Omar Khan

When President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, one of his first official acts was to create the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Later, through executive order, he created Centers on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in eight federal agencies-the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).¹

According to CFED's (formerly, the Corporation for Enterprise Development) directory of organizations providing Individual Development Account programs, in 2003 thirty-two programs identified as faith-based non-profit social service agencies.² Faith-Based Credit Unions also make up a large percentage of institutions that are members of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions.³ "Faith-based" organizations have a widely-known history of serving people with disabilities.⁴ The three areas-asset building, faith-based, and disability-seem a natural fit, yet the connections between these related areas have not been forged in any significant way. This article addresses what is needed to make the connections and what is currently offered by the government to reduce the gap between these three areas.

According to a report produced by the Urban Institute, despite all the political fanfare that preceded the unveiling of the faith-based initiatives by the administration, the monetary commitment to the effort has not matched the publicity. "The small pool of money that has been issued to date has fueled skepticism and disenchantment among many clergy who are only too aware that a serious government commitment to support and enhance their work requires much more money."⁵

Like secular non-profits, small faith-based congregations face capacity issues. For all organizations wanting to provide asset building programs, administrative capacity is in particular a serious problem. One government program that addresses some of the capacity issues faced by faith-based and other organizations is the Compassion Capital Fund.

The Compassion Capital Fund (CCF), as part of George W. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative, was established to increase the scale and effectiveness of faith-based and community organizations through research and other supportive means, such as better access to "faith-friendly funding." The CCF-established intermediary organizations to provide a number of services to smaller organizations, including the management of government funds on behalf of those groups.

Most nonprofits use their limited resources to promote themselves to the same donors and foundations year after year. There is little if any investing in organizational infrastructure or staff development. Compared to the for-profit sector, non-profits are only beginning to understand that generating sustainable outcomes requires investment in organizational capacity building.

Organizational capacity encompasses virtually everything an organization uses to achieve its mission, from desks and chairs to programs and people. Measured at any given point in time, capacity is an output of basic organization activities such as raising money; forging partnerships; organizing work; recruiting and training board members, leaders, and employees; generating ideas; managing budgets; and evaluating programs. Once created, organizational capacity is expended in mission-related program activities such as treating patients, feeding the hungry, building housing, supporting children of incarcerated parents, educating students, and training workers; it is regenerated through the same organizational activities that created it in the first place.

The challenge is to make a case for organizational investment at a time when nonprofits have little discretionary funding and must often choose between computers and kids, training and treatment, salaries and seniors.

As part of CCF's commitment to support faith- and community-based organizations to increase their working capacities, CCF produces the NRC e-Newsletter. The newsletter is a bi-weekly publication having information that organization staff and leadership can read in the morning and apply in the afternoon. To sign up for this newsletter, go to http://www.ccfnews.org/

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the HHS Office of Community Services have contracted to develop a National Resource Center to ensure that the intermediary organizations funded under the CCF are adequately equipped with the information and training they need to assist grassroots organizations. The Center-which runs until the end of the year, provides capacity-building support at the national level by working directly with federal agencies and the intermediary organizations funded under CCF-serves as an expert resource regarding faith-based and community initiatives and best practices; as a developer of and repository and distribution center for information, tools and resources needed by faith-based and community organizations and organizations that work with them to improve their capacity, knowledge, and skills; and provide a forum for stimulating discussion of issues.

The Four Components of the National Resource Center

• Information Clearinghouse
  The National Resource Center functions as an online distribution center to disseminate capacity-building resources and information to intermediaries. Through both public and private websites, printed materials, and other tools and resources, the National Resource Center provides easy access to training, techniques, experts, and conferences.
• Useful Tools
  The National Resource Center collects information, identifies best practices, and develops resources in print and electronic format. The focus of subject matter is on areas of greatest impact and leverage for intermediaries, including public funding, partnerships, and outcome measurement.
• Customized Technical Assistance
  Through one-on-one onsite visits, offsite support, and teleconferences, the National Resource Center supports capacity-building in intermediaries by helping to identify and meet their unique needs. CCF-funded intermediary organizations are enabled to provide appropriate and culturally sensitive training to the faith-based and community organizations they serve.
• Specialized Workshops
  The National Resource Center creates learning opportunities for intermediaries to learn from each other and from expert presenters. The purpose of the workshops is to convene leaders from CCF-funded intermediary organizations from around the country, expose participants to new ideas, teach leadership and management skills, facilitate networking opportunities, and address important policy matters related to CCF. Workshops include Orientation, Executive Level Leadership Workshops, and Program Level Training.

