A Bright future ahead
Rejuvenating the North American Interfaith Network
A TIO Report
Last month 28 interfaith leaders from across North America gathered in Boulder City, Nevada to talk about rejuvenating the 31-year-old network. Newcomers who thrive on grassroots interfaith culture need to know about NAIN (North American Interfaith Network). It was initiated in Wichita, Kansas in 1988, a gathering of grassroots interfaith leaders so unprecedented at the time that the New York Times covered the event as an historical milestone in American religion.
Since then NAIN’s major activity has been an annual summer conference (called a NainConnect), gatherings rich in how-to workshops and long-established relationships among those in the interreligious vineyard. NAIN has been to Atlanta, Beausejour, Berkeley, Buffalo, Chautauqua, Chicago, Columbia, Columbus, Detroit, Edmonton, Fullerton, Guadalajara, Kansas City, Las Vegas, New York City, Orangeville, Phoenix, Regina, Richmond, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver BC. The 2015 Connect in Regina, set in the vast plains of Canada’s Saskatchewan province, was an exemplar of what NAIN does well.
NAIN has been characterized in these pages as an ‘alternative’ interfaith stakeholder. It has no staff, depending instead on board members to do the heavy lifting. Each year a host committee in a new city is challenged to produce an international event, and typically the process becomes a milestone achievement for the local leaders. Each year becomes a gift, a collaboration between volunteers from the local host committee and seasoned NAINers (thank you, Skyler Oberst, for the new noun!) working together.
Skylar Oberst and Lynda Trono – Photo: Greg Harder
For years NAIN’s miniscule annual budget has gone largely to “young adult scholars” who compete for scholarships to attend a Connect. The policy has produced remarkable dividends. Seven of the 28 attending this month’s leadership retreat were Millennials, a claim most interfaith groups can only dream about. Young and old took a deep dive into NAIN’s DNA, explored the values and goals of the organization in small groups that reported back to the larger group, in the process defining the most important issues for the next three to five years. At the end people left with a set of specific assignments for revitalizing NAIN’s future. Lynda Trono and Skylar Oberst were master-facilitators from start to finish.
Much to NAIN’s ongoing embarrassment, the Guadalajara Connect in 2016 was the only time NAIN has managed to meet in Mexico. The Nevada retreat decided to do something about it. Elias Gonzalez, a 28-year-old teacher and activist in Oaxaca, Mexico started attending NAINConnects four years ago and helped lead the host committee when NAIN went to Guadalajara. Elias was an important contributor in Boulder City and will be leading a team to explore how to grow and develop NAIN in Mexico. Initial funding was discussed, and old hopes are becoming a new reality.
Six proposals funneled out of the discussion, the most important being a recommendation to the board to secure a part-time Chief Operating Officer to coordinate and guide the manifold volunteer work that sustains NAIN. Having a full-time Executive Director has been suggested for years, but NAIN has never had enough money for that. The new COO role will be a contracted position, not an employee.
On the second day in Boulder City an anonymous $10,000 challenge grant was announced, and by the end of the retreat, more than $30,000 was quietly pledged for NAIN’s upcoming plans.
Photo: Greg Harder
The meetings were held in the home built by Gard and Florence Jameson. (Gard hosted the NAINConnect when it went to Las Vegas and is an author, professor, philanthropist, and interfaith activist.) The Jameson home is a magnificent, multi-layered domicile overlooking Lake Mead, surrounded by ten gardens that climb up a hillside full of chapels, fountains and interreligious statuary. Gard and Florence made a decision years ago to share the facility with groups like NAIN; to do so they added a beautiful, spacious meeting room (the white walls on the right of the building) where most of NAIN’s work was done last week.
In the past NAIN has been underestimated by some interfaith activists because it isn’t big and doesn’t play by the same rules as most aspiring nonprofits. But as it enters its fourth decade, paying all its bills, finding itself empowered by a new generation of leaders, and modestly starting to build a staff, NAIN has been and remains an ongoing source of joy and satisfaction for grassroots interfaith leaders across North America. The 2020 NainConnect will be held in early August in South Bend, Indiana. All are welcome.
Header Photo: Unsplash