The Coalition for Compassion and Justice, based in Prescott, Ariz., helps meet the needs of people in poverty. Contact executive director Paul Mitchell.

Heidi Unruh is director of the Congregations, Community Outreach and Leadership Development Project and staff associate with Evangelicals for Social Action. She is co-editor of Hope for Children in Poverty: Profiles and Possibilities and co-author of Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministries. She lives in Hutchison, Kan.

Laura Lein is dean of the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Collegiate Professor of Social Work. She is an expert on poverty and the author of many studies of families in poverty, including Katrina evacuees and people living on the Texas-Mexico border. She co-authored Life After Welfare: Reform and the Persistence of Poverty (2007).

Robert Haveman is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of Understanding Poverty.

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.

Jack Glaser is a social psychologist and assistant professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley. He studies the social psychology of hate crimes and intergroup violence.

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.