CCF intermediary organization grantees help smaller organizations operate and manage their programs effectively, access funding from varied sources, develop and train staff, expand the types and reach of social service programs in their communities, and replicate promising programs. They also issue sub-awards directly to qualified faith-based and community organizations to expand or replicate promising or best practices.

CCF research organizations build knowledge regarding the roles and promising approaches by diverse types of faith-based and community organizations to provide services within five priority areas: homelessness, hunger, "at-risk" children, the transition from welfare to work, and intensive services for those most in need.

Conclusion

While the resources provided through the National Resource Center and the training and technical assistance offered by the intermediary organizations funded by the Compassion Capital Fund are extremely useful, are they really what small faith-based and community organizations wanting to provide asset building programs need? According to the 2003 report by the Urban Institute, a diverse group of 13 congregations representing many faiths-among them Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, and Muslims-all agreed that what they needed most was money and that working with the government was too complicated.⁶

The Compassion Capital Fund, Bush's largest budgeted faith-based initiative, allocated $89 million in 2002. The fund was originally intended to allow states to use unspent welfare block grant funds to create a state income-tax credit that subsidizes private contributions to charities engaged in fighting poverty.⁷ But there is no evidence that this has happened in any state.

Clergy interviewed gave very specific recommendations on what could be done to make the faith-based initiatives work more effectively.

• Earmark new money to small congregations in low-income areas. If the faith-based initiatives are to reach their intended audiences, then money should be specifically directed to areas where the need was greatest.
• Improve coordination of technical assistance workshops so that every government agency is not saying and doing the same thing. The proliferation of workshops was viewed as a wasteful duplication of effort and a time-consuming drain for local clergy.
• Create incentives to stimulate volunteering. Because many of these programs use volunteers to deliver services, respondents suggested that a tax credit or deduction be given for time spent volunteering⁸.

Somewhere within the widening gap between public relations and community reality, faith-based initiatives provide an opportunity for government to work with local communities, identify and address their needs, strengthen community capacity, and empower local residents. It is clear through recent proposed budgetary cuts in numerous poverty-reduction programs, many new coalitions will need to emerge to fill in gaps left by lapses in government funding. In many cases across the country, some faith-based organizations have made a concerted effort to serve individuals with disabilities. Other faith-based organizations have extended their efforts to provide asset building programs, like IDAs. There seems never to have been a time when there was a greater need for these three communities to come together and work towards the shared cause of improving the lives of people living in poverty.

1 Towey, Jim. "President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative" No Date. http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/four-page-overview2005.pdf

2 CFED IDA Program Directory. 2003.
http://idanetwork.cfed.org/index.php?section=2003idasurvey&page=index.php

3 National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. Faith-Based Credit Union Program.
http://www.natfed.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=283

4 For concrete examples of work to extend services to people with disabilities, see April EQUITY's Program of the Month and Profile articles.

5 De Vita, Carol J. and Pho Palmer. 2003. "Church-State Partnerships: Some Reflections from Washington DC" Policy Briefs/Charting Civil Society. Urban Institute. September 30, 2003.
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310865_cnp_14.pdf

6 De Vita and Palmer 2003

7 De Vita, Carol J. and Sarah Wilson. 2001. "Faith-Based Initiatives: Sacred Deeds and Secular Dollars" Policy Briefs/Charting Civil Society. Urban Institute. July 01, 2001.

8 De Vita and Palmer 2003. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310351_philanthropy_5.pdf