In Defense of a New Partnership Between Government and Faith-Based Groups

John J. DiIulio Jr., head of President Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based

and Community Initiatives, recently outlined his plans in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, in Dallas. Following are excerpts from the speech:

President Bush has a huge heart for helping the least, the last, and the lost of our society. He recognizes a real need for faith-based and community initiatives.

As he recently stated: “Government cannot be replaced by charities, but it can and should welcome them as partners. We must heed the growing consensus across America that successful government social programs work in fruitful partnership with community-serving and faith-based organizations — whether run by Methodists, Muslims, Mormons, or good people of no faith at all.”

Both faith-based and secular community-serving organizations rely greatly on volunteers, and, in both cases, those volunteers are drawn largely from churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious institutions.

Metaphorically speaking, community-serving faith-based organizations are the army ants of civil society, daily leveraging 10 times their human and financial weight in social good. Or, as I have elsewhere described them, they are the paramedics of urban civil society, saving lives and restoring health, answering emergencies with miracles.

But no matter how they exert themselves — and, by implication, no matter how much, or how strategically, we help them — they can improve or complement, but not replace, state services. To dramatize the point, just consider that, even if all 353,000 religious congregations in America doubled their annual budgets and devoted them entirely to the cause, and even if, at the same time, the costs of government social-welfare programs were magically cut overnight by a fifth, the congregations could barely cover a year’s worth of Washington’s spending on these programs, and never even come close to covering total program costs.

By the same token, even the oldest and best-performing networks of secular nonprofit organizations, if they are truly to help transform lives, resurrect blighted neighborhoods, and achieve civic results at citywide or national scale, need help.

Washington’s not funding religion or sectarian worship. What we are doing — or, dare I say, what we’re fixin’ to do — is three interrelated things.

First, we aim to boost charitable giving, both human and financial. The first financial boosts are in the president’s budget plan, which, among other relevant provisions, would permit 80 million non-itemizers — 70 percent of all taxpayers — to deduct charitable contributions. The human boosts are embodied in the president’s use of the bully pulpit in valuing volunteers, and in Mayor Goldsmith’s hopes for retooling AmeriCorps in ways that put college-educated, public-spirited young adults at the disposal of the small faith-based and community organizations that need them. (AmeriCorps already has people in urban community-serving ministries and such, but we aim to refine and enlarge their participation on behalf of needy children, youth, and families.)

Second, we are authorized to form centers and conduct program audits in five cabinet agencies: Justice, Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

This is easily the most crucial, but least well-understood, part of our mission. It’s about paving the path to civic results through greater government solicitude for faith-based and community organizations.

In sum, since the end of World War II, virtually every domestic policy program that Washington has funded in whole or in part has been administered not by federal civil servants alone, but by federal workers in conjunction with state and local government employees, for-profit firms, and nonprofit organizations. There are, for example, six people who work indirectly for Washington for every one federal bureaucrat who administers social programs.

Certain nonprofit organizations, both religious and secular, have long been funded in whole or in part through this federal government-by-proxy system. Some, no doubt, deserve their privileged positions because they have produced measurable civic results. Others, however, are in because they’re in.

Despite a far-reaching 1993 federal law (the first of its kind) requiring federal agencies to do performance-managed, performance-measured grant making, you can still count on your fingers and toes the number of government-by-proxy programs that have really put nonprofit providers to the test.

If many nonprofits in the government-by-proxy network have never had any meaningful performance evaluation; if their claims of greater capacity are mainly proxies for their bigger staffs; and if their public poses as people who are up close and personal in the lives of the citizens whom they serve are belied by the fact that they have more personnel in the suites than on the streets, then, purely in the interest of helping those in need while generating a better return on the public’s investment in social programs, why shouldn’t the leaders of qualified community and faith-based organizations — local groups that really have been doing this work for years and really do put their hips where their lips are in serving the poor — be able, if they so choose, to seek partial government funding on the same basis as any other nongovernmental providers of social services?

They should!

That is why the president, a government reformer who demands businesslike results, has explicitly directed my office to help level the federal-funding playing field to encourage and support the work of charities and faith-based and community groups, including small ones that offer help and love one person at a time.

That is also precisely what Charitable Choice is all about. It’s what, together with related performance-based reforms, is needed not only to better serve the poor and revitalize needy neighborhoods now, but also to help usher in what Michael Joyce of the Bradley Foundation has aptly termed a new, no-nonsense, post-Great Society “science of public administration.”

My office will soon be distributing detailed information on Charitable Choice, suitable for frontline Samaritans, average citizens, and agitated lawyers. But, for now, let me just highlight some of the main points.

