techreport.html

California Religious Community

Capacity Study

Technical Report

Section I: Summary ................................................................................................... 3

Section II: Qualitative Findings and Conclusions,

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture

University of Southern California .................................... 21

Section III: Quantitative Findings and Conclusions,

Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management

University of San Francisco ................................................... 65

I. Executive Summary

California's welfare agencies have been slow to implement the Charitable Choice provisions of the 1996 federal welfare reform legislationprovisions that encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. To date, county welfare agency directors have still not been systematically oriented concerning Charitable Choice. Many have had to rely on information supplied by the Internet and by leaders of faith-based organizations in their own regions.

Welfare reform is not an issue that has taken hold in California's faith-based communities. Most clergy have never heard of Charitable Choice or say that they do not understand it. Religious leaders who have focused their attention on issues created by Charitable Choice disagree with each other about what faith-based organizations should be doing in response to welfare reform. Politically conservative religious leaders are strong advocates of using "Charitable Choice dollars" to expand the community outreach programs of faith-based organizations. Politically liberal/moderate leaders are divided.

Counties have differed markedly in the models they have used to guide their interaction with faith-based organizations. Some emphasize the development of requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services that specifically encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. Other counties encourage faith-based organizations to coalesce in county-wide welfare-to-work programs. Some encourage large-scale denominational social service agencies to compete for comprehensive case management contracts, whereas modestly-scaled faith-based organizations are encouraged to find opportunities for service through sub-contracts. As a part of San Diego County's system of "managed competition," Catholic Charities was awarded a contract to offer comprehensive case management services in an entire region of the county, i.e., to function as a surrogate county welfare agency.

Faith-based nonprofit corporations and denominational social service agencies have been primary recipients of publicly-funded welfare-to-work contracts within California's religious community.

Very few contracts have been awarded to California congregations. The fact that only a small number of congregations has received welfare-to-work contracts does not mean, however, that California congregations are unengaged in welfare reform. Many choose to offer welfare-to-work programs through coalitional organizations in which they can share the costs of maintaining specialized staffs and facilities. Some congregations organize their own nonprofit corporations to conduct social service programs.

The likelihood that congregations will establish social service programs that realistically can compete for welfare-to-work contracts (either directly or through affiliated nonprofits) increases in relation to their size, their financial stability and their organizational complexity. Congregations with memberships of over 750 are more likely to have staffs with expertise to prepare sophisticated welfare-to-work proposals and to manage social service programs.

California's faith-based organizations are deeply involved in outreach ministries and social services for the poor. Especially among middle-size and larger congregations, they are able to draw on a generously-scaled reservoir of volunteers. Thus, California's faith-based organizations have the capacity for expanded roles in the state's welfare-to-work programs. Whether or not this capacity can be leveraged into welfare-to-work contracts, however, is an open question. Many congregations do not appear to have the organizational resources to respond to county requests for proposals or to manage complex programs. Many religious leaders do not want to seek public funding, either because they fear entanglement with government bureaucracy, regulations, and red tape, or because their theologies discourage close ties with the state.

The following situations increase the capacity of faith-based organizations to mount publicly-funded social service programs for welfare-to-work participants:

· When leaders are assured that the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution allow for the public funding of faith-based social service programs, and, therefore, that their search for public funds will not cause legal problems;

· When public agencies intentionally design requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services to encourage faith-based (and other community-based) organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts;

· When regional and denominational religious leaders provide theological and political reasons for participating in welfare reform's public/private partnerships and for affirming Charitable Choice;

· When entrepreneurial leaders are supported by their own organizations and by regional "brokers" in bringing together the resources they need to mount significant social service programs;

· When religious leaders establish professionally staffed nonprofit corporations, whose mission is to write proposals, attract funds, manage these funds in accord with contract requirements, manage social service programs, and interface with program funders;

· When faith-based organizations affiliate with coalitional organizations that offer social services such as FaithWORKS in Shasta County and the Industrial Areas Foundation in Sacramento;

· When faith-based organizations enter into informal and formal partnerships with large-scale, capacity-rich organizations such as Maximus, Lockheed Martin, Goodwill Industries, Fresno City College, Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee (IAF), and YWCAs.

Most representatives of California's faith community believe that the state is ultimately responsible for maintaining the social safety net. They do not agree that it is in the public interest for faith-based organizations to try to re-assume welfare roles that were transferred to public agencies in the 1930s.

Welfare reform promotes the expansion of "new paradigm" inter-institutional relationsi.e., multiform cooperative relations among public, for-profit, and faith-based organizations. In serving the poor, congregations and other faith-based organizations are encouraged to identify coalitional
partners. Networks are being created in which the institutional capacities of different kinds of organizations are exercised in mutually-complementary ways in serving the poor.

The state's faith-based organizations, under certain conditions, can indeed expand their contributions to welfare reform. Faith-based organizations have the capacity to offer a range of publicly-supported services. But, in most cases, they cannot function as comprehensive welfare agencies. Most should not even try. They can do many things well, and they will best serve welfare-to-work participants when the limits to their capacity are acknowledged and respected.

Why This Study?

The welfare reform movement that began with the 104th Congress' "Contract with America" and culminated with President Clinton's signature on the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 marked a radical departure from the long term federal commitment to meet the basic needs of low-income families. Frozen funding, time limits, and strict work requirements, coupled with cutbacks in Food Stamps for able-bodied single adults and legal immigrants, presented the most serious challenges to providing basic services to low-income families in the last 30 years.

Given the limited fiscal resources of state and local governments and the daunting task of moving millions of adults off the welfare caseload and into the workforce, many in the public sector recognize that fundamental changes are needed at the local level to make welfare reform work. Among these changes are new partnerships and collaborations to reshape the social safety net and provide an adequate level and mix of social services to help recipients overcome the barriers they encounter in moving towards self-sufficiency.

Religious organizations have long been important and widely recognized contributors to the support of low-income families and vulnerable populations in the United States. Their role has taken on a new significance and gained much greater visibility with the implementation of federal welfare reform, especially in areas where they serve populations whose support has been significantly curtailed or who are specifically excluded from the government's revised welfare safety net.

With the "Charitable Choice" provisions in the federal welfare reform legislation, federal policy makers opened the door for the religious community to play a larger role in providing services to welfare recipients. U.S. Senator John Ashcroft, the architect of Charitable Choice, has repeatedly asserted that welfare reform legislation was specifically designed to invite faith-based organizations back into the social safety net roles that had been taken from them during the New Deal era. The law's authors take for granted that faith-based organizations possess the capacity and the will to reclaim these roles, that religious leaders perceive these roles to be compatible with the fundamental missions of their organizations, and that both the public sector and religious leaders are comfortable with the kind of Church-State relations that welfare reform creates.

"Charitable Choice" specifically encourages the public sector to contract directly with faith-based organizations for welfare-related programs such as child care and job training, and relaxes some of the traditional barriers that have inhibited provision of public funding to the religious community. Under the provisions of California's implementation of federal welfare reform legislation as signed by Governor Wilson in the summer of 1997, counties may contract with the religious community for the full array of safety net and transitional (welfare to work) services.

The implementation of Charitable Choice within California has been hampered by a lack of leadership at the state level in helping county human services administrators and religious leaders understand and implement the provisions of the federal law. The result has been confusion, misunderstanding, or simple ignorance on the part of both the public sector and the religious community throughout the state. Consequently, to date there has been relatively little activity devoted to involving the faith community in providing welfare-to-work services. Due to state legislation passed in 1999, the California Department of Social Services is now promulgating regulations to assist county governments in implementing the provisions of Charitable Choice.

There are two important and largely untested assumptions regarding the role of faith-based organizations in California's new welfare system. First is the question, should faith-based organizations take on a more significant role in the delivery of social services? This heated debate centers on the civil libertarian concern over separation of Church and State. There are some, both inside and outside the religious community, who feel that the question of proselytizing is not a barrier to increased involvement in the delivery of welfare-related services, and that a "spiritual component" within faith-based social service programs actually enhances their effectiveness. On the other side are those who argue that the enlistment of faith-based organizations, specifically religious congregations, to deliver services in a sectarian manner utilizing government funds is a violation of the constitutional principal separating church and state. There are also those inside the religious community who fear that a strong government role will limit their ability to deliver services on their own terms, or, for historical or theological reasons, do not want to have any direct involvement with government.

The second issue is, how much of a role can faith-based organizations play? As the policy debate unfolded in Washington, there was much discussion about where welfare recipients would find adequate support systems to transition into the workforce, and on how welfare reform would create new and/or increasing demands on different parts of the social service delivery system. Some legislators suggested that the religious community could help take up any slack. According to this view, faith-based organizations already play a vital role in the maintenance of the safety net. They have a presence in virtually every neighborhood, enjoy a high trust level among impacted populations, employ a cadre of volunteers, and have other material resources, such as building space, that could be more fully utilized. However, many leaders within the religious community vehemently disputed this idea during the welfare reform debate, arguing that faith-based organizations were already operating at or near full capacity in meeting human needs.

Surprisingly, little is known about the willingness or the resources of faith-based organizations, especially local congregations, to meet the demands of welfare reform and to fill the expected gap across a wide spectrum of social service activities. Welfare reform's policy assumption that the religious community can and will do more is largely untested. Now, four years after the passage of federal welfare reform legislation, we are in a position to begin to test the correctness of these assumptions, at least in the State of California.

The California Religious Capacity Study, conducted by the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco, focuses on the role of faith-
based organizations in offering social services. Our major objective has been to estimate the will and capacity of California's faith-based organizations to expand their social service outreach in support of welfare-to-work participants that are currently being served by CalWORKsCalifornia's program for implementing federal welfare reform. In the process of collecting data we have learned a great deal about how county and state social service departments have reached out to the faith community, the initial social service programmatic responses to welfare reform within California's religious community, and the necessary ingredients that enable faith-based organizations to expand their capacity. Our conclusions are shared in the "Major Findings" section of this report.

