and brokering among faith members and between members and the broader development community, including as a platform for knowledge sharing, networking, coordination and resource mobilization.
- Provide member-support services (e.g. capacity building, technical assistance, standard setting).
|
| Faith-based service delivery infrastructure |
- Includes ‘hard’ service-delivery infrastructure (e.g. schools, clinics, and hospitals).
- Variable degree of alignment with national service delivery infrastructure.
- May have a long history of local service provision, tradition of working with marginalized populations, and deep local knowledge.
|
- Operate ‘on the front lines’ to provide direct services to local communities.
- Influence behaviour through service delivery.
|
| International and national faith leaders |
- Often visible, well-respected public figures.
- Opinion leaders with cultural and political influence, as well as thought leaders, who interpret faith text and spread ideas.
- Influence can transcend faiths and geographical boundaries.
|
- Moral voice and a platform they can use to influence and inspire their followers as well as others.
- Can influence followers directly, or through local leaders via denominational hierarchies, where they exist.
- Advocate with policymakers.
|
| Denominational hierarchies |
- Variation in degree of organization and centralization of authority across faiths.
- Can be influential and political and cultural figures.
|
- Guide, coordinate and support the work of their local faith communities.
- Channel for communicating concerns rising from local faith leaders and laypersons upwards to national and international faith leadership.
- Advocate with policymakers.
|
| Local congregations and houses of worship |
- Congregations and their leaders have deep community roots and serve as regular gathering places for congregants.
- Local faith leaders are often trusted community figures and can sometimes influence national policies.
|
- Local religious leaders can be effective change agents, mobilizing congregations by influencing attitudes and behaviors and inspiring action, and engaging in advocacy.
- Congregational members can be mobilized locally or across borders to donate, volunteer, advocate, or monitor their communities.
- Houses of worship can serve as the infrastructure for gathering people or as a distribution channel.
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