August 17, 2006 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Jay Hein, who takes over as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives this month, has broad experience in government and grant making, and he started his own think tank.
At a time when even some champions of the office believe its promise remains unfulfilled, some observers think Mr. Hein has the skills to encourage federal agencies, state and local governments, and private foundations to work more closely with religious charities.
“This isn’t an initiative about promoting faith,” Mr. Hein says. “It’s about more-effective service delivery.”
President Bush, who created the office in 2001, named Mr. Hein as its third director. He replaces H. James Towey, who left in June to become president of St. Vincent College, a Catholic institution in Latrobe, Pa.
Unlike Mr. Towey, who is a Democrat, Mr. Hein has long been active in Republican politics. He is president of the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, an Indianapolis think tank that focuses on devising local solutions to problems such as poverty alleviation and crime prevention.
He is also executive vice president of the Foundation for American Renewal, an Indianapolis foundation with $550,000 in assets as of December 31, 2004, which provides grants to community-based organizations.
Mr. Hein started the Sagamore Institute after the Hudson Institute — where he had headed the program focusing on civil society — moved from Indianapolis to Washington in 2004 and began narrowing its focus to issues like defense and foreign affairs. During the 1990s, while at Hudson, and during an earlier stint in Wisconsin state government, Mr. Hein helped Tommy Thompson, a Republican who was governor of the state, craft legislation that sparked a national move toward overhauling welfare.
“I think it’s quite a good selection,” says Stanley Carlson-Theis of the Center for Public Justice, who worked in the White House faith-based office during its first two years of operation. “He brings together a nice combination of government work on the one side, and experience and dedication to a nongovernmental group on the other side.”
Welfare Policy
Mr. Hein is 41 and an elder at Grace Community Church, an evangelical congregation in Noblesville, Ind. He says his work on welfare early in his career led him down the path that resulted in this month’s appointment.
“That experiment was running on the question of how government could more effectively care for the poor. It’s natural to then ask the next question: How can society at large more effectively meet the needs of the poor?”
The effectiveness of the faith-based office is up for debate. A report released in February by the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany found that the percentage of federal grants going to religious charities barely budged from 2002 to 2004.
But the White House countered that the five federal agencies that it focused on increased grants to religious organizations by more than a third between 2003 and 2005.
The White House also states that 32 governors and 115 mayors have either established offices or appointed a liaison to work with churches and other sectarian organizations.
Mr. Hein says he intends to work with federal, state, and local leaders to encourage a greater willingness to collaborate with religious organizations.
“Simply put, the needs of the poor outpace the solutions available in communities,” he says. “This initiative at its heart is about growing the supply of compassionate services that are made available to neighbors in need.”