With a generous grant from the James Irvine Foundation, this project has been designed as "action research," i.e. as a project whose purpose is to serve the informational needs of institutions that are designing, monitoring, critiquing, and administering California's welfare-to-work system.

Each member organization included in the research team has been accountable for a particular domain within the project's overall agenda:

The California Council of Churches, which serves as the public policy office for 19 Protestant and Christian orthodox denominations, 3,800 congregations, and over 1.5 million church members, has provided leadership in coordinating the project and disseminating the results of this research.

The Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco has subcontracted with the U.C. Berkeley Survey Research Center to conduct a statewide telephone survey of more than 1,100 religious congregations. This survey has collected quantitative information concerning the involvement of congregations in social service programs, their organizational capacity for sponsoring social services, their knowledge of Charitable Choice, their willingness to participate in welfare reform public/private partnerships, and their willingness to expand social service ministries.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California has used qualitative sociological research methods to study the participation of faith communities in California's welfare-to-work programs. This study has been conducted in eight California counties and five Los Angeles County neighborhoods. The Center has also tracked, in collaboration with the California Council of Churches, developments in the California State Legislature and in the relevant state agencies.

The full technical report of the California Religious Community Capacity Study can be ordered from the California Council of Churches at a nominal charge, or can be downloaded from the Council's website at no cost at www.calchurches.org

Major Findings

Charitable Choice in California

· With only a few exceptions, county welfare agencies in California have been slow to implement the Charitable Choice provisions of Congress's 1996 welfare reform legislation provisions that encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts.

County welfare agency directors have not as yet been systematically oriented by the state's Department of Social Services or by the Employment Development Department concerning guidelines for implementing Charitable Choice. Many have had to rely on information supplied by the Internet and by leaders of faith-based organizations in their own regions.

· In the absence of consistent and persuasive expressions of support for Charitable Choice by state and county welfare agency administrators, it is not surprising that religious leaders in many California counties report that they are unfamiliar with issues related to Charitable Choice.

In our survey of congregational leaders, for example, only 4.7% of respondents said that they were "very familiar" with the Charitable Choice provisions of welfare reform legislation; 28.5% said that they were "somewhat familiar"; 29% said that they were "not very familiar"; and 37.4% said that they were "not familiar at all." In our survey of leaders of faith-based nonprofit corporations, 7.8% of respondents said that they were "very familiar" with Charitable Choice; 39.1% said that they were "somewhat familiar;" 28.1% said that they were "not very familiar;" and 25% said that they were "not familiar at all." Characterizing the general situation, DarEll Weist, pastor the First Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, observed, "Honestly, you don't hear much about Charitable Choice. It hasn't broken into the way most of us think."

· Religious leaders who have focused their attention on issues created by Charitable Choice disagree with each other about whether faith-based organizations should seek government funding or whether they have the capacity to seek government funding for the social services they offer.

Among the congregational leaders who were surveyed, 47.8% expressed concerns about government controls, bureaucracy, and red tape; 29.7% cited theological and/or philosophical reasons for steering clear of government contracts. 49.8% said that they did not have the institutional resources to seek government funding. 45.6% said that they had created or supported other organizations to offer social services.

Religious leaders, however, readily acknowledge that for over thirty years faith-based organizations have been using government funds to support activities such as the construction of affordable housing, child care services, emergency food services, and youth services. "Charitable Choice does not offer anything that is dramatically new," an African American pastor observed. "We have had the luxury of decades to make up our minds about whether we should seek government contracts."

· Politically conservative religious groups in California express support for Charitable Choice.

Nevertheless, they have not organized themselves on a statewide basis to advance Charitable Choice initiatives. Their leaders express mixed feelings. Although many fear becoming entangled in a web of government regulations, others welcome the opportunity to utilize public funds for their social service ministries.

· The California Council of Churches, Lutheran Social Services, Episcopal Social Services, and Catholic Charities of California have encouraged faith-based organizations to compete for welfare reform contracts, but only under prescribed conditions.

For example, Scott Anderson, executive director of the California Council of Churches, strongly recommends that congregations establish nonprofit and/or for-profit corporations to compete for CalWORKs contracts. He urges small and middle-sized faith-based organizations to seek cooperative partnerships with organizations (such as YWCAs, FaithWORKS in Shasta County, All Congregations Together and Interfaith Community Services in northern San Diego County, and Goodwill Industries) that have the expertise, capital, and staff resources to mount complex welfare-to-work programs. He counsels the leaders of faith-based organizations to be realistic about what they can and cannot do well. He urges the leaders of these organizations to be very careful about guarding the separation of church and state. He also urges them not to compromise their "prophetic distance" when they are functioning as welfare-to-work vendors.

· Jewish organizational leaders worry that Charitable Choice is eroding the traditional wall of separation between Church and State.

The American Jewish Congress, for example, argues that many counties do not even try to identify cases where publicly-funded welfare-to-work services are entwined with worship and religious education. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, working with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, says that Charitable Choice gets very close to being an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and therefore that its implementation in California should be resisted.

· Many Protestant and Catholic liberal activistsincluding African American religious leaders who have been associated with the civil rights movementcounsel faith communities to be cautious in cooperating with the state's flawed welfare-to-work programs.

They particularly fear that Charitable Choice will expand the state's use of vouchers or reimbursement certificates for faith-based servicesa practice that conservatives have long wanted for their parochial schools and their other faith-based services.

· Counties have differed markedly in the models they have used to guide their interaction with faith-based organizations.

Some emphasize the development of simplified requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services that specifically encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. Others encourage faith-based organizations to coalesce in county-wide or regional welfare-to-work programs (especially mentoring programs and one-stop centers). Others encourage large-scale denominational social service agencies to compete for comprehensive case management contracts, whereas modestly-scaled faith-based organizations are encouraged to find opportunities for service through sub-contracts or through affiliation with interfaith coalitional organizations.

Religious Congregations

· Religious congregations in California have an impressive record of serving the poor, and, thus, they should be regarded as an important resource for the state's welfare-to-work participants.

In our survey of religious congregations, for example, 24.6% of the respondents estimated that volunteers from their congregations put in more than 1,000 hours a year to social services. An additional 18.1% estimated that volunteers from their congregations devoted between 501-1,000 hours a year to social services. Not surprisingly, larger congregations were able to offer more volunteers than smaller congregations.

Table I

Congregational Size by the Amount

of Available Volunteer Hours

· Likewise, California's religious congregations are actively engaged in various forms of social service ministry.

It is not clear, however, the degree to which these ministries proceed informally, through structured programs, or through the utilization of other nonprofit organizations.

Table II

Social Service Ministries

Every congregation interviewed sponsors at least one social service program or is engaged in offering informal social services. Over half participated in every major service category listed in the above table. More than 90% offer some form of emergency services; 78.2% distribute food on an emergency basis.

· Leaders from more than half of the congregations surveyed said that they were experiencing an increased demand for their social services, especially in neighborhoods where more than half of the residents were perceived to be receiving some form of welfare assistance.

47.3% said that demand had increased, and 10.6% said that it had increased significantly.

· The leaders of congregations surveyed in the California Religious Capacity Study said that they not only had the capacity to maintain their current level of social services, but also to increase what they did.

Only 1.8% said that their congregations would provide fewer services in the next two years; 35.8% percent said that they would provide the same level of services; 62.4% said that they would provide more services.

In explaining their willingness to expand their social service offerings, 48.5% cited pressures from their congregations and/or from regional leaders; 67.6% said that they could expand social services through cooperation with coalitions and partnerships; 71.2% said that they were persuaded to increase their services because the needs of the poor were becoming more severe; 45% said that they could increase their services because of new funding opportunities.

Several congregational leaders cited theological reasons to expand social services. For example, one said that "the reason would be because of our philosophy of ministering. The Lord gives us, and we give out so long as we continue to grow." Another said, "We just believe it's the heartbeat of ministry. We believe we have to meet the needs of the spirit, soul and body."

· Only 6.1% of the congregations we surveyed had applied for government funding in the past five years. Of these, 1.1% had not been successful, and 1.2% were still waiting for funding decisions.

· The likelihood that congregations will be able to compete realistically for welfare-to-work contracts (either directly or through affiliated nonprofits) increases in relation to their size, their financial stability and their organizational complexity.

Congregations with memberships of over 750 are more likely to have staffs with expertise to prepare sophisticated welfare-to-work proposals and to manage social service programs. Relatively small congregations and "immigrant churches" are more likely to provide social services in informal ways and/or in cooperation with coalitional organizations.

· Although much of the debate concerning Charitable Choice has focused on the eligibility of congregations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts, it appears that in California very few congregations have been successful in securing these contracts.

Our research team has been able to identify only eleven awards. Over half of these are in San Bernardino County, where a concerted effort has been made to encourage applications by faith-based and other community-based organizations for one-time-only capacity enhancement contracts. In Los Angeles County, where almost 40% of the state's welfare-to-work participants reside, one religious congregation has received a contract, and this congregation has now created a nonprofit corporation to manage its welfare-to-work activities. This grant went to an African American Pentecostal congregation, Shield of Faith, in Pomona, for job placement services. Only one of the congregations in the state that has successfully competed for a welfare-to-work contract can be regarded as mainline Protestant, liberal, and socially active: Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, which received a $157,000 award. It is offering job readiness and computer skills training.

· The fact that only a small number of congregations has received welfare-to-work contracts does not mean, however, that California congregations are unengaged in welfare-to-work programs.

Shasta County's FaithWORKS program, for example, has mobilized a broad and diverse coalition of congregations (along with other faith-based organizations) in a county-wide mentoring program. The Fresno Leadership Council also mobilizes large numbers of congregations, as does
the Mobilization for the Human Family in Los Angeles, the Pomona Inland Valley Council of Churches, the Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee (IAF), Interfaith Services in San Diego, the Southeast Churches Service Center in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, and All Congregations Together in San Diego.

