WASHINGTON—More than 150 African- American religious leaders from across the state, including several from Buffalo, traveled to the nation’s capital Tuesday to learn how to bring more federal money back home to help their communities.

The ministers attended a daylong summit sponsored by Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N. Y. The event featured panels with aid experts from the White House and federal agencies, who discussed how religious communities can apply for and win federal grants.

“Everyone in this room should promise me that they’re going to do three grant applications in the next year,” Gillibrand said. “The more we apply for, the more we get.”

The Rev. Michael Chapman, pastor of St. John Baptist Church in Buffalo, said more federal money would be key to the church’s expansive plans for revitalizing the East Side of Buffalo.

“This has been useful to us to make contacts so we don’t have to go through the bureaucracy,” Chapman said.

Officials from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the Small Business Administration, the U. S. Department of Labor and other agencies spoke at the summit.

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan delivered the keynote address, telling the ministers that they could play a key role in redevelopment because of their stature in their communities.

“They know you, they trust you, they respect you,” he said.

Donovan stressed that the Federal Housing Administration is still able to help with inner-city housing development despite the financial crisis of the past few years.

Bishop Michael A. Badger, senior pastor of Bethesda World Harvest International Church in Buffalo, said his church had not previously sought federal funds, but that he is interested in trying to get money for housing rehabilitation and job training.

“All the people you need to be able to connect to to lead you to the money were there, and that was very helpful,” he said.

Along with the nuts-and-bolts panels on the grant application process, the summit featured brief appearances by politicians such as Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport.

Rev. Al Sharpton—whom Gillibrand called “a great friend and ally and resource”— delivered a luncheon address. He urged the crowd to support the Obama administration’s agenda and said of Gillibrand: “For her to have the mission to do this is something we certainly should not forget.”

Gillibrand said she put together the summit to make sure faith-based communities know that there’s plenty of federal aid available for them to seek.

“A lot of faith-based communities are not applying for enough money,” she said.

Several of the ministers who attended said it was the first time they can remember a U. S. senator inviting them to Washington for such an event.

“We haven’t had this opportunity before,” said Dr. James C. Blackburn Jr. of Greater Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Buffalo. “So when a U.S. senator invites you to come to Washington for something like this, we certainly want to be there.”