Annotated Bibliography.

Journal of Psychology and Christianity

2019, Vol. 38, No.3, 184-190

Copyright 2019 Christian Association for Psychological Studies

ISSN 0733-4273

184

Worthington, 1998), and afterwards, Mike McCullough and I evaluated 236 letters of intent and invited 136 to submit full propos- als. (We got 134 full proposals! What were we thinking?!)

I organized 70 independent evaluators to evaluate 4 to 10 proposals each and write written critiques by February 1998. Judging was by a panel of esteemed scholars. In addition to David Myers and myself, the panel included L. Gregory Jones (Dean, Duke Divinity School), David Larson (psy- chiatrist and researcher), Harold Koenig (psychiatrist and researcher), John DiJulio (professor of politics, University of Pennsyl- vania, and George W. Bush administration's first head of the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, 2001), Roy Baumeister (social psychologist, professor, best-selling author, and researcher), and Robert Sapolsky (Stanford University neuroendocrinologist and 1987 McArthur Genius Award winner). After read- ing the independent reviews of each pro- posal by three to five independent evaluators, our panel read the proposals, added our own critiques, discussed, and then rank ordered the proposals. We were astounded by number of high-quality pro- jects. In fact, given the quality, we request- ed an additional one million dollars from JTF. The total of three million dollars initial- ly funded about 20 proposals.

A Campaign for Forgiveness Research: Lessons in Studying a Virtue

Some interdisciplinary work involves getting people of different scientific disciplines, different humanities, and the arts to work together on a scientific project. However, science is a socially medi- ated system, and part of the process involves disseminating the results of the project. In this article, I discuss a different type of interdisciplinary involvement—how a scientific project that involves multi- ple subawards is organized, funded by multiple funders, and managed, and how the results are dis- seminated, not just scientifically through conferences and articles, but to the public through various media. A Campaign for Forgiveness Research was a non-profit corporation that was established to raise money to fund research projects that could not be funded from the funds contributed by the John Templeton Foundation. I share the experiences with the project, including seeking funding that eventually brought together 14 funding partners and managing subawards. In addition, I discuss dis- semination of the results through media. Finally, I draw lessons for scientists who seek to manage such research projects that have within them Requests for Proposals that fund subawards.

Everett L. Worthington, Jr.

Virginia Commonwealth University

I’ve worked on a lot of interdisciplinary teams to accomplish research projects. Some of the interdisciplinary projects have been as thin as including a person of a different dis- cipline simply to get a different slant. Other projects have involved deep sharing and col- laboration. On some, the majority of the team was from a single discipline, but on others, the distribution across disciplines was balanced. On one large project, I was one of just a few psychologists within a dif- ferent discipline.

Brief Overview and Primary Goals

A Campaign for Forgiveness Research, how- ever, was an entirely different experience. In 1997, the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) advanced its first-ever Request for Proposals (RFP)—Research on Forgiveness—for two million dollars. I was the worker-ant and David G. Myers was senior director. But, in many ways, we were all RFP-rookies in 1997 when the RFP was advanced.

As its inaugural RFP, JTF poured resources into the research competition. A video nar- rated by actor Cliff Robertson introduced it. Advisors Desmond Tutu and Robert Coles endorsed it. Former President Jimmy Carter offered support. We had a media budget. In October 1997 at Hope College, David and I ran (actually the JTF staff did the work) a conference of 40 potential grant-recipients (for an edited book reporting papers, see

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because I had to communicate regularly with media. Much of that research was summa- rized in Handbook of Forgiveness (Worthing- ton, 2005).

Communicating with media. The first media interview I did was with a top-five newspaper in the country. The reporter was a hard-nosed journalist. After some pleasant chit-chat, her opening interview question was this: “This project is funded by the Templeton Foundation, isn’t it?” (Yes) “Then, it’s just a thinly disguised religious agenda, isn’t it?” (Well, no.) It was easy to point to people like the list of scientists above, about half of whom do not identify as personally religious at all, but all of whom are well-respected sci- entists. After we got that out of the way, we had a cordial interview.

