Obama Would Continue Federal Grants for Religious Charities, With Changes

Sen. Barack Obama this month said he would continue President Bush’s efforts to help religious charities get federal money for social-service projects if he is elected president, but he would provide more training to groups that seek the grants and insist on evaluating their effectiveness.

Saying that President Bush’s program “never fulfilled its promise,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said he would create a President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to help religious charities navigate the federal grant-making system. (President Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives by executive order shortly after becoming president in 2001.)

“I believe that change comes not from the top down but from the bottom up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques,” he said in remarks at the East Side Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio. The country, he added, needs “all hands on deck” to address problems such as poverty, which cannot be solved by government alone.

Providing Training

The Illinois senator said his program — which would also maintain the “faith based” offices that now exist in 11 federal agencies — would not violate the constitutional separation of church and state, as the charities would be barred from using government money to proselytize, discriminate against people they hire on the basis of their religion, or pay for religious activities.

As spelled out in a fact sheet, the new council would create a “train the trainers” program under which larger groups — such as an Islamic umbrella organization, a Catholic Charities office, or a secular organization like Public/Private Ventures — would get training in Washington so they could offer advice to local religious and community groups on how to apply for grants, avoid proselytizing, understand hiring rules, and report outcomes.

The council would also work with charities that could “conduct unbiased evaluation of programs and report results.”

Senator Obama said he would also work with schools, religious organizations, and other nonprofit groups to expand summer learning programs to serve an additional 1 million children — at a cost of $500-million a year. He said he would find the money by streamlining the federal procurement process, better managing surplus federal property, and reducing growth in the federal travel budget.

In his speech, the senator praised several nonprofit efforts, including Ready4Work, a program in Jacksonville, Fla., to help ex-prisoners find work that is operated by a religious organization; Catholic Charities, for its work in Chicago to help homeless veterans; the Children’s Defense Fund, for its nationwide after-school and summer “freedom schools,” some of which hold classes in churches; and Youth Education for Tomorrow, a program in Philadelphia that works with churches, religious schools, and others to provide after-school and summer learning programs.