How Funders Are Addressing Religious Divides in Today’s Polarized Climate

Religion has always been one of the most provocative topics across societies. And in the past few years, perceptions of bias and intolerance have grown as antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents have increased, leading funders to rethink which programs will have the greatest success in promoting understanding and respect—and how best to support them.

To build on one another’s experience and expertise, leaders from 19 philanthropies, including The Pew Charitable Trusts, gathered in Philadelphia recently to discuss their support for projects that are improving public understanding of different religions, reducing biases, and building bridges. The day-long conference, hosted by Pew and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF), focused on three timely and critical issues: religious tolerance at colleges and universities, antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias, and the portrayal of religions in various forms of media and entertainment.

Participants agreed that the conversation was urgent, and they left with some key takeaways:

• On college campuses: In efforts to improve the climate for religious groups at colleges and universities, there is a tension between students, some of whom want to see changes during their limited time on campus, and administrators, who recognize that lasting institutional change can take years. Innovative approaches are worth exploring. An example is the INSPIRES Campus Climate Index, funded by Pew and AVDF, which uses uniform criteria to assess how well schools are ensuring a hospitable environment for students of various religious backgrounds. The ratings are meant to help administrators create a more welcoming institution and assist prospective students of different religious backgrounds, or none at all, in selecting a school.
• To help address antisemitism: Non-Jewish leaders from government, business, and other faith groups can affirm that bias against Jewish people is not acceptable. There is an opportunity to expand curriculum beyond Holocaust education to include additional facts about Jews and Judaism.
• To help counter anti-Muslim bias: It’s important that funders lift up the often overlooked diversity of the American Muslim community—the most racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse faith—and strengthen Muslim nonprofits’ abilities to broaden their impact and tell their stories, since these groups tend to be newer and smaller than other religious organizations.
• To address how religions are portrayed in media: Encourage educational and entertainment content creators to represent people of faith with accuracy and nuance, such as the Canadian television sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” which follows a small Muslim community and its often humorous interactions with non-Muslim neighbors while navigating stereotypes.
• To get important messages across: Keeping up with the fast-changing media and technology landscapes requires a willingness to experiment with new channels, platforms, and strategies. In the past, funders gravitated to traditional approaches, such as long-form documentaries, to promote better understanding of religion. To reach wider and younger audiences, funders are exploring new ways of storytelling, such as videos that are easily accessible on mobile devices and children’s programming.

Several broader themes also emerged from the conversations:

• There’s an opportunity to prioritize efforts that connect people who are prepared to listen, reflect, and engage in good faith—an orientation more common among those not anchored at the most rigid ends of ideological divides. Many people in the room said moderate voices tend to get less public attention than more extreme ones on both ends of the spectrum.
• Storytelling is an essential tool in improving understanding of religions. Messages are more likely to land with target audiences when it comes in the form of a compelling first-person narrative.
• It is essential to reach children and youth because their attitudes and beliefs are still being formed.

The participants heard an affirmation of the value and timeliness of this work in a powerful story told by Patrick Cates, an official at the El-Hibri Foundation, which seeks to help Muslim nonprofit leaders and their allies build thriving, inclusive communities.

For Cates and his wife, March 13, 2026, began in the kitchen of their home in the Detroit suburbs. It was the day after a person of Muslim faith had attacked Temple Israel, a synagogue and Jewish preschool just a few miles from the Cates’ home. The incident deeply distressed the Cates, who immediately reached out to their Jewish neighbors to express solidarity and see how they could help. But on this morning, as they prepared to begin their Ramadan fast, the couple worried about retaliation on the local Muslim community. They discussed whether it was safe to send their children to Islamic school. No, they decided, not today. “The reality is that I was terrified,” Cates said.

Cates spent much of the day talking and texting with other Muslim leaders in the community, and with their local Jewish counterparts. “We expressed how sorry we were that this happened, that we pray everyone is safe, and for the Jewish community to let us know what we can do.”

Then, two prominent Jewish leaders called him.

“Rather than talk about what needed to be done to support their community after something horrible and scary had just happened, they posed a question, and it meant a lot to me: ‘What can we do as Jews in this moment to make sure that this doesn’t blow back on your community?’ Hearing that was a glimmer of hope on a very dark day.”

The following week, local religious leaders—Jewish, Muslim, and Christian—stood together with the county sheriff to denounce antisemitism and religious hatred more broadly.

All of this reminded Cates of the value of building bridges—work that is complicated and difficult, challenging and rewarding, and that ultimately offers hope.

“We’re talking about the lives of human beings, of children,” he said. “Finding commonality, especially in our shared humanity, is at the heart of creating understanding and real connection and coming to realize that we are all part of one larger community.”

Julie Sulc leads Pew’s religion program.