Under Charitable Choice, community-serving organizations, both religious and secular, can seek federal support on the same basis as any other nongovernmental providers (for-profit or not-for-profit) of those services. Sacred places that serve civic purposes can seek federal (or federal-state) funding without having to divest themselves of their religious iconography or symbols.

Faith-based providers that receive penny one of public money cannot — that’s not — discriminate against beneficiaries on the basis of race, color, gender, age, national origin, disability, or religion.

Moreover, government must provide beneficiaries with religious objections to receiving services from a faith-based organization with an equivalent secular alternative. This means that accessing the alternatives must not place an undue burden on the beneficiary (no ridiculously long drives or such).

And if, as per the statutes, government fails to ensure ample and equivalent secular alternatives, if its actions have the effect of diminishing the religious freedom of beneficiaries of assistance, then beneficiaries may enforce their rights against the government in a private cause of action for injunctive relief.

Despite these hefty and wholesome protections, critics variously charge Charitable Choice with seven supposedly deadly sins. For memory’s sake, let’s alliterate them as huge leaks, horrible louts, hiring loopholes, and hijacked faith, plus bogus alternatives, bloated agencies, and beltway business-as-usual.

Huge leaks? Some critics of Charitable Choice assert that, even where religious organizations form 501(c)(3) entities, there is no effective way to segregate fiscal accounts. Money, they remind us, is fungible, and tax dollars will leak between Bible studies and soup kitchens.

Well, money is fungible in the entire government-by-proxy network. Anyone who has ever actually worked in or studied secular nonprofits that get government grants (universities, ahem, come to mind) knows that funds sometimes leak between projects. But government has O.K. ways to detect and minimize that leakage, and there is absolutely nothing about community-based organizations, religious or secular, that places them beyond the reach of personnel, procurement, and other relevant protocols.

Horrible louts? Others wrongly suppose that disagreeable, even hate-mongering, individuals and organizations that call themselves religious will somehow suddenly become eligible for federal funding under Charitable Choice.

For starters, what the Constitution requires of government is equal treatment, neither favoring nor disfavoring groups because they are religious. Again, the federal government will not distribute funds on a religious basis. Funds must go to nongovernmental providers, religious or secular, that meet all relevant anti-discrimination laws, procurement procedures, and performance protocols.

Second, before Charitable Choice, any organization that could fill out grant application forms and afford the postage could apply for federal support. Some religious or quasi-religious groups that many citizens find offensive did so, and some got contracts for particular services.

But by making it easier for qualified community-based organizations, religious or secular, to become part of Washington’s government-by-proxy networks, a duly implemented Charitable Choice will increase competition, raise performance standards, and thereby make it less likely than before that groups more interested in advocacy (whatever they’re advocating) than in service will merit grants.

Third, let’s remember that there are at present many federally funded secular nonprofits that represent ideological-political (as opposed to theological-religious) worldviews offensive to many Americans.

Still, the Constitution gives taxpayers no right to insist that government decisions, including procurement decisions, will not offend their moral judgments. Evenhanded performance standards, not illegal, a priori procurement black lists, have been, and continue to be, government’s best constitutional method for keeping horrible louts, religious or secular, on the outs.

Hiring loopholes? Under Section 702, Title VII, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, religious organizations are permitted to discriminate in employment decisions on the basis of religion.

Charitable Choice preserves this 37-year-old right of religious organizations to take religion into account in their employment decisions. Even so, faith-based organizations that receive penny one of public funds may not discriminate in hiring, firing, or promotion decisions based on race, color, national origin, gender, age, and disability. And regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, age, disability, and religion, faith-based organizations that receive any taxpayer support must serve all beneficiaries and may not require them to participate in any religious components of the program.

Still, Title VII, as the issue is now often short-handed, is perhaps the single most contentious aspect of Charitable Choice. It was not so hotly debated an issue in the 1995-96 debates over Charitable Choice, but because critics’ church-state objections had no traction, it is hotly debated now, and it does raise legitimate concerns on all sides.

Should receiving penny one of public money require religious organizations to hire people who are not co-religionists, and who may even be actively opposed to their beliefs, benevolent traditions, and service goals?

And, practically speaking, to what extent do the urban community-serving ministries — the faith-based organizations that are most likely to seek public grants to offset the costs of their social-servicedelivery programs — presently discriminate in hiring on religious grounds?

As Professor Jeffrey Rosen pointed out in a recent essay, without the ability to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring and firing staff, religious organizations lose the right to define their organizational mission enjoyed by secular organizations that receive public funds. Planned Parenthood may refuse to hire those who don’t share its views about abortion; equal treatment requires that churches, mosques, and synagogues have the same right to discriminate. The Supreme Court accepted this reasoning in 1988, when it upheld religious nonprofits’ exemption from the federal law prohibiting religious discrimination. And by extending this exemption to religious groups that receive government funds, the charitable-choice law is careful to insist that these groups can discriminate in the hiring of staff but not in the treatment of beneficiaries.

