The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) is a project of the left-leaning organization The Institute for Labor and Mental Health, which also produces Tikkun, a quarterly left-leaning interfaith magazine published by Duke University Press.

Background

The Network of Spiritual Progressives was launched at two conferences: the first in Berkeley, California, in 2005 and the second in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Within two years it grew to include approximately 100 chapter organizations in the United States. The network’s cofounders were Michael Lerner, the editor of the network’s now-affiliate publication, Tikkun, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, California; Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and executive director of BenetVision; and Cornel West, a left-wing public intellectual and professor at Harvard University. ¹

According to the network’s website, the Great Recession between 2008 and 2012 “made it difficult … to maintain a full-time organizer” because members, which had “primarily been drawn from middle-income working people and retired people” as a result of the recession “dried up.” Additionally, the website notes that this period also coincided with the presidential election campaign of Barack Obama, and that many members had “dropped away from the NSP, believing that if they could only elect Obama much of what” the organization “wanted in the world would be achieved through his presidency.” ²

In further description of this period of initial decline, the network’s website notes that following a period of disillusionment with then-President Obama’s lack of alignment with their initial political vision, former members that might have otherwise returned to the organization “became disillusioned with politics altogether, and didn’t return to it until the Bernie Sanders campaign of 2016.” To that end, the network dates its “recovery” to 2015, when the organization hired its current executive director, Cat J. Davis, on a part-time basis. ³

Views and Activities

The Network of Spiritual Progressives mainly engages in chapter-based advocacy campaigns aligned with its left-leaning “New Bottom Line,” an ideological vision “where institutions” are “judged efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize love, caring, kindness, generosity, justice, peace, ethical and ecologically sensitive behavior.” Practically, the network notes in its explication of this vision, that were it wholly fulfilled, “everyone” would have a “basic income,” ability to “attend college or a trade school debt-free,” that production in general would be “collectively” decided, and that children would be “playing in the fields, laughing.” ⁴

As of February 13, 2023, the network maintains chapter affiliates in Arizona; Berkeley, California; San Jose, California; Boulder, Colorado; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Lansing, Michigan; Highland Park, New Jersey; Knoxville, New Jersey; Houston, Texas; and Everett, Washington. ⁵

Structure and Fiscal Sponsorship

The Network of Spiritual Progressives is a project of the Institute for Labor and Mental Health, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization founded in March 1979 and based in Berkeley, California, which mainly produces Tikkun, a quarterly left-leaning interfaith magazine published in the United States by Duke University Press. The network accepts donations through its fiscal sponsor, the left-of-center Maryland-based SalsaLabs (formerly known as Democracy in Action). ^{6 7 8}

Cat J. Davis

Cat J. Davis is the executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives as well as a divorce attorney, mediator, and post-divorce co-parenting coach. Previously, Davis has been a public defender and has volunteered with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights. ⁹

1. “History.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/who-we-are/history/
2. “History.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/who-we-are/history/
3. “History.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/who-we-are/history/
4. “Vision.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/philosophy/vision/
5. “Chapters.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/get-involved/chapters/
6. “Donate.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/get-involved/donate/
7. “Tikkun.” Duke University Press. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://read.dukeupress.edu/tikkun
8. “Institute for Labor and Mental Health.” ProPublica. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942527904
9. ^[1] “Our Team.” The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Accessed February 13, 2023. https://spiritualprogressives.org/who-we-are/our-team/