Scott W. Allard is an associate professor in the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. He is the author of Out of Reach: Place, Poverty and the New American Welfare State. His research focuses on social welfare policy, poverty and nonprofit organizations in the United States.

Ruby K. Payne is an author, educator and speaker with a focus on poverty and economic class differences. She is the author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty. She is founder and CEO of aha! Process in Highlands, Texas.

Jay F. Hein, former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is Distinguished Senior Fellow and director of the Program for Faith and Service at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion in Waco, Texas. The Program for Faith and Service promotes cutting-edge approaches to social problems through faith-based organizations.

Baylor University, a private Baptist university, has an Interdisciplinary Poverty Initiative that focuses on engaging students in the issues of poverty, civic engagement, and social and economic justice. Contact project coordinator Kayla Mize.

Fred Plumer, a retired minister, is head of The Center for Progressive Christianity, a web-based network of progressive faith communities. It is based in Gig Harbor, Wash.

The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy is the state’s oldest faith-based advocacy group and specializes in data analysis, policy research, public education and direct advocacy on a range of issues that address poverty and low-income people. The center is based in Richmond. Contact executive director Kim Bobo through communications director Neill Caldwell.

Peter Laarman of Los Angeles is executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting and an ordained United Church of Christ minister. He is editor of the just-published Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel (Beacon Press, 2006) and knows a lot of other groups active on this subject.

Harvey Newman is a professor of public administration and urban studies in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. A United Church of Christ minister, he has an extensive background in faith-based nonprofits.

Greg Boyd is senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, in which he says American Christians should seek to build the kingdom of God instead of building political power.