Foundations, Public Law or Government (2025)

Program Special Initiative: Faith-Based and Community Organization Pilot

2009

The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title:

Getting a Piece of the Pie: Federal Grants to Faith-based Social Service Organizations

2006

Research delves into the grantmaking of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, established under the Bush Administration in 2001

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

Welfare reform discussions in the 1990s included proposals for government to support religious organizations that provide social services. This fostered a debate about the proper relationship between government and faith-based organizations. This spurred an increase in academic publications by scholars from disciplines such as social work, religious studies, public policy, and nonprofit studies. Publications focused on a number of topics, including the unique characteristics of faith-based organizations, the services and outcomes they provided, their involvement with the government, and methodologies available for studying them. We found a rapid increase in publications starting in 1996. These peaked in 2003 and have declined since 2008. Our scan of the literature on U.S. noncongregation faith-based service providers identified over 600 works. In this article, we review the literature on the definition of faith-based organizations, typologies used to place them on a spectrum of religious expression, and methodological considerations for research on them.

Faith-based Organizations and Their Contributions to Society

2012

Public service and outreach to faith-based organizations

Journal of Higher Education Outreach and …, 2010

This article describes the changing legal context for community development by faith-based organizations and accordingly encourages public service and outreach by institutions of higher education. Although many colleges and universities already partner with churches and other faith-based organizations to accomplish public service goals, recent changes in federal legislation offer new opportunities for collaboration. To take advantage of these opportunities, leadership by institutions of higher education is needed to stimulate and facilitate faith-based community development. Potential roles for institutions of higher education are discussed and the legal context for involvement is reviewed. With proper guidance, the unrealized potential of collaborations between institutions of higher education and faith-based organizations may be more fully realized.

Looking for More Players to Expand the Social Safety Net: Beyond Privatization, New Ways to Engage Community and Faith-Based Organizations in Public Programming

2013

This paper reviews recent US experience attempts to expand participation of community and religiously-based organizations in public programming, drawing lessons that might apply in other national contexts as governments attempt to fill gaps in human services. The paper addresses issues of capacity building for new participants in public programming; strategies for effective contracting and contract management; and consideration of new forms of collaboration between public agencies and small, locally-based organizations both to ensure compatibility with public objectives and to move beyond the singular focus of contractual procurement of services. The paper draws on research on recent US initiatives, including the author’s work evaluating faith-based and community organizations’ (FBCOs) role in disaster relief and in providing employment-related assistance and other programmatic services for a range of social and behavioral health issues. The analysis suggests lessons for partnering ...

State of Nonprofits Annual Report: 2013

2013

Housed within the Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research at the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego, the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research studies issues of strategic importance to the nonprofit sector, with the goal of identifying and advancing best practices in nonprofit research and evaluation metrics. The Caster Center offers resources and products that are grounded in systematic research and have direct applicability to the field. We work in collaboration, and under contract, with nonprofits and philanthropic organizations on a wide range of projects, including needs assessment, program evaluation, theory of change or logic model development, grantmaking impact reports, and board development. We regularly analyze funding, public policy, and environmental trends affecting the nonprofit sector, and publish data about public charities and foundations in California. The Caster Center also serves as an important training facility that enables doctoral students to engage in a variety of nonprofit sector research projects.

The Effectiveness and Trustworthiness of Faith-Based and Other Service Organizations: A Study of Recipients' Perceptions

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2004

Drawing on a new community study of more than 2,000 residents of low-income neighborhoods, we examine information about the kinds of service organizations respondents have contacted for assistance and the perceptions of these respondents about the effectiveness and trustworthiness of those organizations. We compare contact with and perceptions of faith-based organizations, nonsectarian organizations, government agencies, hospitals, and churches and employ a method that takes account of respondents' varying portfolios of service providers. The results indicate that the recipients of faith-based organizations resemble those of the public welfare department in the extent of financial need and scope of family problems, and differ significantly from recipients of help from congregations. The results also indicate that recipients' evaluations of the effectiveness and trustworthiness of their portfolio of service organizations are lower when they have sought assistance from public welfare agencies and higher when they have sought assistance from congregations, but are not significantly affected by having contacted faith-based or nonsectarian organizations. Considerable interest in faith-based organizations (FBOs) that provide social services to the needy in their communities has been generated since passage of the charitable choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation and in conjunction with the formation of the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under the Bush Administration (Cnaan 1999; Diulio 2002; Pipes and Ebaugh 2002; Chaves 1999). Proponents of government funding for FBOs argue that these organizations play a special role in the provision of community services and should therefore be encouraged. As President Bush observed: "Charities and faithbased groups fill needs that no welfare system, no matter how well designed, can possibly fill. .. In times of personal crisis, people do not need the rules of a bureaucracy; they need the help of a neighbor" (2002). Yet, in view of tax dollars being devoted to government programs that in turn provide support to FBOs, questions have been raised about the relative effectiveness of FBOs compared with public or nonsectarian organizations (NSOs). A major foundation-funded effort has been initiated to monitor research on these and related questions. However, relatively little research thus far has sought to examine the effectiveness of FBOs. The few attempts that have been made to assess the effectiveness of FBOs have focused either on specific organizations already presumed to be particularly effective or on specific outcomes that are easily measurable, such as recidivism or responses to drug treatment. For instance, Berrien, McRoberts, and Winship (2000) examined the Ten Point Coalition in Boston during a period when crime statistics fell and argued that there were features of the coalition of clergy and police that made it a likely contributor to the decline (see also Orr et al. 1994; Winship forthcoming). A more quantitative approach is illustrated by Desmond and Maddux (1981), who studied heroin

Freedom House

International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, 2010

FY 2006 data are based on a review of 134 competitive programs at HHS (65), HUD (11), DOJ (14), DOL (11), ED (5), USDA (20), DOC (6), VA (1), SBA (1), and 35 competitive programs areas at USAID (26) and CNCS (9) Faith-Based Organizations F 653 F ▶ Salvation Army ▶ World Vision ▶ YMCA

State of Nonprofits Annual Report: 2016 Infographic

2016

Housed within the Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research at the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego, the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research studies issues of strategic importance to the nonprofit sector, with the goal of identifying and advancing best practices in nonprofit research and evaluation metrics. The Caster Center offers resources and products that are grounded in systematic research and have direct applicability to the field. We work in collaboration, and under contract, with nonprofits and philanthropic organizations on a wide range of projects, including needs assessment, program evaluation, theory of change or logic model development, grantmaking impact reports, and board development. We regularly analyze funding, public policy, and environmental trends affecting the nonprofit sector, and publish data about public charities and foundations in California. The Caster Center also serves as an important training facility that enables doctoral students to engage in a variety of nonprofit sector research projects.