Dissemination through science. Dissemi- nation involved interacting not just with scientif- ic dissemination (conferences and publications), but also with media. We organized scientific conferences on forgiveness. These included the initial conference at Hope College and one of my highlights—a dinner speech by Lewis Smedes, a Fuller Theological Seminary theolo- gian who arguably started the popular interest in forgiveness (Smedes, 1984). However, we also organized one at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, which involved diverse heroes of mine (chapters in Helmick & Peter- son, 2000 report on the papers presented there). Desmond Tutu was a keynote speaker. I met theologians like Miroslav Volf and Donald Shriver, peace workers like John Paul Lederac, South African government pioneers like Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, and many others. In 2003, the Campaign organized two conferences keynoted by Dr. Jack Templeton, Martin E. P. Seligman, and Martin Luther King, III. Attendees included over 200 scientists doing basic research and over 50 intervention scientists.

Dissemination through media. As Execu- tive Director of the Campaign, I did on aver- age about two interviews with a media source each week. I appeared on television shows like Good Mor ning America, Jane Pauley Show, CNN, The Leeza Show, The Iyanla Show, Continental Airlines In-Flight Video, and many others. I appeared in over 200 radio inter- views including NPR and Talk America Radio Network. I gave over 500 interviews with print and internet media, including Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report

A Campaign for Forgiveness Research Because we thought we had 60 proposals

worthy of full funding, Dr. Jack Templeton (CEO of JTF), Charles L. Harper (Vice-President and Executive Director), David, and I agreed to start a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, named A Campaign for Forgiveness Research (hereafter, the Campaign), with two goals: (1) raise money to support others of the unfunded top 40 pro- jects and (2) disseminate the findings broad- ly—not just in psychology journals. By 2003, we had attracted 14 total funding partners and raised an additional 6.4 million dollars. With the initial three million dollars and the money the JTF invested later in promotion and administra- tion of the grants, over 10 million dollars went into the RFP plus the Campaign.

Raising money. The interdisciplinary nature of the Campaign involved interacting with philanthropists, the JTF, and various sci- entists. Dr. Jack Templeton was a generous benefactor himself—and a financial supporter of the Campaign. He talked to other philan- thropists on their own terms. Although he was far more sophisticated than this, essentially he could approach other philanthropists as equals and say, “I believe in the Campaign and have supported it financially. Won’t you catch that vision and support it too?” As Exec- utive Director and Treasurer, I administered ten of the grants to scientists, communicated with philanthropists about how their money was used, and wrote a large grant for over 1.4 million dollars (which in 2000 seemed like a lot of money) that was funded by the Atlantic Philanthropic Foundation. Today, 20 years later, the scale of what a large grant consists of has shifted.

Compiling science. I was on more com- fortable ground interacting with scientists from several disciplines. We funded geneti- cists like Lindon Eaves, biologists like Robert Sapolsky, primatologists like Frans de Waal, physiological researchers like Charlotte Witvliet and Kathleen Lawler, social psycholo- gists like Julie Exline, Mike McCullough, and Roy Baumeister, interventionists like Fred Luskin and Fred DiBlasio, couple researchers like Frank Fincham, psychology of religion researchers like Julie Exline and Ken Parga- ment, sociologists of religion like Robert Wuthnow, and survey experts like David Williams. I spent a lot of time keeping up with what all the research teams were doing

magazines. People magazine did a feature. I was interviewed by major daily newspapers such as USA Today, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and many others, and the Campaign and JTF-fund- ed projects received a lot of attention from media. I helped directors make (and appeared in movies like) The Power of Forgiveness (Mar- tin Doblmeier, Journey Films, 2008), The Big Question: Can We Forgive the Unforgivable (Vince DiPersio, Paulist Pictures, 2010), and several others.

A collateral benefit. Scientifically, I believe that the Campaign served as a prototype for the JTF’s RFPs as well as for how to manage large grants that have their own budget but also manage subawarded grants. For example, I had early consultations with Stephen Post as he established the Institute for Research in Unlimited Love, helping him avoid some of the pitfalls I had experienced or barely dodged in the Campaign. I believe—perhaps it is wish fulfillment—that the JTF has used many lessons we learned through the Cam- paign as they moved forward with other RFPs and began funding projects that included RFPs within them.

What Went Well and Why?

The Campaign produced much research by funding about 30 research teams between 1997 and 2005. These teams typically involved collaborations among senior scientists, their post-doctoral researchers, their graduate stu- dents, and undergraduates attracted out of pay or interest (or both) to work on the projects. I would guess that a typical project that lasted three years involved two senior scientists, one post-doc, three graduate students, and six undergraduates. Thirty teams thus produced about 360 people directly doing forgiveness research, and many of those continued to pur- sue it. (To see the extent of much of this research, see Handbook of Forgiveness, 2nd

ed.; Worthington & Wade, 2019.) One lesson is this: “Show me the money.” The effect of a mere 10 million dollars as a one-time invest- ment by JTF and the 14 funding partners who supported the Campaign has produced a field of science. I say “mere” because initiatives by NIH—like preventing youth violence, for example—tend to spend many times the 10 million dollars on research.

