Abstract
Some faith-based NGOs (FBOs) encourage their constituencies to consider pro-social investments, conscious consumption patterns, long-term volunteering, and other potentially transformative experiences. The range of such activities encouraged by 50 FBOs, mostly in the United States, suggests that US-based FBOs ask less of their constituents than do European FBOs, and offer them more limited means of expressing solidarity. The practice of encouraging social investment in microfinance funds or even in projects of the FBO itself is beginning to grow in the United States. Nelson profiles several FBOs that motivate high levels of constituent engagement, arguing that volunteering, education, personal spiritual disciplines, and community engagement are all involved in creating a culture of service and solidarity.
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Notes
- 1.
Assigning net perceived opportunity costs is an inexact judgment. Speaking at a public meeting may be much more “costly” to one person than to another, and different preferences and life situations will likely all affect the true “cost” of many of these actions.
- 2.
For two of the activities, social investment and buying fair trade products, data was not collected in 2011.
- 3.
I am focusing here on encouraging investment as a principled activity, and leaving aside the related fundraising practice of encouraging regular donors to consider retirement annuities or other quasi-investment gifts to the NGO itself.
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Nelson, P.J. (2021). Beyond Advocacy? Mobilizing Compassion. In: Religious Voices in the Politics of International Development. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68964-3_7
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