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23% of participants in the Religion for Kids challenge make a donation to support URI's work. We're very grateful for it — it helps this work continue.
URI is not a religion.
It's a bridge-building organization — existing to help people, faiths, countries, communities, and organizations build bridges between each other.
Religions existed far before any country, company, or other organization. They are the foundation of how society and culture came to be. That's why it's important that we learn about them and honor them — all religions.
URI is a registered 501(c)(3). Donations are tax-deductible in the US.
One bishop. One phone call. One "fifth vow."
On a dreary February afternoon in 1993, Bishop William E. Swing — then 14 years into leading the Episcopal Diocese of California from Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill — took a call from the United Nations. The U.N. was turning 50, and would return to San Francisco to mark the signing of its Charter. Would he host the celebration?
Then came the question that would change his life: "Would you bring representatives of all of the religions of the world?"
That night he couldn't sleep. For fifty years the nations had gathered for the good of the world. The religions had never gathered — not once — for a single day of common vocation. By morning he had made what he would later call his fifth vow: to find "a way for people of all faiths to keep their faith and at the same time realize a common vocation for the sake of the world."
Why the fifth vow? Bishop Swing had already made four life-shaping commitments: to be a husband, a deacon, a priest, and a bishop. Each one was a promise to love, serve, and stay faithful. The United Religions Initiative became his fifth — a vow to the whole human family.
Bishop Swing was also one of the most beloved and humorous storytellers in modern religion. He traveled the world with a joke in his pocket and a serious purpose in his heart, writing books and giving talks that made people laugh, then think, then act. His work stretched far beyond interfaith gatherings: he was a passionate voice for ending nuclear war and for building a peace that would last — for us, for our children, and for all the children still to come.
The road was brutal. He was heckled on a riverbank in India. Dismissed at Oxford. A Vatican cardinal stormed into a meeting and told him the Catholic Church would have nothing to do with a United Religions. He and his wife Mary once mortgaged their home for a million dollars to keep the dream alive.
But the doors kept opening — the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, theologian Hans Küng. In 2000, the URI Charter was signed in Pittsburgh. Today the United Religions Initiative is the largest grassroots interfaith network on Earth — 1,200+ Cooperation Circles in 100+ countries, each one carrying Bishop Swing's fifth vow into their own city, temple, mosque, church, and school.
Uri — the little character teaching your kids this week — is named for that quest. Your gift keeps it going.
Real people. Different faiths. One vow.
From moms and grandparents to CEOs and URI Global Council members — here's what called them to support the work.
“My kids go to school with Muslim, Christian, and traditional-faith friends. Uri gave us the words to talk about it at the dinner table without anyone feeling small.”
“I've watched Hillel's story land with a nine-year-old in Haifa and a nine-year-old in Ramallah in the same week. That's the whole reason I give.”
“I wanted my daughters to be proud of our tradition AND curious about their neighbors'. Three days of Uri did more than a year of my lectures.”
“We employ people from twelve traditions. I underwrite URI because a workforce that respects each other's faith outperforms one that tiptoes around it.”
“The Prophet, peace be upon him, told us to seek knowledge even in China. Teaching our children about other faiths IS that command, lived out.”
“Compassion is a skill. It has to be practiced young. Uri gives grandparents like me something real to hand to the little ones.”
“Bishop Swing's quest reminded me: bridges are built one story at a time. I give monthly so more children hear those stories in their own language.”
“One of us was raised Buddhist, the other Presbyterian. We wanted our boys to see both — and everyone else — as beautiful. Uri does that in three days.”
