The Institute for Policy Research is at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. James Rosenbaum chairs the Poverty, Race and Inequality Program.

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development is at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Claudia Coulton and Rob Fischer are co-directors.

Jane Vennard is a United Church of Christ pastor and retreat leader. She is the author of Praying With Body and Soul: A Way to Intimacy With God. She lives in Denver.

Ken Wilson is senior pastor at the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, Mich., which encourages its members to make fixed-hour prayers, an unusual thing for a nondenominational church to do.

The Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity is at the University of North Carolina. Gene Nichol, a law professor at the university, is director.

Jim Mullin-Norgaard teaches Celtic Body Prayers at his retreat center in Beaver Island, Mich.

The Center for Poverty Research is at the University of Kentucky. James P. Ziliak, who holds the Gatton Endowed Chair in Microeconomics, is director.

The Center for the Study of Urban Poverty is at the University of California, Los Angeles. The director is Abel Valenzuela Jr., professor of Chicana and Chicano studies, who has expertise in urban poverty and immigration issues.

Julie Tallard Johnson is the author of Spiritual Journaling: Writing Your Way to Independence, published in 2006, and conducts spiritual journaling workshops in Wisconsin.