Resources
The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture is committed to developing tools for both researchers and community leaders to build connections and work more effectively toward shared goals.
Research Tools
The following tools are helpful for researchers, students and journalists. To learn more about researching specific religious communities, explore the faith fluency tools below as well.
FEATURED RESOURCES
Studying Faith: Qualitative Methodologies for Studying Religious Communities
This Methods Book serves as a handbook or “how to” guide for students interested in studying religious groups from the perspective of a social scientist using qualitative research methodologies. It will help you decide what group or groups to study, how to study them, which people to talk to once you arrive and how to analyze the data you collect.
Read the Methods Book
Created out of CRCC’s project on Engaged Spirituality, the following interview guide may be useful to journalists and researchers interested in collecting and telling stories of humanitarianism and/or the role of spirituality in people’s lives and work.
News organizations should strive to cover every community with accuracy, nuance and sensitivity. Such coverage is especially important given the risks and prejudices marginalized and vulnerable religious communities face in the U.S. and abroad. In this Reporting Guide, we focus on how “ethnographic journalism” might provide some solutions for religion newswriters looking to report on such communities with critical sensitivity.
CRCC developed a survey for congregational leaders that can be used to ask questions on congregational leadership and governance and how a congregation acts within its community.
Faith Leadership
Faith and community leaders can use the following tools in their work. These resources were created out of programs directed toward Christian Leaders. In our experiences, many principles included in the resources can be applied across traditions.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Reimagining Church: A Toolkit
Even as religious affiliation declines in the United States, some faith groups across religious traditions continue to thrive. With this toolkit, we seek to guide faith leaders on their journey of reimagining how religion can be lived out communally.
Download a PDF of the Toolkit
CRCC offers media readiness trainings and a handbook to prepare faith leaders to work with journalists on newsworthy stories. The training and handbook are structured into five principles: Be Read-y, Be Available, Be Succinct, Be Careful, Be Generous. Attendees received booklets to remind them of these principles. CRCC also provides consulting on social media and public leadership through media work.
Contact crcc@usc.edu for more information about media training and consulting.
Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray was a force for positive social change in Los Angeles. This workbook compiles 14 sermons that characterize Rev. Murray’s distinctive combination of moral remonstrance, social critique and comfort for the afflicted. Reflection questions with each sermon inspire readers to apply sacred truths to contemporary contexts.
To access the workbook, tell us your vision for improving your community.
Healing Heartwork Toolkits
In response to the emerging needs of AMCLI fellows, the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) crafted toolkits focused on deepening our understanding of Islamic modalities for healing and wellness. Released each Ramadan from 2021 to 2023, each Healing Heartwork toolkit presents three parts that can be applied toward self-care and community care.
These resources were created out of programs directed toward Muslim Leaders. In our experiences, many principles included in the resources can be applied across traditions.
All three toolkits are available online and as PDFs.
Volume 1 of Healing Heartwork, Exploring the Self, focuses on cultivating afiya, or emotional well-being, through practices that create moments of sakina, or tranquility.
Volume 2 of Healing Heartwork, Exploring Loss, centers on janazah, or funeral rites, as a way to address experiences of grief during the global pandemic while creating opportunities to pause and reflect on the losses endured, drawing peace from spiritual practices focused on honoring the body, mind, heart and soul.
Volume 3 of Healing Heartwork, Exploring Joy, focuses on humor and comedy in Islam, alongside other modalities for cultivating joy and lightness of being, both in our everyday lives and in our work in the world.
Economic Empowerment Tools
The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture hosts an annual Economic Empowerment series.
Sign up for CRCC’s newsletter to hear about future workshops.
Find personal financial advice and resources that can help both leaders and their community members — students, parents, business owners, seniors — work on their financial health and build their wealth.
Resources on budgeting and personal finances, homeownership, investing, entrepreneurship, finance for seniors, fraud, banking options and more.
Watch past workshops with leaders in the field of economic empowerment to learn best practices. View videos on topics from investing, entrepreneurship, managing church finances, running a community development corporation and more.
Faith Fluency Tools
People of various faiths work within and in partnership with government agencies, the private sector, nonprofits, philanthropy, education, health care and more. Faith fluency allows people to work together with awareness and respect for differing beliefs and practices.
Being “fluent” in a faith or religious tradition involves understanding enough about it to respectfully engage with adherents of that tradition. It also requires knowing how to act and learn more when you do not have all the answers.
The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture has built resources to boost religious literacy and competency in partnership around disasters preparedness.
We believe these resources can also be helpful to scholars, students, journalists, health care workers and anyone who comes into contact with diverse religious groups.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Disasters and Religions App
The Disasters & Religions app presents easily accessible religious literacy and competency information on 27 unique religious traditions, from Baha’i to Zoroastrianism, including 12 Christian denominations. CRCC helped build the first version of the app, which is now sponsored by the National Disaster Interfaith Network, New York Disaster Interfaith Services and National VOAD.
Additional Resources
CRCC, in partnership with National Disaster Interfaith Network and other organizations, developed the following tools to help professionals and volunteers engage with communities and understand their religious beliefs and requirements.
Black American Religious Groups
The USC Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement created this religious literacy primer of Black American religious groups for the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB). It aims to help members of the organization engage with the faith community to promote homeownership and wealth-building in African American communities.
Evaluation and Learning Tools
The below guides were developed as part of CRCC’s work as the Measurement, Evaluation and Learning partner for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Catholic Sisters Initiative.
They are relevant to any nonprofit or faith leaders looking to evaluate their programs.
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is a process by which an organization learns about how well their programs run and how to improve performance and achieve results.
Find definitions of key terms used in Monitoring and Evaluation.
As you create an M&E plan and system, it is helpful to consider your capacity, including leadership, staffing and competencies, data management systems and financial resources.
The following Monitoring and Evaluation software options may benefit your organization.
It is important to locate and hire a M&E staff member who fully meet your needs and, ultimately, increases the quality of your M&E programming.
Connect with CRCC
Building Knowledge, Strengthening Communities
Our mission is to advance the understanding of religion and society, and support faith and community leaders in becoming full partners in the work of positive social change.
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Contact Us
Center for Religion and Civic Culture
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0520