Eboo Patel

Eboo Patel

Author

Speaker

Educator

Interfaith Leader

About

Eboo Patel is a widely acclaimed civic leader who believes that religious diversity is an essential and inspiring dimension of American democracy.

Named “one of America’s best leaders” by US News and World Report, Eboo is Founder and President of IA, the leading interfaith organization in the United States. Under his leadership, IA has worked with governments, universities, private companies, and civic organizations to make faith a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council, has given hundreds of keynote addresses, and has written five books, including “We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy” published in May 2022. He is an Ashoka Fellow and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Eboo lives in Chicago with his wife, Shehnaz, and two sons.

“Diversity is not just the differences you like.”


  • Building bridges - religions' role in our societies
  • A vision for a potluck nation
  • Interfaith Cooperation
Workshops
  • Engaging Religious Diversity in the Workplace (90 mins)

    During this workshop with Interfaith America trainers, participants will become more familiar with common issues and trends related to religious diversity in the workplace, identify and begin to practice skills needed to engage religion constructively, and identify opportunities to build on existing endeavors to strengthen interfaith engagement in their workplace.

  • Faith Friendly Organizations Mitigate Risk (60 mins)

    In this session, attendees will learn more about Commissioner Lucas’s (and other experts’) recommendations and leave better equipped to lead organizational conversations about the benefits of promoting religious inclusion at work.

    Learning Objectives:

    • Compare a faith-friendly approach to other approaches for dealing with issues of religious identity at work.
    • List a few concrete examples of faith-friendly policies and practices.
    • List a few benefits of implementing a faith-friendly approach as part of broader DEI and belonging strategies.
    • Assess your organization’s current approach to (or appetite for) religious inclusion.
    • Identify at least one concrete next step for advancing religious-inclusion conversations at your organization.

“I have been heavily, heavily involved in the Middle East, and I thought it was so amazing to have an [Indian-American] Muslim who was interested in promoting reconciliation, not by getting people to minimize their faith, but by getting Them to maximize it.”

Fmr. President Bill Clinton, 2007

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