While these programs are impressive illustrations of faith-based social services, the number of participating congregations is very small in comparison to the total number of congregations that are present throughout California.

Denominations and Religious Orders

Among California's religious denominations and religious orders, only the Salvation Army in Solano and Stanislaus counties, and Los Angeles' St. Joseph's Center (sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet) have received welfare-to-work awards, three of which function as sub-contractors. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego offers a countywide mentoring program that is self-funded.

Denominational Social Service Agencies

· The primary faith-based beneficiaries of Charitable Choice in California are denominational social service agencies.

In the thirty-four counties where we have been able to accumulate data, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture has identified thirty-two contracts that have been awarded to service agencies that affiliate with faith-based national networks. A coalition of Catholic Charities, Armenian Evangelical Social Services, Jewish Vocational Services, and thirteen other organizations has received a $16,300,000 contract in Los Angeles County from the Department of Laborto date, the largest award that has been made in California to faith-based organizations for welfare-to-work activities.

Contracts have been awarded to ten Catholic Charities agencies, with funding levels ranging from $2,281,000 (Orange County, for job search and job readiness programs) to $15,375 (Stanislaus County's Catholic Charities' Samaritan House, for drug rehabilitation). Redding-based Northern Valley Catholic Social Servicesan affiliate of Catholic Charities of Sacramentois the contractor of record and the fiscal manager for FaithWORKS, an interfaith, coalitional program that serves Shasta County's welfare-to-work participants.

Catholic Charities affiliates provide services in the following areas: client case management; English-as-a-Second Language (including Vocational ESL); job readiness; job training; referrals to other agencies; child development; emergency services; parenting; transportation; mentoring; job retention; psychological services; and counseling. Riverside County has approved the use of vouchers as a form of indirect funding of Catholic Charities shelter services.

Jewish social service agencies (including Jewish Family Service and Jewish Vocational Service) have been awarded six contracts and major sub-contracts. The awards range from $77,340 to Jewish
Family Service, Los Angeles to $25,000 to Jewish Family Service in Sonoma County.

Other affiliates of national faith-based (and/or values-oriented) social services networks that have received major welfare-to-work contracts include Goodwill Industries in Los Angeles County, Orange County, and San Diego County; Lutheran Social Services in Sacramento County; and several YWCAs in Los Angeles County.

Other Religiously-Affiliated Nonprofits

· Other faith-based nonprofit corporations are also major beneficiaries of welfare-to-work grants and contracts.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture has identified thirty-one contracts in the thirty-four counties for which we have data. Almost 30% of these contracts were awarded to faith-based nonprofits in San Bernardino County.

Twenty-three percent of these contracts were awarded to nonprofit corporations that mobilize coalitions of congregations for their welfare-to-work activities (e.g., Soledad Enrichment Action, Pomona Valley Council of Churches, Mobilization for the Human Family, All Congregations Together, the Southeast Churches Service Center, Sacramento Valley Organizing Community, Interfaith Community Services, and Fresno Leadership Foundation). Welfare-to-work encourages congregations, faith-based nonprofits, and other for-profit, nonprofit, and public agencies to coalesceto experiment with a variety of coalitional approaches to funding, staffing, and managing social service programs. For example: All Congregations Together, an incorporated, largely evangelical and Pentecostal coalition of churches in San Diego, operates as a sub-contractor under a contract that San Diego County awarded to Lockheed Martin, a for-profit corporation. Adopt-a-Social Worker, a publicly funded program sponsored by the Orange County Child Abuse Prevention Center, brings religious congregations, other community-based organizations, and businesses together to support case workers who are serving welfare-to-work participants. Goodwill Industries of Los Angeles is a nonprofit that affirms the importance of spiritual values in its mission, holds a welfare-to-work contract for job training, job placement, and job retention. It has sub-contracted with Mobilization for the Human Family, a faith-based nonprofit. Mobilization for the Human Family works with congregations, most of which are not members of their organization. These congregations, located in areas where welfare-to-work participants reside, provide volunteers to mentor participants who have found employment.

Expanding the Capacity of Faith-Based Organizations

· The following situations discourage faith-based organizations, especially congregations, from expanding welfare-to-work services: lack of money; too few volunteers; lack of skills and training; lack of sufficient interest; lack of sufficient demand in their community; and lack of space or facilities.

· The following situations increase the capacity of faith-based organizations to mount publicly-funded social service programs for welfare-to-work participants:

When leaders are assured that the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution allow for the public funding of faith-based social service programs, and, therefore, that their search for public funds will not cause legal problems;

When public agencies intentionally design requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services to encourage faith-based (and other community-based) organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts;

When regional and denominational religious leaders provide theological and political reasons for participating in welfare reform's public/private partnerships and for affirming Charitable Choice;

When entrepreneurial leaders are supported by their own organizations and by regional "brokers" in bringing together the resources they need to mount significant social service programs;

When religious leaders establish professionally staffed nonprofit corporations, whose mission is to write proposals, attract funds, manage these funds in accord with contract requirements, manage social service programs, and interface with program funders;

When faith-based organizations affiliate with coalitional organizations that offer social services such as FaithWORKS in Shasta County, Interfaith Community Services in Escondido, and the Industrial Areas Foundation in Sacramento;

When faith-based organizations enter into informal and formal partnerships with large-scale, capacity-rich organizations such as Maximus, Lockheed Martin, Goodwill Industries, Fresno City College, Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee, and YWCAs. These relationships may take the form of sub-contracts, or they may take the form of informal agreements to work together. Even large, capacity-rich social service agencies can expand their capacity to compete for public funding by coalescing as contract partners (e.g. the contractual alliance of Catholic Charities of Southern California, Jewish Vocational Services, and Armenian Evangelical Social Services, which is competing for a grant of over $16 million).

Conclusions

Most representatives of California's faith community believe that the state is ultimately responsible for maintaining the social safety net. Faith-based organizations have the capacity to participate in public/private partnerships that serve the poor. They have the capacity to mount imaginative programs, whose effectiveness is extended by the trust they have already earned in their own neighborhoods. They do not agree that it is in the public interest, however, for faith-based organizations to try to re-assume welfare roles that were transferred to public agencies in the 1930s.

Welfare reform promotes the expansion of "new paradigm" inter-institutional relationsi.e., multiform cooperative relations among public, for-profit, and faith based organizations. In serving the poor, congregations and other faith-based organizations are encouraged to identify coalitional
partners. Networks are being created in which the institutional capacities of different kinds of organizations are exercised in mutually-complementary ways in serving the poor.

Recommendations to the Public Sector

· Given the limited capacities of most religious congregations in California, it is clear that the expectations of some state and federal policymakers concerning a dramatically expanded role for religious congregations in running major segments of the social service safety net are unrealistic.

· Faith-based organizations, however, can play a larger role in the delivery of social services under certain conditions. Public sector human services administrators can facilitate this expanded role by encouraging congregations and other faith-based institutions to affiliate with coalitional organizations (e.g. All Congregations Together in San Diego or FaithWORKS in Shasta County) or large-scale capacity-rich nonprofits (e.g. Mobilization for the Human Family in Los Angeles) and/or for-profit entities (e.g. Maximus).

· Public sector administrators need to develop simplified and more flexible contractual procedures (without compromising accountability) in order to invite greater participation from California's religious community in delivering welfare-to-work social services. Religious congregations, for example, are more likely to participate in social service programs when public agencies intentionally design requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services to address the unique organizational cultures of these organizations.

· When funding faith-based social service delivery programs, public sector administrators should take into account the salient role of intermediary organizations in mobilizing the assets of the religious community to deliver services effectively.

· State and local government officials need to develop a more effective educational strategy to inform key human services administrators in the public sector about the provisions of Charitable Choice utilizing the regulations being promulgated by the California Department of Social Services.

· State and local government officials need to develop a more effective communications strategy to educate California's religious community about the provisions and opportunities of Charitable Choice.

Recommendations to California's Religious Community

· Religious leaders throughout California need to focus on educating clergy and lay leadership at the local level about the provisions and service delivery opportunities provided by Charitable Choice.

· Whenever possible, congregations that seek government contracts should form separate 501(c)(3) public benefit corporations to handle funds and administer the contractual relationships.

· Congregations that desire to participate in California's welfare-to-work social service delivery system but lack the capacity to secure a government contract should be encouraged to affiliate with a coalitional organization or larger-scale, capacity rich nonprofit and/or for-profit entity.

· Statewide ecumenical and interfaith organizations should develop and promote educational materials for California's religious community about the constitutional parameters of government social services funding for faith-based organizations.

· In order to facilitate the effective use of government funding for faith-based social services, there is a growing need for brokering services, including information about funding streams, and technical know-how between the public sector and faith-based institutions. Denominational structures, state and local ecumenical and interfaith councils are possible organizational settings for brokering services.

Work Done by Center for Nonprofit Organization Management

at the University of San Francisco

The quantitative piece of the study was conducted by the team at the University of San Francisco. It involved a state-wide survey of leaders of religious congregations and other faith-based nonprofit service agencies. The questionnaire surveyed leaders about their knowledge of and participation in Charitable Choice activities, their involvement in social ministry functions and the resources commanded by their organization. It also asked basic demographic questions about membership. Most of the questions were closed ended although there was also the capacity to record open-ended responses.

In order to draw a random sample of congregations and organizations, it was necessary first to compile a sampling framea list of all organizations that could be located in the state. To this end, a list of congregations and organizations was compiled from several sources. It first used organizations registered with the California Secretary of State's listings of incorporated organizations. This was combined with information from the Charitable Trust's listings. Other lists were obtained from religious denominations that were willing to share membership directories. Finally, these sources were supplemented with telephone directory listings of religious organizations. The final list, once duplicates were removed, contained approximately 50,000 organizations; to our knowledge, the largest such listing ever compiled for the State of California.

