Title: RFI Crisis Toolkit for Religious Institutions: Institutional Governance

Author: Nathaniel Hurd, Nathan Berkeley, Katie Davern, and Ian Speir

About: The RFI Crisis Toolkit for Religious Institutions offers practical guidance to help institutions prepare for, mitigate, and respond to crises while remaining faithful to their core convictions, identity, and mission. The Toolkit features three modules: Institutional Governance, Communications, and Community Relationships. Together they address threats to religious institutions from lawsuits, smear cam­paigns, hostile media coverage, adversarial legislation, aggressive government administrative action, and more. 

The Institutional Governance module provides a roadmap for congregations, religious educational institutions at all levels, faith-based social service organizations, and countless other religious institutions to re­duce their vulnerabilities to potential or current legal threats. Morally orthodox institutions are particularly at risk of being attacked at this time for their convictions, words, and actions regarding human sexuality, marriage, the intrinsic dignity of human life, the natural, God-given distinctions between females and males, and related matters.

While preparing for and navigating such legal threats may sometimes be challenging and even costly to these institutions, doing so also presents an opportunity for them to strengthen their commitment to their convictions and core mission. This resource is intended to aid religious institutions in doing just that.

Publication Date: September 2022

Suggested Citation: Nathaniel Hurd, Nathan Berkeley, Katie Davern, and Ian Speir. “RFI Crisis Toolkit for Religious Institutions: Institutional Governance.” Religious Freedom Institute, 2022.

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