Since his inauguration, President Bush has touted and encouraged his Faith-Based and Community Initiative as one of the best ways to help our country’s most vulnerable citizens. However, new studies released October on the initiative find that states and local governments are not rapidly incorporating these new provisions, and services provided by faith-based organizations may not be any more effective than that of secular social service providers. Specifically, these studies – conducted for a research conference held by The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare detail a general comparison of faith-based and secular service agencies; provides of the relative effectiveness of faith-based welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles; the state of the law surrounding government partnerships with faith-based service providers; and the policy environment for faith-based organizations contracting with government in all 50 states with an in-depth look into Texas, Florida, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Montana. The main point coming out of this year’s conference is that not enough is known about the participation of faith-based organizations in government-financed social services. Additionally, more research will have to be done in order to prove or disprove President Bush’s belief that faith-based organizations are better social service providers than their secular counterparts. Here is a summary of the studies: Comparative Case Studies of Faith-Based and Secular Service Agencies This case study tests the claims that compared to secular nonprofit or government services providers, FBOs are more holistic in their approach, which stresses spiritual renewal and personal transformation; places program participants in an ongoing support network that provides role models and assistance as well as connects clients to the community; have frontline workers who care more and are more personal when approaching clients; and that all of this translates to a “more effective” service. Using uniform definitions of terms, a list of survey questions, and systematic survey methodology, this study found that FBOs and other service providers share common goals that relate to their field. For instance they all want to help make families secure and help them get off of TANF, or help their client kick a drug habit. Yet, there are definite underlying differences in their mission. Secular parent education programs are found to view effective parenting as a matter of technical competence, whereas FBOs approach parenting as a moral endeavor with spiritual significance. Additionally the study found that there is constrained choice of providers because of government mandates, and because demand for services far exceeds supply. The study goes on to answer each question above individually and concludes that there is tremendous diversity among FBOs and within each policy area; secular agencies and FBOs occupy different market niches. What Works: Comparing the Effectiveness of Welfare-to-Work Programs in Los Angeles Since taking office, President Bush has asserted that nongovernmental entities, such as FBOs, are able to provide social services as effectively or even better than their government counterparts. However, what is missing from the debate is data from studies that test the success of different programs when providing social services. This study is one of the first (See Nov. 17 Watcher artcle for the very first study done on comparing the effectiveness of several different social service program types.) to question the effectiveness of five different types of welfare-to-work programs in urban Los Angeles County. The types of programs include: government run, for-profit, nonprofit/secular, segregated faith-based, and integrated faith-based. A key finding of the study is that there is no clear evidence that point to any one type of program being more effective when working with welfare-to-work clients. Each type was found to do well on some measures but not so good or even bad on others. Some of the other key findings are:

• That clients in the five program types are really similar in relation to skills, life situation, and level of optimism;
• Both segregated and integrated FBOs did the best in client evaluations of staff and program empathy;
• Clients from government providers were more likely than any other program type to rate their program’s effectiveness as high;
• For-profit programs did the best at finding their clients full-time employment at the end of a 12-month period (with only 59 percent); and
• Integrated FBOs, segregated FBOs, and government programs were the most successful at enabling their clients that were already employed to stay employed.

In conclusion, one of the study’s suggestions is that the ideal welfare-to-work program is one that collaborates and builds partnerships with all types of programs, instead of relying on just one type of provider. Government Partnership with Faith-Based Service Providers: The State of the Law The report explains that rapid change and significant uncertainty are the most noteworthy features in the legal environment surrounding faith-based organizations (FBOs) participation in government-funded social services –. Among the major findings for the state of law are:

• direct (funding through grants) and indirect (funding through vouchers) financial support to FBOs is now permitted as the result of a Supreme Court decision on school vouchers
• many state constitutions restrict financial support to FBOs,
• FBOs are frequently exempt from the federal prohibition on religious discrimination in employment,
• charitable choice provisions appear in a variety of federal programs and permit FBOs to retain their religious identity while participating in government social welfare programs, and
• most existing contracts between states and FBOs do not address the responsibility of FBOs with respect to constitutional and statutory limitations on the their use of government funds.

