Build-Building A United Inter-Faith Lexington Through Direct-Action
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Protestant, Religion
Mission:
Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-Action (BUILD) is an organization of 18 religious congregations located in Lexington, Kentucky. BUILD is an interfaith, interracial, grassroots, multi-issue, proactive organization. Since its inception in 2003, BUILD has been constituent-led and employs the practices of direct-action community organizing. BUILD is developing a powerful grassroots organization, made up of congregations situated in low-to moderate-income communities that are capable of creating system-wide change in Lexington.
The goals of BUILD are:
· To develop a responsible organization to address local issues of concern to member congregations/groups, through a process of education, training, research, and action.
· To strengthen the individual congregations/groups by training existing leaders in organizing skills, identifying and training potential leaders, building the participation of larger numbers of their members, and attracting the participation of new members.
· To build and deepen relationships among diverse segments of our community by bringing together groups from various cultural, economic, and religious backgrounds around common interests.
· To enable religious congregations and neighborhood groups to act on our shared values of human worth, dignity, and justice.
Programs: Our work is done primarily by volunteers. The majority of funds the organization spends are used to provide the necessary training for volunteer leaders. Ongoing training events include: Introductory training for new congregations, how to surface issues and engage others through a listening process, how to conduct research and empower people to take action on community problems and how to locally raise funds. These trainings are conducted by BUILD staff and make up the largest expense of the organization.