ENV:STAGING

The Spirit of the FEI

We Aim to Encourage, Not Condemn

Our Faith Equality Index (FEI) is a key part of who we are and what we’re achieving at Faith Driven Consumer™. It’s also an invaluable tool for Faith Driven Consumers who want to learn more about a specific brand or business. Particularly, the FEI highlights how well they do or do not equally treat and welcome the faith community and its members in the workplace, marketplace and culture at large. As a core part of what we do at FDC, the FEI is a project that we believe not only aligns with, but is integral to, our values and our mission. But, you might ask, how can a database designed to give scores to brands, some of which are better than others, remain a positive tool for positive change? Is the FEI just another opportunity for people to bully, boycott and become more divided?

There is no question that we live in a world full of constant conflict between ideologies and identities. These communities compete with others for attention, privilege and acclaim, often doing so through divisive means and with destructive effects. FDC’s Faith Equality Index is designed to facilitate a profoundly different kind of goal. At FDC, our spirit is one of positivity and encouragement, reflected in our Christian faith, with an emphasis on grace and love. This means we strive for greater inclusion and encourage the welcoming of ALL people. The FEI’s purpose is to enable our community to achieve this positive goal in broader cultural contexts, specifically in commerce. We believe that you, a Faith Driven Consumer, empowered by the information the FEI provides, can make specific choices. These choices are amplified by the collective power and voice of 41 million FDCs spending $2 trillion annually, enabling the FDC Community to change the landscape of diversity and equality in the marketplace, workplace and culture around you.

This goal is of utmost importance to us at FDC and is why we developed the Faith Equality Index. Of equal importance to us is how we do what we do, not just what we accomplish. This is where constructing and utilizing the FEI in such a way that aligns with our core goals and values becomes crucial. Specifically, we designed our FEI around three different grades or scores. These are: Incompatible, Acceptable, and Compatible. You’ll notice that we prefer these designations to the more common Good, Better, Best method of grading.

This preference expresses the spirit of FDC which is not to “keep score,” nor to condemn or disparage certain businesses. Instead, for the benefit of our members, we want to evaluate how consistent a brand’s corporate actions have been with a truly equal and diverse attitude towards Faith Driven Consumers. Further, these grades have been given based only on what has been done for Faith Driven Consumers at this point in company’s history; it is a snapshot. The implication of this caveat for the FEI lies in our goal for these brands – to hear our collective voice and engage in conversation, learn ideas to promote their scores, and ideally carry out those ideas without negatively impacting their own positive core values. In fact, we are excited for brands with lower rankings to prove us wrong by demonstrating to Faith Driven Consumers that they are in fact a brand compatible with who we are and our freedom to live accordingly in the marketplace, workplace and culture.

We look forward to the FEI becoming an ever-changing account of brands and their journeys toward corporate actions compatible with people of faith, improving their scores and climbing the ranks among others to produce a more welcoming environment for FDCs. And we won’t get there through bullying the market or condemning those who haven’t yet appreciated the importance or impact of our community. Instead, we will utilize the FEI in ways that are consistent with our values and conducive to positive change. We hope that you follow and engage with it closely, so that you will be able to track the effects that you and the FDC community as a whole have on and within the marketplace. We plan to implement ways that you, as an FDC, can actively participate in the FEI on the path toward positive change as well.  The FEI is an opportunity to do something unique, important and positive, and we invite you to utilize this exciting new resource, in its current form and its form yet to come, to make a real difference.

Member Benefits

img
Explore Benefits