While partnerships between government and faith-based organizations are hardly new, there have always been limitations imposed on government’s authority to finance the delivery of social services by sectarian institutions. The report concludes that this silence and lack of guidance for FBOs on the use of government funds allows for ambiguity and evasiveness and may also lead to legal trouble. Some of the issues that contracts might address to avoid any problems include: preserving religious character of the FBO through icons and symbols, religious discrimination when selecting the beneficiary, alerting the beneficiary to secular options, specifying the religious activities that the state is constitutionally forbidden to pay for, and accounting properly for the segregation of private support for religious activities from public support for secular services. This summer, the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare sponsored research to examine the involvement of FBOs in the delivery of social services. All 50 states had researchers that gathered information on the policy environment for faith-based social service delivery at the state and local level. One objective for the study was to detail the changes, if any, that have been implemented in law, regulation, and administrative processes because of the Charitable Choice provision in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the expansion of this provision to several other federal programs by President Bush’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative Executive Order. Meeting the objectives of the study was not easy for many reasons. Lack of standard terminology of what constituted a “faith-based organization”, along with the absence of data on social service contracts, and nonexistent tracking systems for what type of organization receives grants or contracts provided many obstacles for the researchers. Nevertheless, researchers were able to gather enough data to allow some important questions to be answered about the policy environment of states and local governments to contract with FBOs. The results show that states have responded to the federal initiatives in very different ways, and the majority has had very small changes. The lack of change can be attributed to many causes, among them are that FBOs have long been players in social service delivery. Only a few states have amended their statues, regulations, or contracting processes to increase the level of FBO participation. Additionally, there has been no new effort by states to monitor their compliance with restrictions on permissible activities. The states that have taken steps to increase government grants for social service delivery by FBOs do so by creating high-level liaison offices to improve communication with FBOs, developing mailing lists and websites to make FBOs aware of the eligibility of government funds, and conducting trainings to assist FBOs in competing for grants and contracts. However, for the most part, the study concludes that states have not felt the need to make substantial changes. The Faith-Based Initiative in Texas: A Case Study Texas was the first state to implement the Charitable Choice provision in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In doing so, George W. Bush created a model for how states could work with FBOs in providing government funded social services. Shortly after Bush became President, he used his Texas model to create his Faith-Based and Community Initiative. This case study describes the development of Texas’ faith-based initiative, the structure of FBO funding as a provider of social services, the tools used to monitor faith-based social service provisions, the challenge of tracking grants and contracts of Texas’ FBOs, conflicts of FBOs and government funding, and an in-depth look at FBOs of Harris County’s use of government funding. Faith-Based Organizations and the Delivery of Social Services in Florida: A Case Study For as long as anyone can remember, FBOs have been an integral part of social service delivery throughout the state of Florida. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, and The Salvation Army have been partnering with the government to provide mental health services, immigrant relief programs, substance abuse counseling, care for the elderly, child protective services, and emergency food relief. Recent federal charitable choice legislation and other faith-based initiatives have not changed the role of FBOs in the delivery of social services in Florida. This report finds that FBOs role as a social service provider is just one effort in the state’s commitment to shrink government. Faith-Based Organizations and Social Service Delivery in New Hampshire FBOs have always been able to contract with the government for social service delivery in New Hampshire. Therefore, there has been no change since the Charitable Choice provision of 1996 or the recent faith-based provisions in President Bush’s Executive Order. This report reviews in detail the contracting policies and procedures and their effect on FBOs ability to provide state-funded social services, the state’s requirements for protecting clients’ religious freedom, and an analysis of Merrimack County’s use of FBOs for social service contracts. The report makes a special notation on how the state of New Hampshire has actively sought out the faith community by asking for assistance in volunteering and encouraging faith-based subcontracting. In one instance, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Division for Children, Youth, and Families asked churches specifically to help host trainings on water safety for childcare providers. HHS’ Division of Family Assistance also often refers clients to FBOs and even sets aside funds for them. Additionally, the Department of Labor through informal directives, mailing lists, and training by federal representatives have encouraged nonprofit agencies to reach out to the faith community for subcontracting. In conclusion, the Division of Charitable Trusts, the entity that nonprofits are required to register with, is experiencing a great increase in the number of faith-affiliated nonprofits throughout the state. One major reason the report indicates is the perception of the growing market for faith-based services. Great Expectations and Recent Frustrations: Oklahoma’s Continuing Quest to Partner with Faith-Based Organizations This report finds that Oklahoma does not discriminate against religious institutions for government contracts. In fact, the state has actively tried to engage FBOs in providing government financed social services, and after 1996 these efforts intensified. One of the major changes after the Charitable Choice provision of 1996 was the creation of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The report cites, “Achieving the vision of Oklahoma’s faith communities being fully involved in addressing the needs of the state’s poor and disadvantaged may require a lot of handholding and mentoring by those who are already engaged in community action.” The Challenges of Implementing Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in Montana Montana has been slow to implement the Faith-Based and Community Initiative. At the present time, the state has one high-profile faith-based project, the Montana Faith-Health Demonstration Cooperative. The Cooperative is funded by the Bush administration’s new Compassion Capital Fund, and is designed to support several faith-based programs as well as grant sub-awards to FBOs and community organizations’ health-related projects. Currently the state of Montana and the Cooperative are being sued by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. The Foundation complains that the management and operation of the Cooperative are intermingled with the state offices and personnel, with the effect being the government endorsement of religion -- a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. There is no way to gauge at this time how the lawsuit will effect faith-based contracting in Montana in the future.