Attention Shifts to Faith-Based Groups

Emergency food providers across Pennsylvania may be wondering why such a fuss is being made about government funding for faith-based organizations. After all, food cupboards and pantries located in churches and staffed by congregational volunteers have been receiving food from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the U.S Government for at least 15 years.

Religious nonprofits involved in welfare-to-work programs may be asking a similar question. Beginning with the 1996 welfare reform law, the federal government has encouraged states to involve faith-based organizations as providers of services. The PA Department of Public Welfare (DPW) has done just that through an array of contracts with the Salvation Army, Jewish Employment and Vocational Services, Catholic Charities, Church of God of Prophecy of Pennsylvania, Cookman United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, and St. Benedict Education Center in Erie.

Nevertheless, the question of government funding for faith-based organizations (FBOs) has achieved prominence due to the top priority President Bush is giving this agenda (see sidebar on page 4). In creating a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the President has put in motion a plan to remove barriers so that more federal dollars will flow into the faith-based sector. So while federal funding to religious groups can not be described as new, the raised profile and "barrier-removing" mandate of the new White House office suggest that FBOs will soon have access to more government dollars than ever before.

Supplement or Substitute?

If large amounts of dollars are involved, a key question comes into focus: will the public dollars be a supplement to or substitute for traditional government programs? Dr. Teresa Amott, Vice-Provost at Gettysburg College and President of Hunger Action, sees two sources of support for the President's initiative. "First are the folks who want public dollars to be used more effectively. They perceive community-based groups, whether faith-based or secular, as better able to address certain kinds of social problems. Then there are those who simply want to cut public social spending. They see the President's initiative as a way to mask the harshness of such cuts."

Whatever the motive, Amott warns of the harm that will occur if funding for community-based groups comes at the expense of publicly-run programs. "Look at what happened here in Pennsylvania in 1998 after legal immigrants became ineligible for federally-funded food stamps. Many people called on the Ridge Administration to use state funds to pay for food stamps so that immigrants wouldn't go hungry. Instead, the Governor launched a $4 million initiative to help legal immigrants by strengthening the charitable food network. That money did a lot of good. But it also deflated the advocacy effort and left legal immigrants with only a pittance of what they needed and would have received through food stamps."

What Strings Are Attached?

Conditions always come along with funding. Despite the best efforts to lower barriers, FBOs can expect no less from the President's initiative.

The question is what kind of conditions will be attached. Some conditions simply encourage program effectiveness. For example, if government funds were provided to improve nutrition within food insecure families, it would be reasonable to require documentation that the money was actually used to purchase food; that the food was given to needy families; that the distribution did not discriminate among recipients on the basis of race or religious belief; and that the families would enjoy better nutrition as a result of the entire effort.

Then there are the ideological kinds of conditions. The Capital Research Center, a Washington-based think tank, combines enthusiastic support for the President's plan with a call for "a strict ban on lobbying by federal grantees" (The Chronicle of Philanthropy, January 25, 2001). A similar approach -- to require charities to restrict advocacy in exchange for expanded access to public funding -- was part of legislation proposed in 1998 here in Pennsylvania by then-Senator Melissa Hart and Representative Jere Strittmatter.

Will the President's initiative seek to silence charities that receive public money? Nothing to date indicates this will be the case. Nevertheless, given the ideological agenda some enthusiasts bring to this subject, the question bears watching.

In the meantime, FBOs here in Pennsylvania can expect the doors to public funding to open more widely. Rich Overmoyer, a policy specialist with DPW, said community-based organizations have the flexibility to achieve certain results better than the Department can achieve internally. As an example, he pointed to the recently-announced $10 million Community Connections Initiative, which seeks to encourage TANF parents to become involved as soon as possible in work and training activities leading to family self-sufficiency. "I don't see this as a way of reducing the size of government. And certainly it's not a way to give preferences to religious groups. As a Department, we're just proceeding in the way that will be most effective at the community level."