The penetration into various media went well. One reason: the media savvy of Pamela Thompson, Communications Officer for the JTF. Pamela and JTF leadership had a grand strategy that began with the release of a profes- sionally made video to kick off the Campaign and proceeded with a flurry of contacts with well-placed media people at each developmen- tal milestone of the RFP and later Campaign. Those led to numerous media appearances.

Another reason the Campaign worked is that there were already researchers highly commit- ted to studying forgiveness, and the first round of funding did not fund their research—yet they already had grants to study forgiveness, so they stayed involved. Prior to the RFP, Enright’s group at the University of Wisconsin had a JTF- funded grant on forgiveness and health. McCul- lough’s group at University of Miami had an NIMH grant to study mental health and alco- holism in college students. And my group at Virginia Commonwealth University had a JTF grant to study couple relationships. This was important to an emerging field because these highly active research groups kept pumping out studies in the areas that media were inter- ested in—couples and health—as the other projects were gearing up.

The Campaign was amazingly fecund, and importantly the findings were newsworthy. Interviewers most often asked about four top- ics: health, interventions, couple relationships, and societal applications. The first three topics garnered more questions specifically about research, and the fourth (societal forgiveness) involved more speculation.

Key Challenges

There were challenges in organizing, run- ning, and disseminating findings from such a Campaign. I will illustrate these with a couple of examples each.

Organizing Campaigns Raising money fr om philanthr opic

donors. One challenge was raising money, which is not something scientists are usually comfortable with. I remember telling the Pres- ident of Pepperdine University, Andrew K. Benton, that I thought seeking money was really hard. He had been very successful over the years raising money for Pepperdine. He simply said that one just had to talk to poten- tial donors and find what their passion was,

186 A CAMPAIGN FOR FORGIVENESS RESEARCH

then show how they could exercise their pas- sion by catching the dream of the Campaign. That hit home for me. When I talk with my graduate students about their research, I always say it is “something for you, something for me.” Dr. Benton showed me that seeking philanthropic gifts is the same process.

What is the focus of the RFP? RFPs can be focused broadly (i.e., any study of forgive- ness) or more narrowly (i.e., on neuroscience of forgiveness). The Campaign took the broad approach. That led to disparate studies, which gave the Campaign a wide breadth of find- ings. But when focus is scattered, some pro- jects flourish and others fizzle.

Whom do we fund? We targeted senior researchers. Most of them were great at writ- ing research proposals and landing grants, but (sadly) some had little interest in a sustained study of forgiveness. When senior scientists did get ahold of forgiveness—like Frank Fin- cham, for example—they really caught fire. But it was most often mid-career researchers who got attracted to the area, generated research, and stayed with the field even after they had completed their grant. Some new researchers even got their start with the Cam- paign. For people seeking to run a future Campaign, I would advise scrutinizing the sustained commitment of senior researchers.

I had the privilege in the early 2000s of con- sulting with the Fetzer Institute. They wanted to fund research in forgiveness and asked about my experiences with the Campaign. My advice was to fund mid-level researchers, which they did with great success.

Managing Campaigns Priorities. This is going to sound egocen-

tric, but it was a real challenge running a 501(c)(3) corporation while being a full-time academician. At the time, I was Department Chair in Psychology (1600 majors; five PhD programs), a teacher of 305 undergraduates in Psychology 101 (my favorite undergraduate class), mentor to five PhD students, and PI of a one million dollar grant. I was trying to publish between about 25 articles or chapters plus a book each year. I had a life, too. I played tournament tennis, played soccer, and ballroom danced. But my real priorities were as father of four children and husband to Kirby (married 1970). At times, there didn’t

seem to be a lot of me to go around. Juggling priorities required hard choices at times.

Personal skill-building. When I accepted the offer to chair the RFP and Campaign, I knew I had jumped in over my head. I had to develop skills at casting and promoting a vision—at becoming a visionary. Those were not skills I had developed doing research for grants or publication or managing a research team. I had to learn to give talks that were more inspirational and motivational than merely informational. I was fortunate to receive good coaching from many JTF staff.