A simple random sample was drawn from this list of 2,898 names. Of these, 1105 or 38 percent were ineligible. This occurred because there was no valid phone number obtainable from directory assistance for the congregation or organization or no person was available who spoke English (25 cases). Of the remaining 1,793 organizations, 366 were never available to be interviewed and 320 directly refused the interview. This left a final sample of 1107, or 61.7 percent of those eligible. This response rate was extremely high, compared to some other studies in this area. Interviewing for the California Religious Community Capacity Study occurred over the telephone between March and June of 2000.

Faith-Based Organizations and Welfare Reform:

California Religious Community Capacity Study

Qualitative Findings and Conclusions

John Orr

Co-Principal Investigator

Research Team:

Peter Spoto, Carolyn Mounts, Lezlee Cox, Yvette Lanausse, Boris Ricks

Executive Summary

The California Religious Capacity Study, conducted by the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture (at the University of Southern California), and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management (at the University of San Francisco) has focused on the role of faith-based organizations in offering social services. The major objective of the study has been to estimate the will and the capacity of California's faith-based organizations to expand their social service outreach in support of welfare-to-work participants that are currently being served by CalWORKsCalifornia's program for implementing welfare reform.

In its part of the overall study, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture has used qualitative sociological research methods to study the participation of faith communities in California's welfare-to-work programs. The Center's research has been conducted in eight California counties, in five Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in the California Legislature, and in state executive departments that are related to welfare reform.

Findings

California's welfare agencies have been slow to implement the Charitable Choice provisions of Congress's 1996 welfare reform legislationprovisions that encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. To date, county welfare agency directors have still not been systematically oriented concerning Charitable Choice. Many have had to rely on information supplied by the Internet and by leaders of faith-based organizations in their own regions.

Counties have differed markedly in the models they have used to guide their interaction with faith-based organizations. Some emphasize the development of requests for proposals, bidding procedures, and post-award services that specifically encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. Others encourage faith-based organizations to coalesce in county-wide welfare-to-work programs. Others encourage large-scale denominational social service agencies to compete for comprehensive case management contracts, whereas modestly-scaled faith-based organizations are encouraged to find opportunities for service through sub-contracts.

Faith-based nonproft corporations and denominational social service agencies have been primary recipients of publicly-funded welfare-to- work contracts.

Very few contracts have been awarded to California congregations. The fact that only a small number of congregations has received TANF contracts does not mean, however, that California congregations are unengaged in welfare-to-work programs. Many choose to offer welfare-to-work programs through coalitional organizations in which they can share the costs of maintaining specialized staffs and facilities. Some congregations organize their own nonprofit corporations to conduct social service programs.

The following situations increase the capacity of faith-based organizations to mount publicly-funded social service programs for welfare-to-work participants:

When regional and denominational religious leaders provide theological and political reasons for participating in welfare reform's public/private partnerships and for affirming Charitable Choice;

When entrepreneurial leaders are supported by their own organizations and by regional "brokers" in bringing together the resources they need to mount significant social service programs;

When faith-based organizations affiliate with coalitional organizations that offer social services
such as FaithWORKS in Shasta County and the Pacific Institute of Community Organizing in Sacramento.

Conclusions

Welfare reform promotes the expansion of "new paradigm" inter-institutional relationsi.e., multiform contractual relations among public, for-profit, and faith based organizations. The culture of faith-based social services in California is being transformed as faith-based organizations identify ways to escalate their capacity to compete for welfare-to-work contracts.

Introduction

For over two years a research team from the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture (University of Southern California), and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management (University of San Francisco) has been studying the involvement of faith-based organizations in California's implementation of welfare reform. Funded by The James Irvine Foundation, this project has been designed as "action research," i.e., as a project whose purpose is to serve the informational needs of institutions that are designing, monitoring, critiquing, and administering California's welfare-to-work programs.

There are good reasons why these institutions need information about the evolving participation of faith-based organizations in welfare reform. The federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu
nity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), signed by President Clinton on August 22, 1996, actively encouraged faith-based organizations to enter into public/private partnerships in support of welfare-to-work participants. Senator John Ashcroft, who authored the religion-friendly provisions of PRWORA, has repeatedly asserted that welfare reform legislation was specifically designed to invite faith-based organizations back into social safety net roles that had been taken from them during the New Deal era. The law's authors took for granted that faith-based organizations possess the capacity and the will to reclaim these roles, that religious leaders perceive these roles to be compatible with the fundamental missions of their organizations, and that both civic and religious leaders are comfortable with the kind of church-state relations that welfare reform creates. Now, four years after the passage of PRWORA, we are in a position to begin to test the correctness of these assumptions, at least in the State of California.

The California Religious Capacity Study, at least indirectly, tests another assertion: that, PRWORA actively promotes a new paradigm for expanding the social service capacity of faith based organizations. PRWORA invites faith-based organizations, including religious congregations, to enter into contracts with federal, state and county agencies, and, thus, to carry on outreach ministries as government vendors. PRWORA also opens opportunities for faith-based organizations to coalesce as partners in social service nonprofits, to sub-contract with for-profit corporations who hold welfare-to-work contracts, to sub-contract with other larger-scaled social service agencies, and even to create faith-based for-profit corporations. If, indeed, PRWORA promotes a new paradigm for faith-based outreach ministries, that is a fact that should be noted and carefully evaluated by the leaders of faith-based communities. Is this new paradigm desirable? Is it inevitablei.e., is it a mirror image of powerful trends that have been underway for a long time in the business and political sectors of American life? These are questions that raise issues that are beyond the scope of the California Religious Capacity Study. Nevertheless, our study does provide data that will suggest the extent to which PRWORA has promoted a new paradigm for the relations of faith-based organizations with each other and with other public and private sector institutions.

The California Religious Capacity Study, conducted by the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture, and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management has focused on the role of religious institutions in offering social services. The major objective of the study has been to estimate the will and the capacity of California's faith-based organizations to expand their social service outreach in support of welfare-to-work participants that are currently being served by CalWORKsCalifornia's program for implementing welfare reform.

The target audience for this study's report includes: the California state legislature; the California Department of Social Services; the California Employment Development Department; the Office of the Governor; county governments and welfare-to-work agencies; and California's faith-based organizations.

Each member organization included in the research team has been accountable for a particular domain within the project's overall agenda:

The California Council of Churches has served as the project's fiscal agent. It has provided leadership in coordinating the research activities of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management. It has assumed responsibility for disseminating the project's conclusions.

The Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco has conducted a statewide survey of 1,000 religious congregations. This survey has collected information concerning the involvement of congregations in social services (or "community outreach" ministries), their organizational capacity for sponsoring social services, their knowledge of Charitable Choice, their willingness to participate in welfare reform public/private partnerships, and their willingness to expand social service ministries.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California has used qualitative sociological research methods to study the participation of faith communities in California's welfare-to-work programs. This study has been conducted in eight California counties: Shasta, Alameda, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and San Diego. It also has been conducted in five Los Angeles County neighborhoods: Boyle Heights, Wilshire Center, Pico Union, and Jefferson Park in Los Angeles, and in a suburban neighborhood in Northeast Long Beach.

In cooperation with the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture has tracked activities related to Charitable Choice in the state legislature, the state Department of Social Services, and the Employment Development Department.

The qualitative research of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture within the California Religious Capacity Study complements the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management's statewide survey in a number of ways. For example, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's project investigates the experience of faith-based organizations other than congregations in offering welfare-to-work services. It identifies faith-based organizations that have actually succeeded in attracting public funds for their welfare-to-work services. It inquires about incentives and disincentives that affect the willingness of faith-based organizations to apply for Charitable Choice funding. It studies ways in which attitudes concerning welfare reform affect the willingness of faith-based organizations to offer publicly-funded welfare-to-work services. It assesses factors that expand the capacity of faith-based organizations to offer welfare-to-work services.

The following report from the Center for Religion and Civic Culture provides data that will be used to prepare the overall project's final report.

Because all of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's analyses, findings and conclusions may not be incorporated in the project's final report, they are being distributed on the Internet (http://www.usc.edu/go/rol/WelfareReform), and, in printed form, on request from the California Council of Churches and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

I. Methodology

Research Questions. The following questions structured the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's qualitative sociological research activities in the California Religious Capacity Study:

What is Charitable Choice?

Does California's "strict church-state separationist" constitution raise problems concerning Charitable Choice that are unique to this state?

Has the California legislature supported Charitable Choice?

Which faith-based social services qualify for welfare-to-work contract and voucher support?

What is the structure of faith-based organizations that offer social services?

Are state and county welfare agency administrators encouraging faith-based organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

Are California's religious leaders encouraging faith-based organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

How are faith-based organizations responding to welfare reform within the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's "Case Study Neighborhoods?"

What is the profile of faith-based welfare-to-work contracts that have been funded by federal and state programs?

What disincentives affect the willingness of faith-based programs to compete for welfare-to-work contracts?

What factors expand the capacity of faith-based organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

Qualitative Methods. In answering these questions, the research team from the University of Southern California used qualitative methods. Researchers regarded themselves as mappers of a large-scale transition in the social service roles played by faith-based organizations during the early years of California's implementation of welfare reform.

Open-ended interviews and participant observations were conducted within the project's neighborhood studies, county leadership studies, and political context studies.

Interview and observation guides were used by researchers, but these instruments were occasionally revised to reflect the project's expanding understanding of the situation they were investigating. Researchers were instructed to "follow their stories," i.e., to follow-up on leads in interviews and observations that promised to reveal previously-unanticipated complexities. Individuals who were interviewed were allowed considerable freedom to speak about their personal and organizational responses to welfare reform.

