Mara Vanderslice is the Deputy Director and Senior Policy Advisor to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  She is also the Coordinator for the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the first of its kind Advisory group made up of diverse religious and community leaders that provide advice to the President on how to form better partnerships between government and faith-based and neighborhood organizations.  Ms. Vanderslice facilitates the White House’s interagency working group on Religion and Global Affairs, which seeks to promote inter-religious cooperation and engagement in the U.S. Government’s work abroad.

Prior to serving at the White House, Ms. Vanderslice has been engaged at the intersection of faith and politics for many years, working with dozens of candidates and public officials on religious affairs.  She has more than 10 years of experience working with faith-based non-profits on issues from hunger and welfare reform to international development and debt relief for the world’s poorest countries.  Her work on faith and public life has been profiled in TIME magazine, the NY Times and Christianity Today; she has appeared as a guest on CNN, NPR and Comedy Central’s Colbert Report.  Ms. Vanderslice has a bachelor’s degree from Earlham College, a small Christian college in Richmond, IN.