IMAC STRATEGIC PLAN
2013 - 2015
(REVISED IN 2014)
In May, 2013 IMAC’s Steering Committee and invited guests met in Bethesda, Maryland for a daylong retreat to map out an IMAC strategic plan for the next three years.
Since IMAC’s creation in 2011, IMAC had crafted a Mission and Vision statement, and had planned a series of activities in Washington, D.C, all of which were orchestrated through a series of monthly conference calls open to all interested parties. The somewhat ad hoc nature of those activities and a growing clarity about IMAC’s vision and direction led to the creation of the three-year Strategic Plan, proved below for your review.
In further response to the work done to date, the Steering Committee has created a number of task forces. We invite you to serve on any of the subcommittees, and ask that you share your interest in such service with any task force leader, whose names and email addresses are provided below.
Vision Statement
A world powered by clean, renewable energy and blessed by a stable, benign climate that supports all life.
Mission Statement
To bring together communities of faith with the purpose of awakening our nation’s leaders to their moral obligation of taking urgent action on climate change.
Goals
I. To be a prophetic voice of moral responsibility for effecting a response to climate change by speaking in the name of faith-based communities to the political, religious, corporate and social “powers that be” through prayer, word, and action in two signature events by:
II. To build the interfaith coalition and bring it as a community to support, service and engagement with climate-change action networks and campaigns as a moral force by:
III. To confront political, economic, and social causes of climate change advocating support of remediation of its impacts through legislative, regulatory, institutional and behavioral means under a rubric of “Move Our Money/Protect Our Planet [MOM & POP], including:
IV. To create and disseminate resources and tools of pastoral application that will build resilience and hope and will sustain us in the face of the impacts of climate change as the we transform the ways in which we live in the world to effect changes that mitigate current climate trajectories, including:
IMAC Steering Committee Members:
[*=IMAC office-holder]
The Steering Committee has no formal constituting basis beyond a volunteer commitment to regularly participate in the work and planning of IMAC events and advance its work as a coalition.
IMAC Task Force Groups & Conveners:
Cindy Harris, Catherine Skopic, David Krantz
Terry Ellen, Cindy Harris, Mordechai Liebling,
Ibrahim Ramey, Lise Van Susteren
Cindy Harris, Ibrahim Ramey,Arthur Waskow, Ted Glick
Terry Ellen, Cindy Harris, Mordechai Liebling
Since IMAC’s creation in 2011, IMAC had crafted a Mission and Vision statement, and had planned a series of activities in Washington, D.C, all of which were orchestrated through a series of monthly conference calls open to all interested parties. The somewhat ad hoc nature of those activities and a growing clarity about IMAC’s vision and direction led to the creation of the three-year Strategic Plan, proved below for your review.
In further response to the work done to date, the Steering Committee has created a number of task forces. We invite you to serve on any of the subcommittees, and ask that you share your interest in such service with any task force leader, whose names and email addresses are provided below.
Vision Statement
A world powered by clean, renewable energy and blessed by a stable, benign climate that supports all life.
Mission Statement
To bring together communities of faith with the purpose of awakening our nation’s leaders to their moral obligation of taking urgent action on climate change.
Goals
I. To be a prophetic voice of moral responsibility for effecting a response to climate change by speaking in the name of faith-based communities to the political, religious, corporate and social “powers that be” through prayer, word, and action in two signature events by:
- Planning and holding an event each year on the anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday which addresses the urgency of the climate crisis in the context of social, economic, and racial justice as a moral imperative; and deepens a public awareness of the complicity of those living in the United States for current climate conditions and threats globally.
- Planning and holding an event each year during periods of religious significance (particularly the periods of Christian Holy Week and Jewish Passover) that addresses the climate crisis through the beliefs, values and traditions of faith-communities which are the occasion for reflection on and direction of actions and practices.
II. To build the interfaith coalition and bring it as a community to support, service and engagement with climate-change action networks and campaigns as a moral force by:
- Focusing on the position and role of President Barack Obama as an instrumental agent of moral efficacy both because of the power of the position to affect change through executive order and because of the political case the President made relative to climate change in his successful bid for reelection and in his addresses to the public during the first months of his current term.
- Creating deeper, more organic and authentic engagement with congregations and communities that are comprised significantly by people of color, and communities that represent other faiths and traditions, in addition to mainline Christian and Jewish communities with whom IMAC has strong initial relationships, including particularly Indigenous Peoples, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and non-traditional, non-sectarian spiritual communities.
- Collaborating with broad-based event-focused networks and campaigns, such as 350.org’s 2013 July Walk for Our Grandchildren and September Fracking focus, and Interfaith Power & Light, Green Hevra, and Green Faith, by broadcasting and advocating participation in the events they organize, and by seeking to convene IMAC members as contingents at such events and providers of prayerful reflection and training and support of nonviolent participation in such efforts.
III. To confront political, economic, and social causes of climate change advocating support of remediation of its impacts through legislative, regulatory, institutional and behavioral means under a rubric of “Move Our Money/Protect Our Planet [MOM & POP], including:
- Supporting the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in current economic and tax policy.