Researchers were encouraged to accumulate data from a wide range of sources, including, for example, the Internet, newspapers, journals, professional association meetings, state and county documents, ecumenical and interfaith events, conferences, newsletters, and informal conversations.

The qualitative studies of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture team proceeded in three domains:

Case Study Neighborhoods. Neighborhood case studies were designed by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team to complement the California Religious Capacity Study's statewide survey of religious congregations. The purpose of these studies was to create a profile of social services offered by various kinds of faith-based organizations within particular Los Angeles County neighborhoods, then to develop generalizations concerning the capacity of these organizations to offer publicly-funded welfare-to-work programs.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture selected five neighborhoodsfour in Los Angeles's central city and one in a suburban area of Long Beach. The four urban neighborhoods were selected because, together, they roughly mirrored Los Angeles County's ethnic/racial diversity and because census data had suggested that these neighborhood probably contain large numbers of welfare-to-work participants. The suburban neighborhood was selected because of its middle class and upper middle class character and because of its geographical proximity to Old Long Beach's low income neighborhoods.

The operational boundaries of these neighborhoods were identical to those used by U.S. Postal Service in creating zip codes. Four of the neighborhoods were contained in single zip code areas. The fifth was contained in three zip code areas. The use of zip codes allowed the team to utilize a variety of public and private data sources in expanding its understanding of neighborhood demographics.

The central city neighborhoods selected were Boyle Heights (90033), Jefferson Park (90018), Pico-Union (90006), and Wilshire Center (90005, 90010, 90020)covering approximately 8 1/2 square miles within the city's urban core. Each of these case study neighborhoods includes large numbers of the city's working poor. Each has experienced tensions created by Los Angeles's demographic transitions. Collectively, the neighborhoods house large numbers of African-American, Korean, Mexican, Central American, Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese residents. Although the neighborhoods include ethnic and racial enclaves, they are all multiethnic.

Northeast Long Beach (90815) is the largest neighborhood in our case study

7 1/2 square miles. Although it includes two upper-middle class enclaves, it is known as an area of relatively modest tract homes. Its population is predominantly Caucasian. Its southern boundary, Pacific Coast Highway, separates Northeast Long Beach from "Old Long Beach." Thus, it is physically separated from neighborhoods whose residents are among the most multiethnic in the state.

Religious congregations, their affiliated nonprofits, and other faith-based organizations in each of these neighborhoods were identified in three ways: (1) "drive-by," on-the-street surveys; (3) the Internal Revenue Service list of public benefit nonprofits; and (3) the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts.

The research team interviewed clergy and lay leaders from fifty faith-based organizations in these neighborhoods. Research assistants were instructed to get to know these neighborhoods by returning over and over to their case study organizations, by speaking with community interpreters (i.e., individuals who could interpret how religious organizations function in the
neighborhoods), and by speaking with leaders of other community-based institutions. They attended community events in which faith-based organizations were exercising leadership. They also interviewed leaders from other public and private organizations with which faith-based organizations interacted.

Case Study Counties. The Center for Religion and Civic Culture selected eight California countiesShasta, Alameda, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and San Diegoas the areas in which they would track the interaction of welfare agencies and faith-based organizations in implementing Charitable Choice. These counties were selected as representatives of the state's diverse economies and cultures. Southern California counties dominated our samplean expression of the fact that these counties together contain well over half of the state's population of welfare-to-work participants.

In person and by telephone, the research team interviewed county welfare agency administrators, leaders from faith-based organizations that are involved in major welfare-to-work programs, and the leaders of other community organizations with which faith-based organizations were interacting. These interviews were structured by interview guides, but researchers were instructed to be flexible. Their goal was to discover the multiple models for cross-sector relations at the county level in implementing California's welfare reform program.

The research team identified welfare-to-work contracts that had been awarded to faith-based organizations in each of the case study counties. These data were supplemented by data drawn from a Spring, 2000 California Department of Social Services report, which summarized the findings of a statewide survey of county welfare agencies related to their utilization of faith-based social service

In spring, 2000, the team conducted focus groups in six of the counties in order to allow the leaders of faith-based organizations to reflect on their evolving experience with welfare-to-work programs. Participants were selected on the basis of their demonstrated leadership in offering major county-related welfare-to-work programs. Leaders used a discussion guide that had been prepared for these events. Nevertheless, they were instructed to allow focus group participants a high degree of freedom in reflecting on their welfare reform experience. They were also instructed to use the focus groups as occasions for eliciting concrete information concerning late-breaking developments in their counties.

The California Legislature and state welfare agencies. In cooperation with the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team tracked events in the state legislature and state welfare agencies related to the implementation of Charitable Choice. This research agenda was added to the initial project design because it had become clear in our interviews that the implementation of Charitable Choice was being delayed by the actions of state officials. "Following the stories" that were unfolding in our case study neighborhoods and counties invariably took us to Sacramento.

Scott Anderson, executive director of the California Council of Churches, participated in legislative hearings, meetings with legislative staff, and meetings with leaders of faith-based organizations that were considering issues related to Charitable Choice. The Center's research team interviewed four legislative staff members, a California state Senator, three staff
members in the California Department of Social Services, and two staff members in the Employment Development Department. Researchers also observed meetings in which political representatives interacted with faith-based organizations in case study counties (especially in Southern California).

II. Findings

A. What is Charitable Choice?

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), signed by President Clinton on August 22, 1996, mandated the end of the welfare program that had been in place since President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. A new welfare-to-work programTemporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was established. No longer an entitlement program, the nation's new social safety net became a time-limited employment program, designed by states to surround welfare recipients with support services that would facilitate their transition into the work force. In order to provide for an adequate mix of social service to help welfare recipients overcome the barriers they face in moving toward self-sufficiency, the law envisaged new forms of public/private collaborationcontractual partnerships, funded cooperatively by public and private resources.

Charitable Choice. The Charitable Choice provision of Congress's welfare reform legislation actively encouraged states to include faith-based organizations as partners in welfare reform. Authored by Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri, the provision requires that, when government agencies choose to contract with private sector organizations in building welfare-to-work programs, faith-based organizations must be eligible to compete for those contracts. To guard against fears that faith-based organizations might lose their religious identity when they function as government vendors, Charitable Choice offers a series of protective measures. For example, participating faith-based organizations are given the right to display religious art, scripture and other symbols in facilities where welfare-to-work services are offered. They retain the right to use religious criteria in the hiring, firing and disciplining of employees (while being subject to other anti-discrimination laws). They are allowed to limit the scope of financial audits by segregating federal contract funds into separate accounts. They are given the right to explain to clients their theological reasons for offering welfare-to-work services.

Charitable Choice spelled out regulations intended to assure the religious liberty of welfare-to-work participants. For example, although faith-based service providers are allowed to explain theological reasons for their engagement with welfare-to-work programs, they are prohibited from involving welfare-to-work participants in religious instruction, proselytizing, and worship. They cannot discriminate against clients on the basis of religion, religious belief, or the clients' refusal to engage in religious practices. If clients object to receiving services from faith-based providers, county welfare agencies are required to provide conveniently located non-sectarian options for those clients.

Charitable Choice also contained provisions that allow for the indirect funding of faith-based programs through vouchers. If government welfare agencies create programs that permit clients to
carry vouchers to reimburse the providers that they have selected, these providers are not subjected to restrictions on religious instruction, proselytizing, and worship. According to Carl Esbeck, professor of law at the University of Missouri, who collaborated with Senator Ashcroft in authoring Charitable Choice, "[There] cannot be even the appearance of government establishment of religion when it is the beneficiary who, free to choose among providers, decides to redeem a voucher at a faith-based provider."

Relief for alleged abuses in the practices of Charitable Choice providers is provided by federal courts.

The expansion of Charitable Choice rhetoric in common usage. For more than three decades, public funds have been distributed by federal and local departments and agencies to faith-based organizations for programs that serve secular human service purposesespecially for health services, emergency food services, youth services, and affordable housing. Indeed, in its 1988 Bowen v. Kendrick decision, the U.S. Supreme Court referred to the "long history of cooperation" between state and religious organizations in providing for the nation's health and human service needs.

Although the term "Charitable Choice" is most appropriately linked with welfare reform and with programs that have been specifically cited by federal Charitable Choice expansion acts, the term now seems to be linked with almost any program that turns to faith-based organizations for public/private partnerships.

Thus, debates about Charitable Choice no longer seem to be narrowly focused on particular pieces of welfare reform legislation, or even on their implementation by health and human service departments. Rather, debates about Charitable Choice now focus on the cooperative church-state paradigm that has evolved during the latter decades of the twentieth centurya paradigm that encourages faith-based organizations to become public service vendors. The fact that this new paradigm appears to be legitimated by U.S. Supreme Court rulings provides little comfort to critics who believe that Charitable Choice compromises the American tradition of church-state separation. These critics appear to be ready to resist Charitable Choice whether or not state and/or federal courts conclude that it is constitutional. Others see Charitable Choice as a healthy new development in the nation's network of human servicesone that experiments with coalitional (i.e., public/private) approaches in serving the nation's poor.

B. Does California's "strict church-state separationist" constitution raise issues about Charitable Choice that are unique to this state?

In 1998, the Legislative Counsel of California was asked whether the Charitable Choice provisions of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act are compatible with the California Constitution. His opinion was issued on May 28, 1998.

The Legislative Counsel observed that the California Constitutionin language that is virtually identical to that contained in the U.S. Constitutionprohibits the establishment of religion. Therefore, California courts appropriately seek guidance in church-state issues from the U.S. Supreme
Court. After surveying the U. S. Supreme Court's rulings in establishment of religion cases, the Legislative Counsel concluded that the contract provisions of Charitable Choice pass muster. Charitable Choice especially appeared to be coincident with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1988 ruling in Bowen v. Kendrick, which affirmed the constitutionality of government funds being used by faith-based organizations for secular purposes (e.g., reducing poverty). It was also coincident with the Court's 1997 ruling in Agostini v. Feldman, which mandated that public grants to faith-based organizations must be allocated "on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor or disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis."

