By Brian Grim
NEW: First Comprehensive Resource on Religion’s Impact in America
Faith Counts, a multi-faith nonprofit group, recently launched a first-of-its-kind database that distills the latest research on how religion positively impacts the most important issues facing America.
Two of the studies that my daughter, Melissa Grim, and I did on the economic contribution of faith to society are featured:
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Socio-economic impact: Religions in the United States today contribute a combined $1.2 trillion a year to the economy and society.
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Substance abuse addiction: Faith-based recovery programs provides $316 billion annually in savings to U.S. economy.
However, studies highlighting the impact of faith and religion are often aimed at scholars and academics, making it difficult to find the meaningful information too often buried in published works that can be difficult for the non-scholar to navigate.
Faith Facts uses videos, infographics and shareables to pull out key data points to detail the invaluable role faith communities play in supporting the economy, healthcare, immigration, criminal justice, substance abuse and disaster relief. They have been particularly critical during this historically difficult period, supporting:
- — Disaster relief: About 58% of all emergency shelter beds are faith-based
- — Criminal justice: There are 12,000 congregations in the U.S. that have prisoner outreach groups
- — Immigration: Over 30,000 congregations have programs to help immigrants