Global Launch of AI-Powered Common Growth Fund to Support Social and Faith-Based Enterprises

Rome: June 14, 2025 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A bold new initiative to support social and faith-based enterprises was officially launched this week at the Shape the World Summit 2025, held at the Pontifical University of Urbaniana in Vatican City.

In response and in loving memory of Pope Francis, who at the Vatican in 2017 called on the global Economy of Communion to change the rules of the socio-economic system, Consulus, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, and the FoRB Foundation of the United Kingdom announced the launch of the AI-Powered Common Growth Fund.

This innovative initiative seeks to raise 100 million USD to provide capital to social enterprises through a merit-based, AI-powered platform also known as ComGrowAI. Using technology to quickly evaluate enterprises based on governance, business model, impact, and capital needs, the fund ensures that support goes to those who can make the greatest difference, efficiently and at lower cost.

The fund is built on two key pillars:

1. 1. The Faith-Friendly REDI Workplace Index to ensure enterprises are open to people’s deeply held faith identities at work.
2.  2. The 7 Impact Measurements inspired by the principles of the Economy of Communion, ensuring holistic evaluation of purpose, people, planet, and shared prosperity.

The launch was witnessed by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, underscoring the initiative’s alignment with Catholic social values and the broader vision of the Jubilee Year of Hope.

“This is our most impactful response to the late Pope Francis who called us in the global economy of communion to change the rules of the social-economic system. Too many faith-based social enterprises are not able to access large funds to truly make a difference, we are here to change that with this initiative” – Lawrence Chong, Group CEO, Consulus

A Collaborative Response to Emerging Challenges

The Common Growth Fund is part of the Shape the World Initiative, a long-term effort by Consulus to build inclusive economies through creative leadership and shared purpose. Together with Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and The FoRB Foundation, the fund seeks to address critical structural gaps, particularly in access to capital, technology, and cross-sector collaboration faced by social and faith-rooted enterprises.

“The common growth fund is about bringing hope and opportunity to challenged communities. Those who have experienced FoRB violations deserve opportunities to provide for families, to receive education and to contribute to their community. Faith or belief isn’t a problem – it is a solution.”

– Matthew Jones, Member Board of Trustees, The FoRB Foundation,

The ForB Foundation’s commitment reflects the growing consensus among values-based institutions that freedom of belief and inclusive economic opportunity must go hand in hand. This fund is not only about financial investment but about enabling systems that respect dignity and people’s deeply held faiths at work and in enterprise.

“As Pope Leo has challenged the world to shape the 4th industrial AI revolution for good, this includes making workplaces human-centered and faith-friendly. By including our Faith-Friendly REDI Workplace Index as part of the criteria for what we expect from those we invest in, we hope to help the future of work focus on people’s flourishing not only profit.”

– Dr Brian Grim, Founding President, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF)

Join Syed Rahim, Co-Chair Exec Board, CUBE Network, to see how the work of Muslim employee networks can inform other faith networks.

About

Syed Rahim is a Senior Change Leader with an astute understanding of Operational Excellence. He is a Powerlisted, Corporate Belonging Champion.

CUBE Network is an umbrella network for Muslim Employee Resource Groups and Staff Faith Networks covering the interests of Muslim employees. Our roundtable forum facilitates a cohesive, united community for corporate Diversity and Inclusion. CUBE Network provides support to new and existing Muslim Employee Networks, and amplifies Muslim professional acheivement within the City and beyond. 🔸Established in 2011, spanning 100+ Employers (c. 10,000 Muslim professionals) 🔸Successful charitable campaigns, raising over £1million for reputable partner charities 🔸Supports development of corporate and professional Muslim Networks 🔸Champions Diversity and Inclusion causes, providing consultation to organisations 🔸Supports progression of Muslim Professional Networks globally. We are not funded by any specific parties, groups or organisations both politically and professionally. Our board consists of members made up of senior finance professionals, consultants and lawyers, all offering their support on a voluntary basis.

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MIT-WPU’s Dr. Rahul Karad Honoured with 2025 Global Business and Interfaith Peace Award at Prestigious International Forum in Washington, D.C

Washington, D.C : Dr. Rahul Vishwanath Karad, Executive president MIT World Peace University, was recently awarded the 2025 Global Business and Interfaith Peace Award at the Inaugural IRF Builders Forum & Roger Williams IRF Awards Dinner held in Washington, D.C.

Organized by the International Religious Freedom Secretariat, the two-day forum brought together individuals and institutions working to promote religious freedom and mutual understanding across communities and cultures. The award recognizes individuals who have made meaningful contributions at the intersection of business, education, and interfaith peacebuilding. Read full article.

Also see article by India Education Diary.