According to the Legislative Counsel, the California Constitution contains church-state provisions that have no counterpart in the U.S. Constitution and that have been interpreted by the state's court system as being stricter than the U.S. Constitution in protecting church-state separation. For example, Section 5 of Article XVI of the California Constitution states that neither the legislature nor any political subdivision of the state may "make an appropriation, or pay from any public fund whatever, or grant anything to or in aid of any religious sect, church, creed, or sectarian purpose, or help to support or sustain any [sectarian] school, college, [or] university." Section 5 has been held by California courts to prohibit not only the appropriation or payment of public funds to support sectarian institutions, but also "any official involvement.which has the direct, immediate, and substantial effect of promoting religious purposes."

The Counsel concluded that the contract provisions of Charitable Choice are consistent with these strict provisions, as long as federal Charitable Choice awards to faith-based organizations are made on the basis of criteria that do not grant them preferential status. Potential abuses in the implementation of contracts to faith-based organizations will be examined by the courts on a case-by-case basis.

It is unclear in the Legislative Counsel's opinion whether California state funds can be directed to faith-based welfare-to-work programs if sectarian organizations are not given preferential treatment and if their programs do not advance or burden religion. The opinion did not foreclose the possibility. It left an opening for legislators who are supporters of Charitable Choice to "push the envelope," i.e., to introduce legislation that, will allow state funds to support the health and human services programs of faith-based organizations.

The Legislative Counsel did not address issues related to the compatibility of the voucher provisions of Charitable Choice with church-state provisions contained in the California Constitution, in the state's Education Code, or in the manuals of various state agencies.1

C. Has the California legislature supported Charitable Choice?

The state legislature had no option. When it crafted CalWORKsCalifornia's plan for implementing Temporary Assistance for the Needyfederal law required that welfare-to-work funds had to be distributed within the framework of Charitable Choice.

Since early 1999, a group of California Republican senators has introduced bills that would facilitate the implementation of Charitable Choice in CalWORKs, and, recently, that would extend Charitable Choice to a variety of state-funded health and human service programs.

The first of these bills, SB 516, was introduced by Senator Ray Haynes in February, 1999. Governor Davis signed it in September. The bill forced the Department of Social Services and the Employment Development Department to move forward to fulfill their long-delayed obligation to orient county welfare departments about the implications of Charitable Choice for county welfare-to-work programs. It also sought to achieve a compromise with civil liberties organizations by requiring that the implementation of Charitable Choice would proceed in the context of a set of yet-to-be-defined regulations (thereby opening possibilities for new lobbying battles within the process of developing these regulations). The bill required California Department of Social Services to initiate, by July 1, 2000, the adoption of these regulations, which finally would interpret Charitable Choice for county welfare departments.

SB 516 was a response to the confusion created in county CalWORKs agencies by the failure of the Employment Development Department and the Department of Social Services to provide clear-cut guidelines concerning the implementation of Charitable Choice. Frustration had been building among Republican legislators, because the political atmosphere in Sacramento promised to delay the issuing of guidelines indefinitely. Republicans apparently believed that they would have to take the initiative in forcing state and county health and human service departments "to obey the law."

The California Council of Churches, representing the state's mainline Protestant denominations, joined with the right-leaning Assembly of God, the Alianza de Ministerios Evangelicos Nacionales, and Covenant Industries in supporting the Haynes Bill. For over a year, the California Council of Churches had been urging religious groups to fulfill their potential in expanding faith-based child care facilities for welfare-to-work participants. The Council's representatives, however, had been frustrated by confusion concerning Charitable Choice that was being expressed by county child care agencies. They had especially been frustrated by the slow pace of these agencies in following through on self-announced deadlines for distributing CalWORKs child care funds. Scott Anderson, executive director of the California Council of Churches, had concluded that Ray Haynes was essentially correct: PRWORA's requirement that Charitable Choice must structure the distribution of welfare block grant funds had been inconsistently applied in California. Nothing was being served, Anderson concluded, by prolonging the confusion in California counties.

In early 2000, six new bills related to Charitable Choice were introduced in the California Senate by Republican legislators. The most comprehensive of these, SB 1509, the Charitable Choice Act of 2000, was introduced by Senators Haynes, Leslie, Lewis, McPherson, and Monteith, with staff support being provided by the Senate Republican Caucus. According to the Legislative Counsel's Digest, SB 1509 provided that:

[R]eligious organizations are eligible, on the same basis as any other private organization, as contractors under any program administered by the state agency so long as the programs are implemented consistent with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 4 of Article I of the California Constitution. The bill would prohibit a state agency from discriminating against an organization that is or applies to be a contractor on the basis that the organization has a religious character.

The bill would prohibit a state agency from requiring a religious organization to alter its form of internal governance or to remove religious symbols in order to be eligible for a contract or grant. The bill would also require a state agency, in an instance
where an individual has an objection to the religious character of an organization or institution from which the individual receives, or would receive, assistance funded under any program administered by the state agency, to provideassistance from an alternative provider that is accessible to the individual.

Other bills that have recently been introduced by Republican state senators apply Charitable Choice to specific areas of health and human servicese.g., alcohol and drug programs, child care, welfare-to-work programs, and maternity care for unmarried persons under eighteen years of age.

Staff members related to the California Senate Republican Caucus have expressed their confidence that the recently-introduced Charitable Choice expansion bills are consistent with the California State Constitution. They report that the Republican Senators have consulted with Constitutional law scholars. They also report that the Senators believe that their new bills are consistent with the opinion concerning Charitable Choice that was issued in 1998 by the Legislative Counsel.

In mid-April, 2000, Senator Ray Haynes' SB 1509 died in committee. At the time the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's report was written, the other bills were still pending. Scott Anderson, however, did not believe that they would be passed during the current legislative session. "The legislature probably will wait for the Department of Social Services' new Charitable Choice regulations to be formulated before it revisits the issue," he said.

D. Which faith-based social services qualify for welfare-to-work contract and

voucher support?

When California counties turn to the private sector for services that support welfare-to-work participants, faith-based organizations are eligible to compete for those contracts. CalWORKs allows counties broad discretion in identifying the kinds of services that are appropriate for welfare-to-work participants in the areas they serve. Thus, the kinds of qualifying programs offered by faith-based organizations may vary from county to county. There is no standard list of qualifying welfare-to-work services under CalWORKs.

Programs typically related to welfare-to-work sources include: (1) case management; (2) job readiness; (2) job training; (3) job placement; (4) job retention; (5) job coaching; (6) child care; (7) mentoring; (8) mental health; (9) drug and alcohol addiction intervention; (10) family violence intervention; (11) literacy; (12) English language training; (13) transportation; (14) life skills; (15) family preservation; (16) housing; (17) emergency food and clothing services; (14) achievement of high school graduation competency; and (18) medical services.

The programs are being funded by a wide variety of public and private sources, including but not limited to CalWORKs. These other sources include the federal Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. State-based foundations such as The James Irvine Foundation, the California Endowment, and a number of community foundations have provided support for welfare-to-work initiatives.

E. What is the structure of faith-based organizations that offer social services?

When religious, political, and social service leaders use the term "faith-based organization" in their discussions concerning the involvement of California's religious communities in welfare reform, they often fail to make critical distinctions among the various kinds of faith-based institutions that are eligible to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. The failure to make these distinctions regularly creates confusion in discussions about the organizational capacity of faith-based organizations to expand their social services for welfare-to-work participants, and even about the appropriateness of turning to faith-based organizations for these services. For example, representatives of organizations that oppose the expansion of faith-based services in welfare reform have consistently spoken about faith-based organizations in terms that apply narrowly to religious congregations. They have worried about public funds flowing to faith-based organizations (pictured as congregations), because they have feared that minority religious groups will be disadvantaged and that the wall between church and state will be eroded.

Similarly, interviews with state agency administrators have revealed a pervasive nervousness about whether the California Constitution allows public funding for "pervasively sectarian" faith-based organizations, usually described in terms that elicit images of public support for religious congregations. Very few of these individuals show an awareness that issues associated with the public funding of faith-based welfare reform programs may be relative to different kind of faith-based organizations.

In the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's study, the researchers have used Jim Castelli's and John D. McCarthy's typology of faith-based organizations that offer social services. Center for Religion and Civic Culture researchers have added two additional organizational typesfaith-based for- profit corporations and religious denominations.

Congregations. The Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco has identified over 50,000 religious congregations in California. Constitutionally-protected religious congregations, however, are not required to register as nonprofit corporations, and thus they may not be included in Internal Revenue Service, California Attorney General, and California Secretary of State listings. Some are incorporated only under the umbrella of denominations. Others meet informally as home-based congregations. Others test the boundary of what would traditionally be regarded as religious congregations, e.g., groups that gather around alternative medical therapies or religiously-inspired social justice commitments.

Denominations. The Salvation Army, which offers social services, is a religious denomination. National and regional denominational organizations (e.g. the United Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Presbyterian Church) often employ staff members to advance their social justice and social service agendas. In Los Angeles, for example, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese supports a highly effective program to assist immigrants. The United Methodist Church in Southern California has created a network of Shalom community development projects and has made funds available for the capital needs of these projects. Denominational leaders, such as Cardinal Roger Mahony in the Roman Catholic Los Angeles Archdiocese, regularly use their offices to speak to the press about moral/political issues.

Faith-Based National Networks. Most faith-based social services are offered by networks of affiliated social service agencies that are associated with denominations or with other national organizations. The services they offer are wide-rangingoften comparable to those offered by public agencies. Many submit to the same accreditation standards as those that are utilized by secular social service agencies.