Hijacked faith? Some religious leaders, especially from within conservative evangelical Christian communities of faith, have worried out loud that religious bodies that receive government support will, over time, become dependent on Caesar’s coin. In turn, they fear, the government/religious partnerships will enervate the spiritual identities and characters of the participating churches and stifle their prophetic voices. Even if strictly limited to public support for specific social-servicedelivery programs, they fear, the resulting secularizing influences put the churches on a super-slippery slope to losing the faith in faith-based.

Such concerns are entirely understandable, and, for many congregation leaders and faith communities, ought to be controlling. Charitable Choice ought to be open to all qualified community-serving groups, but not all groups ought to participate.

But, in all fairness, let’s remember that America’s faith communities are as diverse in their traditions of public/private partnerships as they are in their theological understandings.

In particular, compared to predominantly exurban white evangelical churches, urban African American and Latino faith communities have benevolent traditions and histories that make them generally more dedicated to community-serving missions, and generally more confident about engaging public and secular partners in achieving those missions without enervating their spiritual identities or religious characters. There are, to be sure, many urban clergy who want nothing whatsoever to do with government as well. But the hijacked-faith fears expressed by some are less pointed and less prevalent in metropolitan America.

With all due respect, and in all good fellowship, predominantly white, exurban evangelical and national para-church leaders, should be careful not to presume to speak for any persons other than themselves and their own churches.

It’s fine to fret about hijacked faith, but to many brothers and sisters who are desperately ministering to the needs of those who the rest of us in this prosperous society have left behind, such frets would persuade more and rankle less if they were backed by real human and financial help.

Finally, the concern that nonprofit organizations can grow overly dependent on government funds must be taken seriously, but no more seriously with respect to religious than secular ones.

The post-1960 phenomenon of nonprofits for hire has dramatically increased the government fraction of all funding received by any number of Catholic and Jewish social-service organizations. Many believe that the government funding, either alone or in concert with other factors and trends, has had a profoundly secularizing effect on these organizations.

While there are no well-researched rules for avoiding that fate, it seems rather clear that once any organization, religious or secular, receives more than a quarter to half of its funding from any single source, it risks its independence and ability to remain faithful to core values and original missions. hat is why performance-based contracting should be short-term, and why, with respect to the so-called Compassion Capital Fund proposed by President Bush, the federal contribution would constitute not more than a quarter in the dollar of any model public/private community-serving program, religious or secular.

Bogus alternatives? As I have already discussed, Charitable Choice requires that government provide beneficiaries with an equivalent secular alternative. Still, some worry that, even with the best intentions and strongest administrative hands, the government won’t be able to honor this guarantee.

Ensuring an alternative in rural areas might be quite a challenge. So far, though, as a study last year by Amy Sherman shows, officials are doing just fine. In the nine states she investigated, there were only two instances when a person needing help requested a secular alternative to the faith-based provider, and officials immediately provided that alternative.

Bloated agencies? I have heard reports and read magazine articles asserting that my office would have over 100 employees (mostly new hires) and necessitate an explosion in state and local government employment to monitor and manage the scores of billions of dollars that we (according to one quoted source) will have coursing through the Department of Education alone.

Huh?

The office opened on February 20, 2001. The core office staff, myself included, will be seven to 10 people including support staff. The five cabinet centers won’t be official/operational till 45 days following the signing of the relevant Executive Order. The five cabinet centers will have a total of not more than 40 workers, many of them assigned career public servants, not new hires.

The White House Office will not be disbursing grants itself, but rather ensuring that federal programs are as accessible, open, and hospitable to faith-based groups as possible. Indeed, if past experience with performance-based initiatives holds, our office will, if anything, reduce the administrative personnel needs up and down the government-by-proxy chain.

Beltway business-as-usual? Some have asserted or insinuated that, because Charitable Choice passed repeatedly, and despite the problems that we ourselves have identified with its implementation to date (for example, only one church in all of Philadelphia has yet received support for social-service delivery under the terms of the 1996 provision), our real endgame is simply to ram another set of Charitable Choice laws through Congress, claim political credit, pacify interested constituencies, and, win or lose, be able to say we made good (or tried to make good ) on relevant campaign promises.

Anyone who thinks that doesn’t get just how close to the president’s heart faith-based and community initiatives are. That’s why we’re taking a deliberative approach, and focusing first on conducting our audits, studying competing ideas, weighing competing perspectives, and looking forward to forging model public/private partnerships. That’s why we’re following our principles, correcting misconceptions, and reaching out widely.