Our Staff

Rev. Jennifer Butler, Executive Director

Before leading Faith Forward, Rev. Jennifer Butler founded Faith in Public Life, a network of 50,000 religious leaders instrumental in many legislative victories, including the passage of the Affordable Care Act, blocking discriminatory religious freedom bills, and defending immigrant and voting rights. Rev. Butler served from 2014 to 2016 as the Chair of President Obama’s third Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Before founding Faith in Public Life, Rev Butler spent ten years advancing religious arguments for human rights through the United Nations as the Presbyterian Church (USA) representative. Her book Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized was the first to document transnational Christian right activism and its potential impact on democracy and human rights. Butler first discovered her love for community organizing through service in the U.S. Peace Corps in a Mayan village in Belize, where her efforts to establish a library led villagers to oust a corrupt village chairman who sought to seize the new resource for his own. She has a Masters in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and an M.S.W. from Rutgers University. Jennifer lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was born and attends Trinity Presbyterian Church. She enjoys hiking with her dog Auggie, taking spin classes at the local YMCA, and visiting her college-age son in Tuscon, Arizona.

Our Board

  • Max Finberg Board Chair

    Max Finberg is a former political appointee in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush Administrations, including serving in the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Before that, he served on Representative Tony Hall’s (D-OH) Congressional staff as the lead Democratic staffer for the Community Solutions Act, the initial legislation for the faith-based initiative, which passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis in 2001.

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    He has dedicated his career to responding to Jesus of Nazareth’s charge, “for I was hungry and you fed me.” He co-founded Faith 2020 (the predecessor for Faith Forward) and was a national co-chair of Believers for Biden. Additionally, he is a board member of the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, Baylor University’s Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and Bread for the World, and a co-founder of the Repentance Project under the auspices of the ministry Coracle. Max is a Howard University School of Divinity graduate and a minister at Third Street Church of God in Washington, DC, where he has been a member for over 30 years. He is the eldest son of a Jewish father and a Presbyterian and Unitarian mother. As a teenager, he started his faith journey on a trip to Israel — the birthplace of both sides of his spiritual heritage. He met his wonderful wife, Kate, through an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group in college. They live in Takoma Park, Maryland, with her mother and have two teenage children. They enjoy traveling, cooking, and playing frisbee with their dog, Pino.

  • Wes Grandberg Michaelson

    Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson is an author, global ecumenical leader, and widely respected voice relating faith to pressing issues of public life. Earlier in his career, he served as the Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield, and then as the Associate Editor of Sojourners Magazine when it was founded, and more recently as Chair of its Board of Directors. He was a founding board member of Faith 2020. Wes knows the realities of political life.

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    Wes also knows the church. He served as General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America for 17 years, from 1994-2011. He’s traveled to all corners of the world, interpreting how the changing face of Christianity will reshape the future. Wes has a lifetime calling to be an ecumenical witness. He led in establishing Christian Churches Together in the USA and is known globally for his leadership, including as Director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. Presently, he serves as President of the Global Christian Forum Foundation.

    Through his writing and speaking, Wes had assisted many in discovering the depths of Christian spirituality as the foundation for one’s outward work, witness, and advocacy for justice. He’s written ten books, most recently Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage. Wes Granberg-Michaelson is a graduate of Hope College and Western Theological Seminary. He has been awarded two honorary doctorate degrees. He and his wife Kaarin make their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he enjoys fly fishing.

  • Rabbi Rachel Kobrin

    Rabbi Rachel Kobrin is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Rodef Shalom in Denver, CO, and a leader in faith-based political activism. She was a regular voice with Believers for Biden during the 2020 election and served on the advisory council for Faith Forward (then Faith 2020). Over the past six years, Rabbi Kobrin and her community have been at the forefront of advocacy and organizing for important issues in the state of CO. Her community has worked for

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    affordable housing and economic and racial justice in partnership with Together Colorado, refugee rights and resettlement in partnership with HIAS, and legislative environmental responsibility in partnership with Colorado Jewish Climate Action. Rabbi Kobrin serves on the board of JFS Colorado, and she and her congregation host the annual Coloradans for the Common Good Interfaith Labor Seder. She is a Clal Rabbis without Borders Fellow and has a master's degree and rabbinic ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University. She has spent multiple years studying in Israel and enjoys returning during summers to study at the Shalom Hartman Institute. She is married to an aerospace engineer, has two teenage children, and loves coffee shops, cities, Shabbat, and connecting with people.

  • Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins

    The Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins is a senior advisor with Raben, where he advances the firm's Faith Strategies Group. Before joining Raben, Derrick was appointed by the Biden-Harris administration to serve as director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Before HUD, he was Director of Interfaith Outreach for the Democratic National Committee, where he also led faith outreach during President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.

