(RNS) — As diversity, equity and inclusion programs have been labeled discriminatory by the federal government, many such initiatives once championed by the corporate world have been terminated. But many efforts focusing on religious diversity have actually improved, according to a new report from the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation.
The report, released Tuesday (May 20), suggests Fortune 500 companies globally are increasingly taking those efforts seriously.
“That’s good business,” said Brian Grim, Religious Freedom and Business Foundation president. “You want people to stay. … If you can retain people by making them feel that you value who they are and what they bring from their spiritual side, that’s a business benefit.”
The report was based on the REDI Monitor, a benchmark assessment that tracks religious inclusion at Fortune 500 companies. It gave businesses an average score of 4.2 for 2025 — up from 3.6 in 2024 and 2.1 in 2023. The highest possible score is 15, and scores are largely based on whether businesses list religion on their “about” or “people” webpages and have belief-based employee resource groups.
One of President Donald Trump’s first acts in office this January was signing an executive order ending the federal government’s DEI efforts. That same month, Target announced it would pull back its DEI programs, including an initiative that diversified its suppliers, a move that triggered a boycott led in part by Black church leaders. Other Fortune 500 companies, including PepsiCo, McDonald’s, Walmart and Google, have also scaled back DEI efforts, many of them scrapping goals to hire employees from underrepresented groups.
Grim said while he’s seen several companies “rebrand” their inclusion efforts, renaming DEI webpages “about us” or “culture” pages, he was glad to see most religious inclusion efforts haven’t been lost in the process.
“Religion, as part of diversity, was never in the category where we had quotas,” said Grim, adding that quotas are an aspect of DEI that have especially drawn criticism. “It was always about creating a workplace where people feel like they can bring their whole soul to work.”
“Religion in the Fortune 500: Change from 2022 to 2025” (Graphic courtesy Religious Freedom and Business Foundation)
The report also suggests that the “pro-religious liberty policies of the current administration” may encourage companies to take their faith-based initiatives more seriously. Since taking office, Trump has established or reinstated several initiatives focused on faith, including the White House Faith Office, the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias and a Religious Liberty Commission.
But not all of Trump’s actions have been pro-religion. The president’s pause on foreign assistance has hindered the ability of religious charities like Catholic Relief Services and World Vision to aid impoverished communities abroad; his near-freeze on the refugee resettlement program has essentially barred faith-based resettlement groups from aiding refugees, including those facing religious persecution; and his decision to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to enter houses of worship has triggered lawsuits from faith groups who claim the move infringes on their religious freedom.
Grim said it’s unclear how this administration’s policies will impact religious inclusion in the business world. He noted that when the Trump administration ended the DEI programs of the U.S. Department of State, its faith-based employee groups for Jews, Christians and Muslims came to a halt as well.
“I’m afraid they’ll throw the religious baby out with the DEI bathwater,” Grim said. “People haven’t been aware that under that broader umbrella that they take issue with, a lot of positive faith initiatives were flourishing.”
Though the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation’s 2025 report points to gains in religious inclusion, it also shows some companies are being less vocal about their efforts. This year, fewer companies participated in the REDI Index, an opt-in survey that evaluates companies in 11 categories, including their religious accommodations, spiritual care/chaplaincy services and procedures for reporting discrimination. Last year, 20 Fortune 500 companies participated; this year, only nine did.
Previously high-scoring corporations like American Airlines, Intel, Tyson Foods, Google and Salesforce were absent from the survey’s rankings this year. They join many companies that have stopped doing external benchmarking on any topic, Grim said.
“They said, ‘We want to see how the dust settles on all of this,’” Grim said.
And the REDI Monitor, which evaluates publicly available information on all Fortune 500 companies, shows that 29 fewer companies mentioned religion on their corporate inclusion webpages this year compared to last year, and two fewer companies reported having faith-based employee resource groups. It also captures declines in religious inclusion efforts of select companies; Target fell five points in the REDI Monitor Score this year, down to eight points out of the possible 15. PepsiCo fell four points, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, fell 10.
But these changes were offset by gains by other companies. The pharmaceutical company Merck was a standout this year and “more than doubled” the size of its global interfaith group, Grim said. Accenture, a consulting company that topped the REDI Index rankings for the third year in a row, has been prioritizing religious inclusion for more than two decades and tracking how employee groups help people progress in the company and boost retention.
And, Grim noted, considering workplace data beyond Fortune 500 companies, this year saw more global participation in the REDI Index than ever before, particularly among U.K.-based businesses.
“So many things can polarize us, but this is something that we can all come together around — that it’s good to be accommodating and respectful of each other’s faiths and beliefs,” Grim said.
This week, that will be made evident as companies and leaders representing views from across the political and religious spectrum gather for the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation’s annual Faith@Work Summit in Washington, D.C.