Stanley Carlson-Thies of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance has written an excellent appraisal of the Stimulus Bill that recently became law and how it affects faith-based organizations. While not all of the implications are directly felt by NGO’s working internationally, it’s very informative to get a sense of where the new Congress is headed in its feelings on the proper use of FBO’s. Stanley has given permission to post his article here:

Stimulating Faith-Based Organizations?
There is much to be said about the stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law earlier this week, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) – important questions about the wisdom of the stimulus strategy, the mix of projects, tax breaks, and pork . . . . Herewith some notes focused on the elements of ARRA that specifically touch the faith identity of faith-based organizations. Your comments and additional observations are welcomed. The law provides multiple extra billions of dollars for all levels of schooling, extra funds for child care, extra funds for welfare programs (TANF) and other social services, and money for a new version of the Compassion Capital Fund. Faith-based organizations (as well as secular nonprofits, of course) must always proceed with caution, open eyes, and legal savvy when considering whether to seek government funds.

New Education Funding

A Level Playing Field: ESEA and IDEA services in elementary and secondary schools
Billions in extra funding is allocated to services for disadvantaged and special needs students under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These laws have always contained an equitable expenditure requirement that ensures that students in private and faith-based schools are served.

A Qualified Level Playing Field: Faith-based Higher Education
States may use a small portion of the $54 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund for the “modernization, renovation, or repair” of higher education facilities-including private and faith-based colleges and universities. However, these funds cannot be expended on facilities “used for sectarian instruction or religious worship” (the House bill also added “or a school or department of divinity”) or where “a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.” This limitation sparked an outcry, e.g., from the American Center for Law and Justice, and led to an unsuccessful effort by Sen. DeMint (R-SC) to strip out the restriction. The critics suggested that the restrictive language could require colleges to forbid religious student clubs from meeting in buildings renovated with stimulus money.

As noted in a Christianity Today article and elsewhere, this may have been an overreaction: a restriction on expending federal funds on facilities with a specifically religious use has long been in place, and, on the other hand, court cases have upheld the right of religious groups to utilize university facilities if other groups are allowed to do so. Private education officials also point out that, given the many other claims on the stimulus money, it is unlikely that much if any will be available to religious higher education. Yet the language is overly broad, as Robert Shibley points out: the authors of the law could have said that for a facility to be ineligible for funding, it would have to be “primarily used for sectarian instruction or religious worship,” thus clearly ruling out chapels while clearly ruling in dorms, classroom buildings, and student centers where occasional worship and Bible studies take place. If such activities are banned in the future in facilities renovated with stimulus funds, some student group will take the university to court and will win-but litigation shouldn’t be required to enjoy religious freedom. The imprecise language is troubling; even more troubling is Congress’ unwillingness to modify the language.

A Bias Against Faith-Based Schools is Not Prohibited
A large portion of the billions of dollars of State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) money that will go to public school districts must be spent on special services authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Act, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the Perkins Act (this ESEA and IDEA spending is additional to the extra expenditures described above). All of these programs require or permit participation by private entities, including faith-based schools. However, the stimulus bill language does not clearly require that faith-based schools be included in this additional spending. (The law prohibits use of the money to enable students to attend private schools, but funding special services to students already attending such schools is different than paying their tuition so that they can attend.) Some congressional staffers have claimed that the ambiguity is deliberate; efforts by private school supporters to get a clear requirement of equitable distribution to students and teachers were not successful. CAPE, the Council for American Private Education, recommends that faith-based and other private schools that are interested in these programs should take action, urging their governor, state education officials, and local school officials to include students and teachers in private schools in these programs. Many faith-based and other private schools are not oriented to such political action and are too busy to spend much time on it. The larger and more active schools and school associations would strengthen their arguments with the public officials and also help to build the strength of the faith-based education sector if they invite the smaller schools and schools of other faiths to join them when they go to government to seek equitable treatment.

A Bias Against Private and Religious Education
Elementary and Secondary Schools: A portion of the SFSF money can be used to repair and upgrade these schools, including bringing them up to “green” standards-but not if those schools are private, including faith-based. Secular and faith-based private schools are excluded, even though expenditures on them, too, would stimulate the economy, and public investments in their healthiness is a small price to pay for the great public service they provide of educating so many children outside the government-funded system. See the commentary by Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. Elementary, Secondary, and Post-Secondary Schools: A large part of the SFSF money will be used to restore education funding that has been cut due to states’ budget crises. This compensatory money will go only to school districts and public higher education-even though the SFSF funds come from all taxpayers, the income of faith-based schools and higher education has also been reduced by the economic crisis, and spending in the private school sector would have equivalent stimulus value.

No Change-and No Improvement-in Early Childhood Programs
The stimulus plan boosts spending on federally funded child care-a program that extensively uses vouchers (or certificates) rather than contracts, so that parents can select the child care provider of their choice, including faith-based providers whose programs include religious activities. Extra money is also allocated to Head Start, a program that nonprofit organizations are eligible to participate in. However, the Head Start law prohibits religious hiring by grantees, and a determined effort in the last Congress to remove this barrier to faith-based organizations failed. The stimulus law leaves the barrier intact.

Faith-Based Eligibility Maintained in Welfare and Social Spending
Both the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program and the welfare program (TANF) received large additional infusions of federal funds. Some aspects of these programs were modified (perhaps weakening welfare reform’s goal of propelling people into self-sufficiency). But no changes were made to the Charitable Choice provisions included in the laws for these programs. Charitable Choice creates a level playing field, enabling faith-based organizations to take part, if they choose, without sacrificing or hiding their religious character.

Compassion Capital Fund, Version 2.0
The stimulus law creates a new program to build the capacity of private social service programs to replace the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF), the Bush administration’s program. CCF awarded grants to intermediaries to provide training to improve the management, programs, and fundraising of grassroots groups, including faith-based organizations, and also very small mini-grants to help those groups purchase equipment or additional training.

Critics of the faith-based initiative, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, sought during consideration of the stimulus bill either to eliminate CCF entirely or to rewrite its rules to exclude so-called pervasively sectarian organizations from receiving its help.

Instead, the conference committee created a new $50 million program “to award capacity-building grants directly to nonprofit organizations.” The money is intended to “expand the delivery of social services to individuals and communities affected by the economic downturn,” and grantees must produce measurable results.

It is not yet clear how this new program will function. There is nothing in the ARRA language or in the section of the Social Security law that will govern these expenditures to exclude faith-based organizations. Candidate Obama stressed his intention that grassroots groups be engaged and that the federal government should work with larger organizations to provide training and other assistance to those smaller groups. These were the goals, too, of CCF.

A friend of mine who works in one of the Cabinet Departments passed along his personal assessment of the Obama Administration’s efforts to fashion the next chapter of the Faith-Based Initiative.  It follows:

To date, the Obama Administration has:

* Changed the name from “Faith-Based and Community Initiative” to “Council and Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships”

* Established a new Council of 25 Faith-based and secular leads to advise the Office and the President on a wide range of issue and be part of the policy process

* Tasked the Office and Council with 4 specific areas of work; Poverty Reduction and awareness of how federal policy impacts low-income individuals, abortion reduction, promoting responsible fatherhood, and international interfaith dialogue.

* Stated that a comprehensive process will be used to review all Bush Administration policies including the issue of hiring rights for faith-based organizations receiving federal funding. Right now, the Administration is saying that requests to retain hiring rights will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

* Not made any changes to Equal Treatment rules that impact federal government activity or changes that would remove or impact the 11 Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives throughout the federal government.
Positive Developments:

1. Obama is building on the openness the Faith-Based and Community Initiative created in government by tasking us with specific efforts (fatherhood, abortion reduction, poverty reduction, and international dialogue)

2. In establishing the Council, they have created a public feedback loop and a process that increases accountability with the community and organizations we seek to represent in government

3. Brought together a wide spectrum of people along the ideological spectrum to contribute to the work that needs to be done

4. HHS the only department named in the executive order and it says they will provide administrative support for the new Council