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    Derrick served as director of membership and strategic partnerships at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, engaging human service organizations, faith institutions, policy and advocacy organizations, and other networks of influence. He was also senior vice president for innovations in public programs at Union Theological Seminary.

    Derrick’s ministerial career began as an assistant minister at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. He served seventeen years as pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Before this, Derrick served as the senior minister of the New Hope Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, where he was also president of the Greater Dallas Community of Churches and a founding board member of The Dallas Leadership Foundation. Derrick has been a guest lecturer on the church and social action at a number of colleges and universities, including Rutgers, Cornell, Iona College, Howard University, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

    Derrick served as chair of the Board of Odyssey Impact Productions and is an executive producer of several acclaimed documentaries, including "The Rape of Recy Taylor," and, most recently, "A Crime on the Bayou." He was a contributing author for "The Audacity of Faith: Christian Leaders Reflect on the Election of Barack Obama."

    Derrick earned a bachelor’s in Broadcasting and Film from Boston University, a master’s of divinity in Church History from Union Theological Seminary, N.Y., and a doctorate in Homiletics as a Proctor Booth Fellow from United Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he and his wife Juli, a healthcare policy specialist, are the parents of two adult daughters.

  • Jill Wildenberg, Board Secretary

    Jill Wildenberg is one of the original board members of Faith Forward (Faith 2020). She continues to serve as the Secretary of Faith Forward. Jill has been a leader in the faith community for many years. As President and Education Director of Congregation Beth Evergreen in Evergreen, Colorado, she led the congregation to build a new synagogue and participate in Synagogue 2000, which re-imagined what a welcoming house of worship should be.

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    She was the chair of RENA, a national group of Jewish Reconstructionist Educators. Together RENA developed curricula to be more inclusive and more engaging for congregations.

    Jill was the first Public Policy Director of The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, engaging in policy work in LGBTQ+ Rights, Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice, Racial and Criminal Justice, and Housing and Homelessness at the Colorado State Capitol. She presented the case for the importance of religious freedom in public policy and engaged the 400+ congregations that were part of The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado in education and advocacy. Jill currently serves as the President of the Board of Trustees of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado.

    Her interfaith connections led her to head up the faith outreach initiatives for the Colorado Clinton and Biden campaigns and to found Colorado FAITHful Democrats, a part of the Colorado Democratic Party. She served as Chief of Staff to Representative Crisanta Duran while the representative was Chair of the Joint Budget and Appropriations committees. She is a graduate of the Emerge program, which trains Democratic women how to run for office and how to run campaigns and raise funds. She has been a trusted advisor to many campaigns. Jill believes that her work is for Tikkun Olam, the world's healing.

  • Rev. Dr. Steve Newcom, Board Treasurer

    Rev. Dr. Steven Newcom retired on June 30, 2023, after serving as the Founding Director of the Kaleo Center for Faith, Justice & Social Transformation and faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. The Kaleo Center was established in 2010 to advance the practical application and conceptual development of social transformation as a practical theological discipline and core ministerial competency.

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    It served as a multi-faith movement center, organizing the faith community around the MN Marriage Amendment and the Movement for Black Lives. In 2015, Newcom introduced a new MA degree and M.Div. Concentration in Leadership for Social Transformation at United and served as the founding Program Director. He is finalizing a manuscript on the praxis of social transformation for Fortress Press Academic. Newcom has over eighteen years of experience as the Executive Director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, a progressive community foundation supporting grassroots advocacy, organizing, and movement building, and seven years as a Program Director with the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches. He now serves as the Pastor of Justice Ministries for First Congregational United Church of Christ in Brainerd, where he also organizes the Lakes Area Justice Table. He and his spouse, Joy, are building an organic farm and spending as much time as possible with their ten grandchildren.

  • Eli Valentin, Board Chair Emeritus

    Eli Valentin serves as an adjunct professor at Iona University. He is a contributing columnist for Gotham Gazette, mainly focusing on Latino politics in New York, and is a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY and New York 1 News.

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    Valentin has served as a political adviser to numerous elected officials nationwide. He is the editor of Sermons from the Latino/a Pulpit and author of the forthcoming Reinhold Niebuhr and Politics (Wipf and Stock). Valentin has also begun work on a manuscript tentatively titled A History of Latino Politics in New York.

  • Dr. Robert Taber

    Dr. Robert Taber is a historian, political strategist, and interfaith organizer. The past National Director for Mormons for Obama (2012) and Latter-day Saints for Biden-Harris, Taber is a regular voice on LDS approaches to politics and was a panelist at the 2012 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Recognized by the Center for American Progress in 2021 as a "Faith Leader to Watch," he recently served as an Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the US Department of Education, building out that Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships' work with the higher education community.

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    A specialist on the history of multiracial democracy in the Americas, Dr. Taber lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina with his wife Sarah and their daughter, where he is an Associate Professor of History at Fayetteville State University. In 2024, he received the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching.