Alexia Kelley

Alexia Kelley currently serves as director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.^[1] She is the principal founder and executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

1 Education and career
2 Issues
3 References
4 External links

Education and career [link]

Kelley graduated with a B.A. in Religion with honors from Haverford College in 1989.^[1]^[3] Her thesis focused on the writings and speeches of the Quaker abolitionist and suffragist, Lucretia Mott. After college, she worked at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in Washington, D.C., a Quaker social justice lobby and one the oldest ecumenical lobby organizations in the United States. From there, she attended Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1993 with a Master of Theological Studies.^[1]^[3] During her graduate program, she studied for a semester at the School of Divinity at Howard University.

Following graduate school, Kelley served at the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for nearly a decade.^[2]^[3] CCHD, a national Catholic anti-poverty initiative, is one of the largest private funders of community organizing and economic development projects led by low-income people; funds are raised by Catholic parishes annually. During her tenure at CCHD, Kelley co-edited Living the Catholic Social Tradition: Cases and Commentary^[1] with Dr. Kathleen Maas Weigert of Georgetown University. The book profiles community organizing projects across the country that had received support from CCHD, and it explores the principles of the Catholic social tradition that undergird support and participation in such projects.

Following her tenure at CCHD, Kelley worked for three years at Environmental Resources Trust (ERT), a business unit of the non-profit organization Winrock International dedicated to promoting renewable energy development and climate change mitigation. There she worked on renewable energy policy and development projects, including a partnership between ERT and Verdant Power.

In the fall of 2004, she took a leave from ERT from to serve as religious outreach director for the Democratic National Committee on the John Kerry campaign. She assisted in outreach to faith communities for the Kerry campaign. In 2005, she co-founded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a faith-based organization that works to promote the Catholic social justice tradition and Catholic support for social justice issues such as health care reform, economic justice, peace, and labor rights. Catholics in Alliance helped to restore a social justice lens to Catholics in public life, to Catholic voter outreach, and to the media understanding of the Catholic vote.^{[citation needed]} In addition to restoring a primary focus on social justice vis-a-vis faith and politics, Catholics in Alliance pioneered a common-ground approach to the abortion issue which focused on prevention, education, and support for vulnerable pregnant women.^{[citation needed]}

Kelley co-authored A Nation for All: How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division with Catholics United director Chris Korzen. The book, published in July 2008, reintroduced the concept of the common good into the national dialogue on faith and politics, as both a uniquely Catholic and American principle.^[2]^[3] A Nation for All helped to shape the national values and politics discussion during the 2008 election.^{[citation needed]}

Issues [link]

This section requires expansion.

Kelley has said, "We are also poised to make real progress on preventing and reducing abortion. We are committed to finding common ground on this critical issue."^[4] She also expressed support for the suspension of the Mexico City Policy.^[4] With Chris Korzen, Kelley launched Catholics for Sebelius, a Catholics United project to support Kathleen Sebelius' nomination and subsequent confirmation as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.^[4]