How TBN Asia does Interfaith
One of the ways Transformational Business Network Asia (TBN Asia) seeks to realise their mission of alleviating poverty is through interfaith collaboration. TBN Asia has worked across different faiths to educate stakeholders through conferences and events; empower social entrepreneurs through a mentorship programme; provide seed funding for start-ups, and; matchmake social entrepreneurs to investors.
In April 2022, ‘interfaith’ was added to TBN Asia’s mission. Supported by a Templeton Religion Trust (TRT) grant, four focus group discussions (FGDs) with 20 participants from different faiths were conducted from April to August 2022. This was followed by the launch of TBN Indonesia and the Bali Conference in September 2022, which included plenary sessions and workshops on topics related to interfaith approaches. Of the enterprises that participated in the conference, three were selected to be co-funded by TBN Asia and the Templeton Religion Trust (TRT).
WISE was engaged to conduct an impact assessment of TBN Asia’s interfaith initiative. This document presents preliminary findings of the assessment, based on which further data will be gathered and analysed over the coming months.
Preliminary findings
Our preliminary findings are based on anecdotal evidence from project documents and participants’ reflections.
Focus groups deepened relationships among participants across different faiths
Participants had a safe and judgement-free space to have open conversations. United by a common desire to drive social impact, the diversity of participants’ backgrounds enabled them to gain different perspectives. This also helped them expand their networks and may have motivated them to participate more actively in the discussions.
“I feel comfortable to share everything” - Muslim, Influencer
“...we share the same fears, challenges, hopes and dreams. And so that united us all.” - Christian, Funder/Enabler
Participants experienced a shift in attitudes
Some focus group participants demonstrated a shift in attitude from being indifferent to wanting to understand others.
“Previously, I was a self-centred person, I always think that everything I do should give me more benefit and profit…But after joining the past sessions, I felt it was changing my way of thinking and feeling.” - Christian, Enabler
Enabling factors observed included freedom of belief and religious literacy
According to TRT, covenantal pluralism is enabled by freedom of religion and belief, holistic religious literacy, and character virtues. TBN Asia’s interfaith efforts have demonstrated these enabling conditions to some extent.
“The whole journey of multi-faith is not, oh, try to convert somebody. And we make it very clear. As far as we’re concerned, it’s about loving our friends, loving them.” - Christian, Core Team
(English Version)
(Indonesian Version)
