Interfaith Leadership Cohorts
About
The Kaufman Interfaith Institute invites you to join an Interfaith Leadership Cohort!
These year-long experiences bring together small groups of people from a variety of religious, spiritual, and secular cultures and identities to build meaningful relationships with one another, to grow as leaders in community, and to shape the future of interfaith engagement in West Michigan and beyond.
Cultivate Meaningful Connections
Meet and learn alongside peers from different religious, secular, and spiritual identities. Hear their stories and learn to tell your own.
Explore the Religious & Spiritual
Diversity of Our State
Engage in thoughtful reflection on your worldview, background, and sense of purpose while learning from and about the lived experiences of others.
Grow as a Culturally Conscientious Leader
Build skills in facilitation, interfaith engagement, collaboration, and ethical leadership that are grounded in equity, shared power, and a growth mindset.
Make Change Together
Work alongside others to imagine and build a community where belonging and mattering are lived realities for all.
For Middle- and High-School Students
Meets on select Sundays from 3-5pm
on the GVSU Health Campus in Downtown Grand Rapids
For GVSU undergraduate and graduate students
Meets on select Fridays from 3-5pm
alternating between the GVSU Valley and Health Campuses
For interested adults in the West Michigan community
Each cohort of 10-15 participants will:
- Meet approximately 10 times with their specific cohort over 8 months (one academic year) from September to April;
- Develop skills of interfaith leadership and intergroup engagement pertinent to their respective communities; and
- Come together for two immersive trips to religious, spiritual, and culturally significant sites and museums around the state.
Our Theme for 2026-2027
Grounded in Kari Grain’s concept of critical hope, the 2026-2027 Interfaith Leadership Cohort will challenge participants to hold the tension between acknowledging systemic inequities and envisioning future possibilities. Rather than offering naïve optimism or 'hokey hope,' critical hope serves as a framework to equip students to confront real challenges - such as polarization, religious discrimination, and social injustice - while cultivating resilience and agency for meaningful change.
Through regular gatherings, intentional field trips, and collaborative projects, students in the Cohort will learn to move beyond performative dialogue and engage deeply with questions of power, equity, and belonging. They will practice sitting with discomfort and complexity, embracing theological and philosophical differences without losing sight of shared commitments to justice and compassion. By linking hope to concrete action, this program empowers participants to grow as leaders and create experiences that foster inclusion and solidarity on campus and beyond.
Cohort FAQs
Not necessarily.
We are hoping for a diverse group of participants from a wide variety of backgrounds in each cohort. This could be from explicitly religious communities or from entirely secular ones. The goal is to explore where our values, our beliefs, and our practices come from (whether from a religious source or not) in order to see how and why they show up in our day-to-day lives.
Absolutely not. Your truth is your truth, and you are the expert in your own experience.
The interfaith philosophy we follow at Kaufman encourages people to show up as their authentic selves and invites them to engage with one another through curiosity—not to change or dilute their own beliefs. That said, we will invite everyone in the group to think critically about their own identity and to enter into the world of someone else's beliefs, experiences, and feelings, which may even seem contrary to their own. The conversations may be challenging but are not intended to persuade anyone to abandon or water down a central part of their identity.
A good bit.
This is an essential part of a cohort centered on interfaith relationship building and leadership development. At Kaufman, we wholeheartedly believe that we must first know and be able to articulate our own stories before we can begin to understand the stories of others.
The cohort will meet 10 times total from Sept to Apr (5x/semester) for two hours each time. In addition to these regular meetings, there will be a kick-off retreat in September and two field trips (1x/semester), to culturally/religiously significant sites around the state. Lastly, the Campus Cohort is expected to participate in our annual Made-in-Michigan Interfaith Lab (MIMIL), which is a conference for college students from across the state who are involved in interfaith on their respective campuses.
In the interest of connecting meaningfully with the other members of the cohort, you will be expected to attend all of the meetings, trips and events associated with your cohort's activities. Presence is powerful.
We do recognize that, in this time when we are quite siloed, gathering consistently in this way over the course of the year may seem a bit daunting. But the commitment to consistently show up is an essential characteristic of what makes an interfaith leader. You may show up running at 50% of your normal capacity; that's okay! That's human. What matters is taking the step and entering the room one way or another.
We know that life happens and we will do what we can to work with you if you have to miss a meeting. Everyone is allowed one excused meeting absence per semester.
The bare minimum in terms of attendance is: 4 out of 5 cohort meetings per semester (8 total), the Kick Off Retreat in September, the MIMIL Conference in February for Campus Cohort members, and at least one of the two out-of-town trips.
The dates for all of these commitments will be provided well in advance, so you will be expected to check them before registering. If you know in advance that you have a conflict, email [email protected] and one of us will talk through the options with you, including possibly waiting to partake in the cohort another time.
Yes, transportation and food for our out-of-town trips and retreats will be provided by the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. There will be a place to note any dietary or accessibility accommodations you need on the registration form.
The 2026-2027 Registration Form is not yet available. In the meantime, feel free to fill out the Cohort Interest Form so we can let you know when it becomes available or answer any additional questions you may have.