Kristina Scott is executive director of the Alabama Poverty Project, which builds coalitions among religious, business and higher education organizations to work toward eliminating poverty. The project is based in Birmingham.

Formed in November 2005, We Believe Ohio includes 100 racially and theologically diverse clergy interested in social justice.

The Interfaith Federation of Greater Baton Rouge includes Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. The federation works to promote social justice while working together as different faiths. The Rev. Clint Mitchell is president.

Interfaith Impact of New York is a statewide coalition of congregations and individuals from mainline Protestant, Reform Jewish, Unitarian Universalist and other faith traditions that work for compassion and justice in New York state public policies.

Alexie Torres-Fleming is founder and executive director of Youth Ministries for Peace & Justice, which rebuilds neighborhoods by developing leaders among youth to work on community issues, including poverty. It’s based in the Bronx, N.Y. She spoke at the 2009 Mobilization to End Poverty event in Washington, D.C.

Dan Wakefield is a veteran writer and Unitarian in Boston whose newest book is The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate (Nation Books, 2006). Read an excerpt in the April 24, 2006, issue of The Nation.

Bradley R. Schiller is professor emeritus in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. His book The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination has been a standard teaching text for two decades.

Ezra Rosser is assistant professor at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., where he teaches a course on law and poverty. He co-edits and writes the Poverty Law.

John Iceland is professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University. He is the author of Poverty in America: A Handbook and has authored numerous papers and reports on poverty patterns, causes and measurement.