urban institute nonprofit social and economic policy research

Federal Policy on the Ground

Faith-Based Organizations Delivering Local Services

Fredrica D. Kramer, Kenneth FinegoldCarol J. De Vita, Laura Wherry
Read complete document: PDF


PrintPrint this page
Document date: July 28, 2005
Released online: July 28, 2005

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).


I. Introduction

Faith-based organizations have long been essential components of the U.S. safety net. Congregations (including churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples) and social service organizations with religious roots (such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services) have provided emergency food and shelter, child care, and other forms of assistance, particularly for low-income Americans. The "Charitable Choice" provisions in the August 1996 federal welfare reform law authorize states to contract directly with faith-based organizations for services under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant program. Subsequent legislation authorizing the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant and the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) contain similar provisions.1 Although legislation that would further expand Charitable Choice has been stalled in the Senate since 2001, the Bush administration has promoted broader involvement of faith-based organizations in federal social programs through administrative actions. The administration has issued regulations to implement Charitable Choice, created offices for faith-based and community initiatives in the White House and in eight cabinet departments and two federal agencies, and created new discretionary grant programs including the Compassion Capital Fund, which provides technical assistance for capacity building in faith-based and community organizations.

Faith-based initiatives are a core component of the administration's domestic agenda, and it has pursued their adoption vigorously. This study focuses on how these efforts have been received at the state and local levels, whether and how they have changed the involvement of faith-based organizations (FBOs, for short) in public programs, and what we know and need to know about the nature of the services FBOs deliver.2

Some aspects of faith-based organizations delivering social programs have been studied much more than others. Researchers have developed a detailed profile of the assistance faith-based organizations provide and the types of faith-based organizations that provide it. The constitutional issues raised by government funding of faith-based social services have stimulated considerable debate, although important legal questions remain unresolved. Recent studies extensively detail the politics surrounding these issues at the national level. But we know relatively little about the interactions of faith-based organizations with state and local agencies in the context of nationally driven initiatives, or how these interactions affect the type, extent, and quality of assistance faith-based organizations provide or who receives it. We also know little about how faith relates to the content of services provided by FBOs.

To fill these gaps, we conducted a study in three cities to examine how federal policies regarding faith-based involvement in public programs play out in state and local settings. We focused on four program areas within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that either have Charitable Choice provisions in their authorizing legislation or specifically encourage FBO participation in the provision of publicly funded services. Three programs—TANF, SAPT, and CSBG—are all block grants that give state or local officials significant discretion in spending federal money. The Compassion Capital Fund, in contrast, is a special discretionary program with no involvement by state or local governments. It gives grants to nongovernmental intermediaries to provide technical assistance to faith-based and community organizations and otherwise help in capacity building. It also gives grants directly to FBOs and community organizations.

In site visits to Birmingham, Boston, and Denver, we spoke with state and local officials and visited many local faith-based programs that receive financial support from one of these four federal funding streams. We also surveyed congregations in each city by telephone to better understand how FBOs that had not historically received public funding responded to the new policies.

The study adds to recent assessments of the new policies on several dimensions. It looks vertically at the state and local response to congressional and administration actions, horizontally at the characteristics of faith-based service providers across four program areas, and in depth at the role of faith in publicly funded services. Our research was organized around three sets of questions:

  • To what extent do FBOs participate in the delivery of publicly funded services, and how has this changed over time? What are the characteristics of FBO providers receiving these funds, and have these characteristics changed over time?
  • How do state and local administrators perceive the opportunities and challenges in the new policies, and what policies and procedures have they implemented to address them? How are accountability to legal requirements and public contracting rules being maintained?
  • What role does faith play in the delivery of human services by faith-based organizations, and how has that role changed over time?

We found the following in our three study sites:

  • Many faith-based social service organizations contracted with government long before Charitable Choice and continue to do so. In the three program authorities with Charitable Choice provisions, the level of funding and number of contracts involving FBOs have changed little since Charitable Choice was enacted. Government contracting with congregations is newer, and more evident in connection with the Compassion Capital Fund than in the other three programs. FBOs of all kinds play many roles in social programs that do not involve the receipt of funds from government agencies; overemphasis on contracting may obscure what some FBOs do best.
  • State and local officials in our study sites welcomed the participation of faith-based organizations as opportunities to expand services or better reach certain populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities. We found little indication that public officials were hostile to FBOs, and we heard few allegations from the FBOs about past or present ill treatment. Public officials did express skepticism, based on experience, about the number of FBOs that had the capacity and interest to contract with government and were not already doing so.
  • Many public officials and FBO leaders perceived that the lines between what could and could not be done with public funding had changed, permitting FBOs to do things they could not do (or believed they could not do) in the past. In one important area, policy is more constricted: Charitable Choice requires that clients be notified of their right to an alternative provider for welfare or substance abuse services if they object to the religious character of an organization to whom they have been referred. We found considerable uncertainty, however, about how this requirement is being implemented, suggesting an important area for further study.
  • Similarly, we found that the role of faith in programs delivered by FBOs varies widely. Prayer, Bible study, or "Christ-centered" curricula are central to the programs of some FBOs. Other FBOs, while motivated by their faiths, emphasize the similarities of their services to those of secular organizations and their shared professional norms. Faith expression is considerably more prominent in programs supported by the Compassion Capital Fund than in those funded under block grant authorities. But the intersection between faith and the content of services may be more complex than previously appreciated, and deserves significantly more monitoring and careful analysis.

In the rest of the paper, we elaborate on, provide evidence for, and qualify these conclusions. We review the federal laws and policy initiatives related to the participation of faith-based organizations. We discuss previous research on the topic and the methodology of our study. We describe the structure of the federally funded social programs in each site and the opportunities for contracting with FBO service providers. These sections provide the background for our analysis of the relationships between public officials and faith-based organizations and the intergovernmental relationships among federal, state, and local officials. These sections also provide the context for understanding the degree to which federal interest in expanding the role of FBOs in social programs has or has not translated into increased FBO involvement at the state and local levels. In reviewing implementation issues, we profile FBO participation in the four programs and three sites. We then discuss cross-cutting issues that affect implementation of policies around FBO participation, including the interest of public officials in FBO participation, perceptions of current federal policies, methods of ensuring accountability in public contracting, and the role of faith in faith-based organizations that receive federal money for providing social services.


Notes from this section

1 Charitable Choice provisions apply to substance abuse services under SAMHSA's SAPT program and the Project for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness formula grant program, as well as other discretionary and formula grant programs administered by SAMHSA. Similarly, Charitable Choice provisions in the CSBG Act include the block grant as well as the Training, Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program, Community Food and Nutrition Program, National Youth Sports Program, and discretionary grants for economic development, rural community development, and neighborhood innovation. Our study explored only activities funded within the SAPT and Community Services block grants.

2 We have taken care in the analysis to address identification issues, in order to clarify why organizations might consider themselves or be considered faith-based and on that basis to understand how the mix of FBOs involved in public contracting has changed over time.


Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).



Topics/Tags: | Crime/Justice | Governing | Nonprofits | Poverty, Assets and Safety Net


Usage and reprints: Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site and may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact [email protected].

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.

Disclaimer: The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute.

Email this Page