Catholic Charities, for example, is a network of freestanding local agencies that operate at the local level. A Sacramento-based Catholic Charities secures contracts in which local affiliates participate; it attempts to generate cross-cutting themes for local affiliate programs.

Lutheran Social Services parallels the structure of Catholic Charities, with local affiliates operating at the synod level.

Jewish Family Service and Jewish Vocational Service have no formal structural ties to established Jewish judicatories.

The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, and Goodwill Industries are independent organizations, with freestanding affiliates that operate in various regions. By charter, each emphasizes core spiritual values within its social service programs.

Freestanding Public Benefit Nonprofit Corporations. Freestanding public benefit nonprofit corporations constitute the largest population of faith-based organizations that offer social services. They are extraordinarily diverse. Some bring congregations together to form interfaith or ecumenical organizations, which offer an array of social services (e.g. HopeNet in Los Angeles). Others engage in specialized services, e.g., affordable housing, drug intervention, youth services, legal services for the homeless. Others focus on the multiple needs of particular neighborhoods. Others offer specialized services that assist interfaith and ecumenical councils in accumulating funds and in securing technical information (e.g., Vision Los Angeles). Others specialize in congregation-based community organizing, turning to regional clusters of congregations to identify issues around which they mobilize neighborhood activism (e.g., the Industrial Areas Foundation and the Pacific Institute for Community Organizing). Others offer educational services and capacity-building designed to empower congregations to implement their own visions for community outreach services (e.g., FAITHS Initiative in San Francisco).

Some of these public benefit nonprofit corporations have been created by individual congregations to provide organizational structures for their community development activities. Although these corporations are often closely aligned with the day-to-day activities of congregations, their nonsectarian legal status facilitates the securing of publicly-financed contracts and shields congregations from exposure liability claims.

Others have been initially organized by individual congregations or faith-based coalitions, then launched as freestanding nonprofits (e.g., People Assisting the Homeless in Culver City), with only informal continuing ties to congregations.

Faith-Based For-Profit Corporations. An emergent organizational form, especially in the Los Angeles area, is the faith-based for-profit corporation, designed to involve participants in ownership and management roles. For example: (1) Pueblo Nuevo, an Episcopal Church in the MacArthur park
area of Los Angeles, created a for-profit corporation to provide janitorial services in the greater Los Angeles region. Employees, who include welfare-to-work participants, are given opportunities to buy into the corporation after a period of successfully demonstrating their ability as service providers. (2) First AME Church in Los Angeles launched a for-profit corporation that distributes low-flush toilets on behalf of the Department of Light and Power. (3) The Shield of Faith, a Pentecostal congregation in Pomona, intends to establish a for-profit temporary employment service for welfare-to-work participants.

F. Are state and county welfare agency administrators encouraging faith-based organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

To date, neither the California Department of Social Services nor the Employment Development Department has systematically oriented county welfare agencies about Charitable Choice. In light of the fact that the California Department of Social Services has been directed by the state legislature to develop regulations for the implementation of Charitable Choice by July, 2000, this orientation will occur in the relatively near future.

Two administrators in the California Department of Social Services that were interviewed by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture expressed doubts about the constitutionality of Charitable Choice. "I'm no constitutional lawyer," one of these administrators said, "but I have the distinct impression that the California Constitution is stricter about church-state separation than the U.S. Constitution." "Even if it turned out that federal dollars could be used for faith-based welfare-to-work contracts," she continued, "people would probably have to be careful about using state funds for these same programs." The other administrator simply observed, "Charitable Choice just doesn't seem right."

Soon after the California Legislative Counsel issued his 1998 opinion, which concluded that Charitable Choice is compatible with the California Constitution, a letter was drafted within the Department of Social Services to orient county officials concerning Charitable Choice. The draft letter, which exactly mirrored the Legislative Counsel's opinion, was circulated to elicit comments from groups whose interests would be affected by a more vigorous implementation of Charitable Choice. Presumably because of preliminary responses to the letter, a decision was made not to send it to county welfare agencies.

In late 1998 and in 1999, directors of county welfare agencies were complaining about the haphazard way in which they were learning about Charitable Choice. One director, for example, confessed that he had learned about Charitable Choice from the Internet only after he had been embarrassed in a conversation with a local pastor. Another turned to the interviewer from the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team and said, "You want to hear what we're doing about Charitable Choice. What's Charitable Choice?"

During the latter half of 1999, this situation changed. Prodded by Senator Ray Haynes' SB 516, which was signed by the governor in late September, the California Department of Social Services distributed a letter to all county welfare directors and all county welfare-to-work coordinators. In this letter, the chief of CDSS's Employment and Eligibility Branch, described her department's obligation to develop regulations that would govern the implementation of Charitable Choice and
asked counties to assist the Department in gathering information about their utilization of faith-based organizations in their CalWORKs programs.

The letter took one additional, highly significant step. It informed the letter's recipients that:

there is nothing in State law or regulations that currently prohibits [county welfare directors] from contracting with and utilizing religious organizations to provide services to recipients participating in CalWORKs welfare-to-work activities.Counties have the flexibility to design their CalWORKs programs and select the services and service providers that they use, based on the needs of their respective clientele, local economic conditions, and availability of services and other resources. Given the increased demand for welfare-to-work services for CalWORKs recipients, CDSS encourages [county welfare directors] to continue to utilize or consider utilizing religious organizations as an additional resource for their CalWORKs program, for services offered by the religious organizations that are compatible with the [county welfare directors'] overall welfare-to-work efforts.2

For the first time, county welfare directors were officially provided with information from the Legislative Counsel's 1998 opinion concerning the federal and state constitutionality of Charitable Choice. Also for the first time, the directors were encouraged by state agencies to use faith-based organizations, when appropriate, to provide welfare-to-work services.

During the two years after the state's adoption of CalWORKs, California counties have differed markedly in the ways they have interacted with faith-based organizations. Some have not reached out at all. Others have. Among those that have, four distinctive models have emerged for shaping the interaction of faith-based organizations and county welfare agencies. These models, of course, are not mutually exclusive. They can be combined.

County-wide coalitional programs. Shasta County's Department of Social Services, for example, has adopted a model which encourages religious congregations and other faith-based organizations to cooperate with each other. The department has awarded one contract to FaithWORKSa county-wide, ecumenical, interfaith mentoring program for welfare-to-work participants.

Collaborative structures. Los Angeles County health and service departments, have invited faith-based organizations to work with them in a collaboration council. Established in April, 2000, the first priority of the council will be to increase the access of faith-based organizations to information about the county's requests for proposals, and, also, to make sure that these organizations get the kinds of technical assistance that will enable them to develop informed, competitive proposals. Then the council will consider possibilities for developing faith-based programs in each of its regional service areas.

Increasing the access of faith-based organizations to county bidding procedures. San Bernardino County has emphasized procedural issues. Information about CalWORKs and Department of Labor Requests for Proposals was distributed in highly visible waysthrough newspapers, fliers, and informational community meetings. Bidders conferences provided technical assistance in straightforward language. Post-award services were designed to help organizations comply with the county's contract requirements. They were also designed to
establish good working relations between the county and faith-based organizations.

As a part of its CalWORKs program, welfare administrators in San Bernardino County established an Investment Project, designed for faith-based organizations and other community-based organizations to improve their capacity to offer mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child care programs.3 The language of these Requests for Proposals was simplified, thus making it easier for inexperienced faith-based organizations to understand what was required by the rfps.

Regional contracts. San Diego County's Department of Health and Human Services has chosen to establish a comprehensive system for involving faith-based organizations in its CalWORKs programa program that allocates front-line case management contracts in different regions of the county to public, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations. Catholic Charities currently holds one of those regional contracts. Other faith-based organizations, such as All Congregations Together, Episcopal Community Services, and Interfaith Services serve as sub-contractors in regional contracts held by for-profit Lockheed Martin. Orange County has followed San Bernardino County's lead, awarding comprehensive case management contracts to Maximus. Maximus subcontracts with a faith-based nonprofit, St. Anselm's, for emergency transportation services.

In late 1999, the California Department of Social Services distributed a survey to all California county welfare directors and coordinators, requesting information concerning the utilization of religious organizations in CalWORKs. Thirty-two counties responded to the survey, and of that number, sixteen reported that they had not awarded any CalWORKs contracts to faith-based organizations.

Twenty-six reported that they refer CalWORKs clients to religious organizations that are not publicly-funded. Referring CalWORKs clients to faith-based organizations, of course, is not the same as encouraging these organizations to compete for CalWORKs contracts. Since Charitable Choice focuses almost exclusively on the eligibility of faith-based organizations to compete for contracts, the counties' descriptions of their referral patterns should not be regarded as evidence that Charitable Choice is working.

G. Are California's religious leaders encouraging faith-based organizations

to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

Although the authors and supporters of Charitable Choice apparently believed that they were opening the way for a new, energy-producing era of church-state cooperation, their vision has not as yet elicited widespread support among California's religious leaders. Indeed, for most of these leaders, Charitable Choice is a non-issue. As DarEll Weist, pastor of First Methodist Church in downtown Los Angeles, observed, " Honestly, you don't hear much about Charitable Choice. It hasn't broken into the way most of us think."

When religious leaders are asked to reflect on reasons for this inattention, a variety of not-always-
compatible reasons are cited. The following generalizations are summaries, drawn from interview transcripts:

Charitable Choice does not offer religious leaders anything that is new. For over thirty years socially active religious organizations and their affiliated nonprofits have been receiving public funds to support their community development activities. The protections offered to participating faith-based organizations and their clients do not seem to be new either. Thus, there is little to debate. There is little reason to be enthusiastic about a supposed new era, when it seems that Charitable Choice opportunities have been around for a long time

By and large, congregations in central city neighborhoods are fragile. Many cannot even afford full time clergy services. Their facilities are deteriorating. They do not have the capacity offer social service programs. Welfare reform is not on their "radar screens."