- Advocating for a monetary reclamation of the economic costs of carbon production through mining/manufacturing/and commerce and the redistribution of that asset.
- Campaigning among faith-based institutions (adjudicatories and congregations), and investment agents including those of pension funds, academic institutions, donor driven charitable groups, etc. to take decisions to move investments in fossil fuels to alternatives that meet criteria of a sustainable future for all creation. Such campaigning will be advanced within a framework that recognizes a full range of alternatives to use of fossil fuels and the extreme extractive industries which compound their use as well as those catastrophic practices of deforestation, manufacturing and agricultural which similarly aggravate the threats of climate change. The framework includes justice issues addressed through community investing and by financial institutions that serve economic development interests addressed to the evils of inequity. Tools include screened investing, transformed consumption practices, sustainably responsible investing, and prophetic witness. In addition to a responsible timeline and pathway that leads to support of industries of renewable energy production: wind, solar, hydro, the campaign has a broader agenda of social justice and creation care. Work will be supported at the local, state and national level through personal practices, governance, and commerce.
- Naming, in a variety of ways, extreme extractive practices - tar sands, fracking, mountain top removal, deep water and remote region drilling - and publicly identify the agents of these practices (company names, industry leaders, lobbying organizations, etc.)
IV. To create and disseminate resources and tools of pastoral application that will build resilience and hope and will sustain us in the face of the impacts of climate change as the we transform the ways in which we live in the world to effect changes that mitigate current climate trajectories, including:
- Personal reflections and meditations, as well as individual and group exercises to address despair and openly face the pain of the world.
- Specific liturgical resources to be used in worship and religious ceremonies as prayers, orders of worship, bulletin resources, homilies and sermons, editorials etc.
- A bibliography of web-based resources available on the IMAC website to educate the public about both general and specific climate crisis concerns such as the religious/faith-based justification of action for creation care, the science of climate change, practices that can be adopted, and resources for organizing for action.
- Initiating the steps to allow us to later apply for a 501(c) 3 should we choose, to be able to solicit for charitable support and philanthropic grants directly; and to seek a combination of resources that will generate at least $25,000 for the coming twelve months of activity. The process would lead to the creation of a board and adoption of by-laws. In the interim the Fellowship of Reconciliation will continue to serve as fiscal sponsor of IMAC.
- Strengthen and clarify the role of the Steering Committee (as the Board or executive committee of the Board) to organize task forces and work groups to be accountable to specific goals and objectives of the strategic plan and overall work of IMAC.
- Routinize the practices of meeting and communication so that the roles of convener, facilitator, note-taker and action-tracker rotate on a known schedule, (meeting to meeting, month to month, quarter to quarter?).
- Confirm the ways in which consensus decision-making will guide IMAC as a process, particularly as it relates to the function of endorsing events and relationships to other networks and organizations (quorum or respondents, time-bound…)
- Identify and define categories of relationship to IMAC including membership, sponsorship, and endorsers.
- Segment and organize audiences so that they are easily identified and operationalized for purposes of communication (faith-leaders, religious institutions, communications outlets, political leaders, etc.)
- Affirm the value of and appreciation for the special support of Climate Nexus as a communications resource and network asset in an on-going fashion.
- Identify the liaison (IMAC “Treasurer”) to the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s financial management staff during the period of fiscal sponsorship.
IMAC Steering Committee Members:
[*=IMAC office-holder]
The Steering Committee has no formal constituting basis beyond a volunteer commitment to regularly participate in the work and planning of IMAC events and advance its work as a coalition.
- Dr. Asoka Bandarage, Professor, Environmentalist, Author
- Rev. Tom Carr, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church, Hartford, CT; Interreligious Eco Justice Network, CT
- Marcia Cleveland, formerly with Friends Committee on National Legislation; Physicians for Social Responsibility
- Rev. Dr. Terence Ellen, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in the National Capital Region
- Ted Glick, National Campaign Coordinator, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
- *Cynthia Harris, Coordinator/Secretary, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate
- *Dr. Mark Johnson, Treasurer, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate; Executive Director, The Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice
- David Krantz, President, Green Zionist Alliance
- Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Director, Social Justice Org. Program, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
- Jacqueline Patterson, Director, NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program
- Rachel Potter, Climate Nexus
- Ibrahim Ramey, Muslim American Freedom Society
- Catherine Skopic, Former Chair of the Environmental Task Force of the Congregation of Saint Saviour, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
- *Lise Van Susteren, MD, Convener, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Advisory Board, Center for Health and the Global Environment; NWF
- Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center
IMAC Task Force Groups & Conveners:
- Events /Activities Task Force
Cindy Harris, Catherine Skopic, David Krantz
- Outreach / Communications Task Force
Terry Ellen, Cindy Harris, Mordechai Liebling,
Ibrahim Ramey, Lise Van Susteren
- Organization / Fundraising Task Force
Cindy Harris, Ibrahim Ramey,Arthur Waskow, Ted Glick
- Move Our Money / Protect Our Planet
Terry Ellen, Cindy Harris, Mordechai Liebling