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<h1>about us </h1>
<p>The mission of Faith Partnership Inc. is to improve the lives of low-income
people and low-income communities by connecting community and faith-based institutions
to a range of new skills and resources. We were founded in 2001 by <a href="staff.html">Eva
Clarke</a>, our President and Chief Executive Officer.
Eva's
ten
years
of experience
as a leader in the community
development financial institution (C.D.F.I.), community development corporation
(C.D.C.), and faith arenas equips her to understand diverse constituencies
and to bridge the gaps between them.</p>
<p>Faith Partnership was launched out of our recognition of two key realities:</p>
<ul>
<li>faith-based institutions
play a vital role in providing goods and services to poor and disenfranchised
members
of
our
society. </li>
<li> like
other
non-profit
organizations, faith-based institutions often fail to access the necessary
human and financial capital, partnerships, and management expertise
to bring their social programs to scale.</li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, although most faith-based
institutions seek to be channels of God's love to the world around
them, many
of them fail
to fully engage the resources that God has made available to them.
Our initial approach to our mission was to focus on the faith-based institutions
in our community and to help them establish connections with key <a href="partners.html">anchor
institutions</a>. Much of this work was done in the form of consulting
services.</p>
<p>We eventually realized that our work would be more effective if we modelled
these kinds of connections as a faith-based institution ourselves. Therefore,
in 2005 we reorganized Faith Partnership as the community development affiliate
of <a href="http://www.lifechurchministries.org/" target="_blank">Life Church
Ministries, Inc *</a>.</p>
<p>The Bible records the story of God's incarnation in
Jesus Christ. By becoming human God was able to relate
to men and women personally and as a part of their natural world. This enabled
him to influence them in new and more effective ways. At Faith Partnership
we pursue that incarnational model by
creating
strategic alliances with the same types of partnering <a href="partners.html"> anchor
institutions</a> that
we initially worked with. In this way we expand our impact on the communities
that we serve and provide models for other faith-based institutions to follow.</p>
<p>We now concentrate our efforts in four key
areas: network building, credit enhancement, institution
building,
and
consulting/training.</p>
<h3>Network Building</h3>
<ul>
<li>Convenes community, faith-based and corporate institutions as well as individuals for discussion, information sharing, and relationship building.</li>
<li>Encourages and designs partnerships that benefit faith-based social initiatives.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Credit Enhancement</h3>
<ul>
<li>Promotes the expansion of lending to faith-based and community institutions.</li>
<li>Develops lending criteria and tools.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Institution Building</h3>
<ul>
<li>Fosters the creation and support of community financial and economic development
institutions in low income, economically depressed or deteriorated neighborhoods,
cities or towns.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Consulting/Training</h3>
<ul>
<li>Provides training and technical assistance to community and faith-based institutions and individuals in the areas of affordable housing development, entrepreneurship economic development, environmental education, and other social initiatives.</li>
<li>Engages in development consulting, program planning, resource development and project administration.</li>
</ul>
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