Keeping researchers working happily and on track. As someone who has been funded numerous times, I must admit that I dread the quarterly progress report. As Cam- paign director, I was on the other side, reading progress reports. Some researchers have so many projects ongoing that Campaign funding was small potatoes in their gigantic lab. Often the Grants and Contracts Accounting (G&CA) offices were sending out financial reports, and researchers supplemented them with narra- tives. For some universities, G&CA was man- aging hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, and getting their attention for a $200K award was of low probability. For other universities, this was the first award their university might have ever received, and they did not have accounting procedures in place to create need- ed reports. They were learning as they went as I was learning as a grant overseer. I had to ask often how I might help.

Keeping funders informed. The most dif- ficult part of keeping philanthropic funders engaged is that the pace of science makes a snail’s pace look like a road-runner’s. From starting a two-year funded project to publica- tion can take six or seven years. Funders do not want to wait seven years to hear about what a great job their money has done. So, the manager of a Campaign needs to actively keep funders updated. Often that means pro- viding general progress in lay language. I do not favor websites for that purpose. Websites are important, but for other purposes. Nothing beats personal and personalized communica- tion with the philanthropist.

Managing the Campaign “team.” It was a loosely structured team—more like a tennis team than a soccer team. The Campaign “team” included my staff, funded researchers,

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unfunded researchers, and philanthropists. My challenge was to pay proper attention to all.

Dissemination of Results Media. To get media coverage, one can pur-

chase it. JTF funded two documentary films and a PBS documentary. They all featured well-known spokespeople for forgiveness, high-interest forgiveness stories, and scientific researchers and practitioners talking about their work. The documentaries on forgiveness won awards but also were expensive.

Getting free media coverage. The obvious challenge is getting “the media coverage that can’t be bought”—when media contact scientists about their work. Press releases can help, but sadly, most PR efforts don’t. My university and other universities issue press releases regularly. Those 10 million dollar grants tend to make news, but usually, a single paper—regardless of how excellent it is scientifically—is not going to get NY Times attention unless it strikes a nerve.

Usually, thinking strategically about when to put out press releases is helpful. Expressing gratitude for being forgiven is hot the week before Thanksgiving. Forgiveness to promote lasting love is interesting before Valentine’s Day. Forgiveness regarding military issues—such as self-forgiveness after experi- encing a moral injury—are relevant near Vet- erans Day (November 11), Memorial Day (last Monday in May), before World Suicide Pre- vention Day (September 10), or during Suicide Awareness Month (September) sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If one has a study that is about to be published, then find an event that happens to be newsworthy and target it as a narrative hook.

Penetrating other disciplines. We were successful at getting results into popular media and scientific journals. The JTF’s philosophy encouraged publication in discipline-specific journals. JTF encouraged scientists to publish in health, relationship, intervention, social psychol- ogy, and the psychology of religion and spiritu- ality journals. Those journals were scientifically oriented because the Campaign funded scientif- ic research on forgiveness.

We did not do as well at penetrating the humanities with the findings about psycholo- gy. Many words were written about definitions and conceptualizations about forgiveness, and yet few interchanges occurred with philoso- phers, theologians, artists, or those within the

humanities. One of the challenges, then, is to involve cross-disciplinary teams that are really involved in research, and then encourage philosophers, theologians, literature scholars, artists, pastors, and educators to publish in their journals within the humanities and arts.

Integrating basic and applied research. I have always had poor impulse control when it comes to research. I’m a trained counseling psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist, and member of VCU’s social psychology, developmental psychology, and health psy- chology programs. This eclectic set of psy- chology interests helped me understand and communicate to the media and to the public a wide array of findings about forgiveness. A Campaign needs either a versatile spokesper- son or a team of applied and basic researchers who can integrate the two.

Brief Conclusion with Lessons Learned

This article has been about interdisciplinary research, but not in the sense of getting psy- chologists, theologians, and philosophers to cooperate on a research program or single study. Rather, it is about generating and pro- moting forgiveness research across psychology (in all its many subdisciplines), humanities, phi- lanthropy, and media communication. Due to guidelines by Sir John that limit the percent of the JTF endowment spent annually on staff salaries, the Sir John Templeton trinity (the JTF, the Templeton World Charity Foundation, and the Templeton Religion Trust) promotes large grants that seek to organize and administer RFPs that generate subawards within the omnibus grant. Many large funded projects will, in the future, engage in this type of inter- disciplinary work. They will not merely have to design RFPs that encourage a deep involve- ment across academic disciplines to produce science that is informed by other disciplines; they will also need to cross different disci- plinary lines to manage multiple research efforts, deal with multiple funders, work within science (to disseminate research within the par- ticipating disciplines), and especially work with media to disseminate research to the public.