Brian Grim shares his calling to be a missionary when he was only 4-years-old and how that eventually led him to Catholicism, but also a life as an educator in the former Soviet Union, China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe from 1982-2002. Eventually his research in economics reveals that religious freedom is good for business. Brian J. Grim, Ph. D. (Penn State), is the founding president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and works with Fortune 500 companies to include religion and belief as part of their belonging initiatives.

By Brian Grim

I’m thrilled to be working with Lawrence Chong, Group CEO of Consulus, who is organizing this year’s Shape the World Summit in Rome in collaboration with the Vatican.

The summit will include the global launch of an AI-Powered Common Growth Fund for Social and Faith-Based Enterprises.

In partnership with the FoRB Foundation, the launch will be witnessed by Cardinal Luis A Tagle and David Smith, MP, the UK’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief. The initiative will also integrate our Faith-Friendly Workplace “REDI” Index as a benchmarking tool.

See the whole program here.

Report: Religious freedom increasing in workplace By Michaela Estruth in The Heartlander

Report Shows Despite DEI Cuts, Religious Inclusion is Improving at Fortune 500 Companies By Kathryn Post in RNS

Religion on the Rise at Fortune 500 Companies by MovieGuide

Survey: Fortune 500 companies becoming more religious-friendly by Hannah Hiester on CatholicVote

Faith at Work: Accenture Leads the Charge as Corporate America Redefines Religious Inclusion| ZENIT – English, The World Seen From Rome

The impact of religious dialogue on the international recognition of Kazakhstan | DKNews International News Agency

Sumreen Ahmad shared this speech at the gala dinner at the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s Dare to Overcome conference on May 21 at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.

Read her full remarks in the Interfaith America Magazine.

Brian Grim will participate in a Cross Cultural Religious Literacy (CCRL) Summit in Krakow, Poland, in early June. The Summit will seek to develop best practices and chart new possibilities for CCRL and is convened by the Templeton Religion Trust, Love Your Neighbor Community, and The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

As summarized in “Toward a Global Covenant of Peaceable Neighborhood,”

Covenantal pluralism is simultaneously about “top-down” legal and policy parameters and “bottom-up” cultural norms and practices. A world of covenantal pluralism is characterized both by a constitutional order of equal rights and responsibilities and by a culture of reciprocal commitment to engaging, respecting, and protecting the other— albeit without necessarily conceding equal veracity or moral equivalence to the beliefs and behaviors of others. The envisioned end-state is neither a thin-soup ecumenism nor vague syncretism, but rather a positive, practical, non-relativistic pluralism. It is a paradigm of civic fairness and human solidarity, a covenant of global neighborliness….

Covenantal Pluralism has three key constitutive dimensions: (1) freedom of religion and belief (including equal treatment of all people, of any faith or none), (2) cross-cultural religious literacy, and (3) character virtues essential for living constructively with deep difference.

The practice of CCRL presupposes, embodies, and expresses all of these dimensions. CCRL is a framework of engagement bringing religious freedom and religious responsibility together; that is, it brings equal citizens together to take take on our world’s greatest challenges, building dynamic and resilient societies, and states, as a result. In other words, the core commodity of CCRL is trust— it usually begins in the transactional, but if sustained, becomes transformational. Put one last way: CCRL builds teachers who embody an empathetic and elicitive engagement methodology, as demonstrated in the “classroom” (of life), that ripples across the campus, community, culture, and country.

Congratulations to Accenture for being the most faith-friendly workplace among Global Fortune 500 companies in 2025! This is the 6th annual Faith-Friendly Workplace REDI Index published by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, and the 3rd time Accenture has taken or tied for the top spot.

This year, a record number of global companies participated, including those based in the U.K., and for the first time, in the Middle East. The REDI Index has 11 indicators of best practices including having faith-and-belief employee resource groups (ERGs), sharing best practices with other companies, and honoring holy days of their employees, among other accommodations such as dress and diet.

Leaders from Accenture’s interfaith network gathered in Washington DC last week to be recognized for their work in creating workplaces where people can bring their whole “self” to work, including their faith.

Learn more about faith-and-belief friendly workplaces here.

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation Is thrilled to announce that Glenda Cameron is the 2025 ERG Leader of the Year.

Glenda is recognized for her extraordinary service and pioneering impact — not only within her own companies (EMC and now Dell Technologies) — but also in helping other companies on their journeys toward more religiously inclusive, faith-friendly workplaces for people of all faith and beliefs.

When DELL and DELL merged in 2016, Glenda was leading EMC’s interfaith ERG, but DELL had no such ERG. As the merger was being fleshed out, Glenda was the Interfaith ERG champion that brought EMC’s interfaith ERG to DELL. And thanks to Glenda’s pioneering work, DELL has become the third most Faith-friendly business among Fortune 500 companies today.

Leaders of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) do so as volunteers in addition to their main jobs.