The catch-22 of organizations, like ENEJ, which seek to implement their vision of justice, comes down to this:  How can the mission be carried out without adequate funding and how can that funding be secured without the mission being implemented?

Since the work of the Network is primarily local - but scattered across the county, in many dioceses and congregations, our challenge is to make this work visible throughout the Church so that our people, most of whom are privileged, see why economic justice is central to the Gospel and why economic justice funding is a high priority.  To do so requires that economic justice work - whether advocacy for workers' rights in our communities, or building community financial institutions like diocesan credit unions to support working and low-income communities, or creating educational resources for parishes and individuals around issues of faith and economics, or investment opportunities in so-called alternative investments - be made visible and appealing.

For groups like ENEJ, comprised of volunteers scattered around the country and with only one half-time paid staff person, this constitutes a challenge.  The Capacity Building Committee, whose purpose is to expand our membership and funding for ENEJ's program, has worked at this challenge in various ways.  We continue to build membership by our appeal letters - which outline the work of the Network - to individual church members, dioceses and parishes, as well as related networks such as Jubilee Ministries and the Urban Caucus.  Currently, we have about 260 individual members, 26 Diocesan memberships and 50 plus parishes and church organizations.

We have also prepared a template for developing proposals to foundations but, constrained by a small committee and very limited staff time, have put foundation grant-seeking on hold while we focus on building the Network through expanding memberships at all levels.

Recently we have identified the need to tell and share the economic justice stories of those engaged in the work, whether the church-related organizations - credit unions, community development corporations or parishes engaged in housing efforts - such as groups which have been honored with ENEJ's Gloria Brown award (named for the National Church's first economic justice staff person) - or church members, lay and ordained, who have been leaders in advocacy for working and poor people, some of whom we have honored with the Hugh White Trumpet of Justice award.

How you can help: Send us stories of economic justice work that you or your parish are engaged in.  Recruit your diocese and parish to join the Network, if they have not already done so.  If you have contact with foundations that might fund our work or if you have grant-writing experience that you can volunteer, please let us know.  If you can help in any of these areas or would like to strengthen ENEJ by joining our Capacity-Building Committee, please contact our staff person, Mike Maloney, at meamon@aol.com.