Our Places
With our mission focused on racial and economic justice, we’ve has grown from a handful of congregations in a single city to a network of 125 congregations that reaches tens of thousands of Black people, women, and young people in Indiana’s power centers: Central Indiana and Northern Indiana.
Our organization houses geography-based chapters and constituency projects aimed at building the loudest voice possible for an equitable and just Indiana.
Central Indiana
Indianapolis
Our oldest chapter in Indianapolis was founded in 2012 by Shoshanna Spector and was known at the time IndyCAN! — the Indianapolis Congregation Action Network. Today, congregations across the Indianapolis Metro Area are answering the call for Justice through multiple organizing vehicles; the Black Church Coalition, the immigrant coalition, and growing.
Here are just a few of the ways our grassroots movement in Indianapolis improved the material conditions of people’s lives:
Faith in St. Joseph County was launched in 2018 in South Bend and has grown into a regional powerhouse.
From reforming law enforcement, to ending ICE detainers, to a $3.3 million crisis response center, to advocating for equity during the pandemic, our work in St. Joe County shows when we unite across faith, race, and place a better Indiana is possible.
In Northwest Indiana, a region where low-income communities of color are regularly exposed to dangerous chemicals, thanks to generations of proximity to polluting industries, decades of disinvestment, and criminalization of people of color, Faith in Indiana supported local activists, like the new Northwest Interfaith Action, to win campaigns to expand mental health, improve police accountability, and more.
Northern Indiana
Allen County
Faith in Allen County, launched in 2018, is home to Fort Wayne, Indiana’s second largest city. Through our organizing, we’ve worked to put the brakes on jail expansion, expand mental health services, remove a lifetime ban on SNAP benefits for people convicted of a drug felony, and led Faith in Indiana’s statewide efforts to eliminate punitive Medicaid work requirements.
St. Joseph County
Faith in Indiana’s St. Joseph County chapter was launched in 2018 in South Bend and has grown into a regional powerhouse.
From reforming law enforcement, to ending ICE detainers, to leading Indiana to overhaul our mental health system, our work in St. Joe County shows when we unite across faith, race, and place a better Indiana is possible.
Support for Emerging Efforts
Faith in Indiana is an ecosystem builder, adding capacity to communities standing against injustice and seeding new organizing efforts to grow our collective impact.
In Elkhart County and Newton County, we worked with community partners to beat back plans to build two for-profit immigrant detention facilities that, if built, would have tripled deportations across the midwest.
In Hamilton County we built the voice of faith leaders to advocate for an end to ICE detainers, expand mental health and crisis care, and push for more affordable housing.
In Northwest Indiana, a region where low-income communities of color are regularly exposed to dangerous chemicals, thanks to generations of proximity to polluting industries, decades of disinvestment, and criminalization of people of color, Faith in Indiana supported local activists to win campaigns to expand mental health, improve police accountability, and promote climate justice.
In partnership with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, Faith in Indiana responded to rising anti-immigrant hate and the surge in deportations separating families to launch Catholic Accompaniment and Reflection Experience (CARE). Through the program, we created a rapid response hotline and trained hundreds of volunteers as rapid responders to stand in solidarity with people threatened by ICE or law enforcement. Our work to accompany our neighbors at ICE check-ins and court hearings resulted in families being reunited and shined the light on the inhumane treatment of mass deportation on our families.