Charitable choice

Abstract: The charitable choice provision and President Bush's proposed Faith-Based and Community Initiative have spurred debates regarding government support of faith-based social service programs and their effectiveness. To address the issue of relative effectiveness, the logically prior question of what constitutes a faith-based agency and how they differ from secular providers must be answered. Utilizing data from a mailed survey, this study compares the organizational characteristics of faith-based and secular agencies that provide services to the homeless in Houston, Texas. Results indicate that the two agency types vary significantly across several dimensions including funding sources and preferences, decision-making tools, organizational culture, practices, leadership, and staffing characteristics. In addition, survey data and content analysis of mission statements reveal that 80 percent of faith-based agencies use religious imagery in some form of their “public face” to communicate their religiousness.

Abstract: 1 The Welfare Revolution and Charitable Choice 2 Social Welfare and Faith-Based Benevolence in Historical Perspective 3 Faith-Based Poverty Relief: Congregational Strategies 4 A Tale of Two Churches: United Methodists in Black and White5 Debating Devolution: Pentecostal and Southern Baptist Perspectives 6 Invisible Minorities: Transnational Migrants in Mississipi 7 Street-Level Benevolence at the March for Jesus 8 Charitable Choice: Promise and Peril in the Post-Welfare EraAppendix: Milieu and Method

Abstract: Welfare reform discussions in the 1990s included proposals for government to support religious organizations that provide social services. This fostered a debate about the proper relationship betwe...

Abstract: Drawing on a new community study of more than 2,000 residents of low-income neighborhoods, we examine information about the kinds of service organizations respondents have contacted for assistance and the perceptions of these respondents about the effectiveness and trustworthiness of those organizations. We compare contact with and perceptions of faith-based organizations, nonsectarian organizations, government agencies, hospitals, and churches and employ a method that takes account of respondents’ varying portfolios of service providers. The results indicate that the recipients of faith-based organizations resemble those of the public welfare department in the extent of financial need and scope of family problems, and differ significantly from recipients of help from congregations. The results also indicate that recipients’ evaluations of the effectiveness and trustworthiness of their portfolio of service organizations are lower when they have sought assistance from public welfare agencies and higher when they have sought assistance from congregations, but are not significantly affected by having contacted faith-based or nonsectarian organizations. Considerable interest in faith-based organizations (FBOs) that provide social services to the needy in their communities has been generated since passage of the charitable choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation and in conjunction with the formation of the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under the Bush Administration (Cnaan 1999; Diulio 2002; Pipes and Ebaugh 2002; Chaves 1999). Proponents of government funding for FBOs argue that these organizations play a special role in the provision of community services and should therefore be encouraged. As President Bush observed: “Charities and faithbased groups fill needs that no welfare system, no matter how well designed, can possibly fill ... In times of personal crisis, people do not need the rules of a bureaucracy; they need the help of a neighbor” (2002). Yet, in view of tax dollars being devoted to government programs that in turn provide support to FBOs, questions have been raised about the relative effectiveness of FBOs compared with public or nonsectarian organizations (NSOs). A major foundation-funded effort has been initiated to monitor research on these and related questions. However, relatively little research thus far has sought to examine the effectiveness of FBOs. The few attempts that have been made to assess the effectiveness of FBOs have focused either on specific organizations already presumed to be particularly effective or on specific outcomes that are easily measurable, such as recidivism or responses to drug treatment. For instance, Berrien, McRoberts, and Winship (2000) examined the Ten Point Coalition in Boston during a period when crime statistics fell and argued that there were features of the coalition of clergy and police that made it a likely contributor to the decline (see also Orr et al. 1994; Winship forthcoming). A more quantitative approach is illustrated by Desmond and Maddux (1981), who studied heroin