My experiences managing the RFP for for- giveness research and Campaign help me draw several lessons. • Go into the work expecting to have one’s

competencies stretched. Someone or some

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research team who manages grants (while doing their own research) will need skills at organizing conferences, dealing with multi- ple universities to keep the subaward finances and scientific projects on track, (perhaps) keeping multiple funders informed and engaged over the long time needed to conduct and publish research, and deal with dissemination via media interaction.

• Try to get media attention out of the gate. We were successful through a professionally made advertising film, a panel of esteemed scholars as judges for the research, a media plan, and identification of a particular go-to interviewee to direct media sources.

• Cull letters of intent to invite only two to three times the full applications that you intend to fund so that you don’t exhaust yourself reviewing applications that will not be funded.

• Make wise decisions about whom to fund. That might involve other considerations than merely who writes the best proposal. If a funded project that offers a within-project RFP is interested in building a field, then specify funding priorities prior to initiating the RFP. Because funding should be merit- based, set up categories and numbers of awards within categories. For example, a two million dollar RFP might award eight early career awards for $50K and four mid- career awards for $100K, and six open awards for $200K.

• In the Fetzer project I mentioned earlier, one goal was that the awardees dissemi- nate their research through media. The Fetzer Institute hired media consultants to instruct and rehearse awardees on how to give good media interviews. Other train- ing might be provided on how to land media interviews by timing press releases strategically.

• If you seek additional funding through per- sonal interactions with philanthropists, engage a supporter who has given to your organization personally to be your main contact so the philanthropists identify with someone personally.

• If you deal with a philanthropist, find his or her dream. Show the philanthropist how his or her dream can be partially realized through giving to your organization.

• Time press releases to coincide with and piggyback on newsworthy events.

• Look back on the learning you achieved through this experience as a gift that has increased your skills at scientific dissemina- tion. Science is socially mediated. Another

lesson I learned is that God is indeed in con- trol. The social agreement in science is that we don’t appeal to divine agency in doing and explaining science—we appeal only to Aristotle’s efficient causes (for great discus- sions of science and faith, see Barr, 2016). But in life, which is much bigger than sci- ence, we can consider Aristotle’s final causes in addition to efficient causes. God acts sovereignly. I saw God’s hand bring about the RFP. I attended a scientific meeting in 1997, and arriving to dinner late, I sat alone at a table. I deserve this for being late, I thought. But in walked a man who sat with me and introduced himself as Charles Harp- er, newly hired Vice-President of the JTF, who intended to poll the 80 scientists at this meeting to find what they thought the JTF should be funding. I was the first person he asked, and “forgiveness” was my answer, pure and simple. That was the primacy effect, I’m sure, and I’m just as sure that God engineered that divine appointment. One month later, I was offered (with David Myers) co-directorship of the Forgiveness RFP. And the rest—as they say—is history.

There is one other part of the social media- tion of science. Often scientists think they just do science in a lab, publish it in journals, and move to the next project, forging a research career over time. However, big sci- ence has always required special attention to informing the public about the achievements of science. The National Science Foundation, for example, requires a plan for dissemina- tion on funded projects. In the social sci- ences, we have not paid as much attention to public dissemination as perhaps we should have. Perhaps this essay will help the current generation of scientists be more effective at this vital responsibility shared by scientists.

References

Barr, S. M. (2016). The believing scientist: Essays on science and religion. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Helmick, R. G., & Peterson, R. L. (Eds.). (2000). Forgiveness and reconciliation. Philadelphia, PA: The Templeton Foundation Press.

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Smedes, L.B. (1984). Forgive and forget: Healing the hurts we don’t deserve. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Worthington, E. L., Jr. (Ed.). (1998). Dimensions of forgiveness: Psychological research and theologi- cal perspectives. Philadelphia, PA: The Templeton Foundation Press.

Worthington, E. L., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Handbook of forgiveness. New York, NY: Brunner-Routledge.

Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Wade, N. G. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of forgiveness, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge.

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