5. Making the announcement on Day 17 of the Presidency showcases the importance of this effort to the President

6. The executive order also tasks HHS with capacity building
Links:

Video of President Obama at the Prayer Breakfast

Video Montage of Obama and Josh DuBois, new Director for the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Christianity Today Interview with Josh DuBois

Press Release naming the new Council Members

Ben O’Dell, who serves as the Associate Director of the Faith-Based office at the Department of Health and  Human Services, recently conducted research that focused heavily on the AERDO HIV/AIDS Alliance.  He was working to learn if “religious identity could drive religious behavior within organizations, specifically collaboration, ”

The abstract for his findings, “The Power of the Space Between” is available here.  If you’d like to read Ben’s full report, please send me an email.

This comes to us from the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at USAIDGlobal Fund Workshop for FBCOs in Tanzania

SCALING UP THE INVOLVEMENT OF
FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS IN THE GLOBAL FUND

In collaboration with the Christian Health Association of Kenya and the World Council of Churches, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria will be hosting a two-day workshop April 16-18 in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania on the experiences of faith-based organizations (FBOs) with the Global Fund. The workshop targets faith-based organizations from various religions across Sub-Saharan Africa and will include both international and regional networks of religious groups. Over the course of two days participants will identify strategies for scaling up the involvement of FBOs in the Global Fund model as well as increasing their access to resources.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

• Review the resource investments made so far by the Global Fund to faith-based implementers

• Provide a platform to examine the contributions and learn from the experiences FBOs have made to Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs)

• Provide a venue for FBOs to share their experiences and lessons learned as Principal Recipients and Sub-recipients of Global Fund resources

• Share experiences of working with vulnerable groups – e.g. women, vulnerable children, people living with HIV/AIDS

• Share experiences on developing ambitious but effective proposals for funding by the Global Fund

• Share experiences in management of Sub-recipients and strengthening monitoring and evaluation at community level

• Update on new developments in Global Fund processes, particularly Round 8 proposals

As one of the largest providers of funding to countries for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs, the Global Fund provides an unprecedented opportunity for its partners to scale-up existing programs. Implementing partners in government, civil society and the private sector have increasingly taken the opportunity to leverage these resources to expand services delivered to those who need them the most. The goal of the workshop is to provide participants with the tools needed to access these resources, beginning with the upcoming launch of Round 8.

To learn more about the Global Fund, please click here.

Members of the AERDO HIV/AIDS Alliance (AHA) have joined together to collectively advocate for the next round of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief).  Last week it looks like a compromise was reached by the players on Capitol Hill and a House Subcommittee passed a version of the legislation.  Read the press release from AHA here.

Today’s Washington Times features an article outlining the fight in the Senate’s Health Education Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee for protection of religious staffing for certain domestic programs.  Read the full article here.

HELP Commission Report
I’m remiss in not making sure that you’re aware of the HELP Commission Report that was released last month.  The HELP Commission (Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe Commission) was commissioned by the US Government to study all US Foreign development assistance.  It’s report, titled “Beyond Assistance” outlines its findings and recommendations.  Ben Homan, CEO of Food for the Hungry, was a member of the commission.  See the final report at:  http://helpcommission.gov/

Global Development Alliance
USAID’s Global Development Alliance (GDA) has released its 2008 Annual Program Statement (APS).  The GDA works to create partnerships between the US Government and private donors to create new alliances for foreign assistance.  They have done some very good work with faith-based organizations who bring a cost-share from the private sector.  For more information or to read the APS, go to:  http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_partnerships/gda/

“Durability” of the President’s Faith-Based Initiative
The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy has released a fascinating article on the current direction of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI).  It highlights the efforts to protect organizations’ right to hire people of a similar faith as well as the new direction that White House FBCI director Jay Hein is taking the Initiative.  Read the article at:  http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/news/article.cfm?id=7551

White House Internships
The White House is taking applications for interns for Summer and Fall 2008.  Some of these positions would possibly be in areas that touch international affairs.  If you would like to have the flyer and application, please let me know and I’ll email them to you.