Most county-issued requests for proposals are written in bureaucratic languages that are unfamiliar to religious organizations. They belong to another world. Thus, religious leaders are not convinced that welfare agencies want to implement Charitable Choice.

Many of the state's religious leaders, especially at the neighborhood level, have never heard about Charitable Choice. At regional and state levels, leaders are like their counterparts in county and state welfare agencies. They have never been oriented to the specifics of Charitable Choice. They do not know how to speak about it in informed ways.

Welfare is a stigmatized enterprise in American society. There have been too many stories about welfare queens, welfare fraud, and food stamp abuses. People do not want to talk about welfare. Even the most activist religious leaders would rather focus on things like economic development, housing, and youth services.

Religious leaders will debate Charitable Choice when they see that California's counties are serious about wanting to include faith-based groups in their welfare-to-work plans. Money talks.

Most of California's religious organizations have not as yet experienced severe crises related to welfare reform. Welfare reform seems a million miles away. It is in somebody else's territory. It does not impinge on the day-to-day lives of most of the state's religious leaders.

Religious leaders who are paying attention to welfare reform sharply disagree with each other about whether or not they should encourage faith-based organizations to compete for welfare-to-work contracts.

Supporters of Charitable Choice. Religious conservatives in California express support for Charitable Choice, but, by and large, religiously-conservative organizations have not organized themselves on a statewide basis to advance Charitable Choice initiatives. There is no Charitable Choice lobby in the state. Religiously-conservative organizations are far more eager to advance pro-life, traditional family values, school prayer, and Creationist agendas.

In the state's African-American community, the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) stands alone as a right-leaning organization that regularly expresses support for Charitable Choice.
Under the charismatic leadership of Star Parker, CURE offers workshops to encourage African-American churches to compete for welfare-to-work contracts. Parker expresses her distaste for Big Government. Still, she urges congregations to go after public contracts for welfare-to-work services, because, she argues, they have a right to use tax funds for their outreach social ministries. Churches have earned the money through their services to the community, she says. "We need to record, put it on paper, the service that we are already providing to the poor. This will make our services legitimate to the government."

The Republican Caucus of the California Senate has taken unto itself the responsibility for orchestrating grassroots support among faith-based organizations for its Charitable Choice initiatives. Caucus staff members who have been assigned to Charitable Choice issues are African-American, and the Caucus seems to have been particularly successful in attracting the support of predominantly African-American organizations such as All Congregations Together (San Diego and Sacramento), On Track (Sacramento) and New Life Beginnings (Los Angeles). They have also cooperated with Star Parker's CURE to garner support in the African-American community. When Everett Rice, who staffs Republican Senator Ray Haynes' office in Sacramento, participated in one of CURE's workshops, he pointedly referred to Haynes' support of a bill that exempted African-American hair braiders from burdensome licensing requirements.

Charitable Choice may be an issue around which the influence of politically conservative African-American evangelicals and Pentecostals can be expanded. Charitable Choice may even be an issue that can be used to build bridges between the California Republican Party and the state's traditionally Democratic African-American population.

In Los Angeles, where CURE is based, Star Parker's influence has begun to extend into the Latino Pentecostal community. Pastor Jim Ortiz, the leader of a Latino Pentecostal congregation and community development corporation in Whittier, for example, reported, "We've invited her to our congregation and asked her to give her testimony. I wish we could find Latino leaders to speak to us about public funding for our outreach, but there isn't anybody else to do that."

In Shasta County, the leaders of FaithWORKsa coalitional organization that mirrors the county's profile of religious communitieshave become a force in encouraging rural congregations to offer support services for welfare-to-work participants. For example, Mike Evans, FaithWORKS Roman Catholic director, has nurtured contacts with Washington D.C.'s Center for Public Justicean organization that provides educational materials that interpret Charitable Choice. He has also been in contact with the office of Missouri Senator John Ashcroft, whose staff has armed Evans with material that he has used in his relations with officials of Shasta County and with other religious leaders. During the past year, with Evans' guidance, the faith communities in neighboring Syskiyou, Lassen, and Yolo Counties have developed their own FaithWORKS programs. Evans now plans to replicate FaithWORKS in other rural counties, and perhaps even in the state's large urban centers.

"Cautious" Supporters of Charitable Choice. Other groups, including the California Council of Churches, Lutheran Social Services, Episcopal Social Services, and Catholic Charities of California, have encouraged faith-based organizations to compete for welfare reform contracts, but only under carefully prescribed conditions. These groups have harbored strong reservations about directions taken by California's CalWORKs program. They have argued, for example, that CalWORKs over-emphasizes "work first"an approach that pushes welfare-to-work participants into low-paying jobs
with little opportunity for upward mobility. They have also argued that the CalWORKs system of strict time limits for welfare-to-work participants creates the potential for a social disaster, in which the state government renounces its commitment to maintaining a long-term social safety net.

Nevertheless, most of these groups have concluded that welfare reform is here to stay, that the New Deal social safety net has been dismantled, and that a new public-private paradigm for supporting welfare-to-work participants has already been established. In this situation, they have decided that faith-based organizations should cooperate with state and county agencies to make the new system as just and as humane as possible.

Scott Anderson, executive director of the California Council of Churches, for example, has expressed his worry that religious leaders may reject CalWORKs paradigm for public/private partnerships out of hand. He fears that faith-based organizations may become increasingly irrelevant in the forums where new social service structures are being created. "Faith-based organizations have a great deal to offer CalWORKs, mainly because they are attuned to justice issues," Anderson says.

Anderson strongly recommends that congregations establish nonprofit and/or for-profit corporations to compete for CalWORKs contracts. He urges small and middle sized faith-based organizations to seek cooperative partnerships with organizations (such as YMCAs and Goodwill Industries) that have the expertise, capital, and staff resources to mount complex welfare-to-work programs. He counsels the leaders of faith-based organizations to be realistic about what they can and cannot do well. He urges the leaders of these organizations to be very careful about guarding the separation of church and state. He also urges them not to compromise their "prophetic distance" when they are functioning as welfare-to-work vendors.

The California Council of Churches has prepared and distributed educational materials concerning welfare reform in California, then has used these materials in workshops for local churches. It has also distributed information about model faith-based welfare-to-work programs through its monthly newsletter, Justice Seekers.

Catholic Charities of California and the California Council of Churches secured funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and from The California Endowment for a three year project to build the capacity of faith-based organizations to expand child care services in low income areas of the state. The project now employs six representatives (in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Fresno, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, and Monterey counties). These individuals are building an inventory of existing providers of child care within faith communities. They conduct informational presentations in Spanish and English that encourage congregations to expand their child care commitments. They also offer technical assistance to congregations that are trying to meet their communities' child care needs.

The Sacramento-based Lutheran Office of Public Policy (ELCA) has become a force in promoting the importance of child care for welfare-to-work participants among Lutheran congregations. Mark Carlson, the organization's director, acts as a liaison among faith-based child care providers, the state legislature, and state child care agency administrators. He distributes information to congregations concerning the eligibility of their child care programs to receive federal reimbursement certificates.

With Carlson's encouragement, in January, 1998, California's three Lutheran bishops distributed a
letter to Lutheran congregations, urging them to participate in welfare reform. The tone of the letter was pragmatic and concrete. Pastors, for example, were encouraged to expand quality child care for welfare-to-work participants. They were also encouraged to promote the Healthy Families insurance coverage program.

In June, 1999, a Northern California coalition of over fifty religious leaders from a wide variety of faith communities, denominations, and religious organizations issued a major public statement, "Welfare Reform: Public Policy and Theological Reflection," which urged faith-based organizations to educate themselves about welfare reform and to commit themselves to programs that promote the well-being of the poor. Written by Scott Anderson (California Council of Churches) and Randy Miller (Graduate Theological Union), the statement's preamble asserts:

Our concern for people in need stems from our religious understanding of the dignity of each human person, and the divine imperative to seek justice for those who live at the margins of community life. Our fundamental priority is more than simply providing a safety net for people in need. It is empowering those who have not shared in California's economic prosperity to leave poverty permanently.

The tone of the Northern California report is decidedly cautious. There should be no question, the authors say, that "the public sector has primary responsibility for providing for California's safety net in meeting human needs. Privatizing services through partnerships with the private and nonprofit sectors must in no way compromise this fundamental responsibility." Nevertheless, the report insists the religious sector does "see itself in partnership with government in providing for a safety net." In so doing, congregations who desire to contract with county government should be encouraged to form separate 501(c)(3) corporations for the purpose of handling and appropriately administering public money. The faith community should be careful that it does not "compromise its historic prophetic role" in relationship to government as it considers contracting for welfare-to-work services. "Care must be taken to design and implement direct service programs so that the religious community does not find itself in a subservient position vis-à-vis state and local government. Faith-based service delivery must not become a public sector strategy to hire cheaper labor."

The process that that led to the publication of "Welfare Reform: Public Policy and Theological Reflections" was coordinated by representatives from the Americn Jewish Congress, FAITHS Initiative, San Francisco Foundation, California Council of Churches, Center for Ethics and Economic Policy, Lutheran Office of Public Policy, Northern California Interreligious Conference, St. Anthony Foundation, and the Vesper Society. Financial support was provided by FAITHS Initiative, San Francisco
Foundation, and The Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

Pasadena-based Call to Renewal, which is affiliated with Jim Wallis's national Call to Renewal network, encourages faith-based organizations to engage in welfare-to-work services under Charitable Choice. Its leadership argues, however, that faith-based organizations should be aware that, as it is currently structured in California, welfare reform drives many of the state's welfare-to-work participants into low-end jobs, and thus expands California's population of working poor. The organization's director, Marty Coleman, believes that faith-based organizations can legitimately be accused of moral insensitivity if they limit their welfare reform activity solely to the search for welfare-to-work contracts. Faith-based organizations should also cooperate with the labor move
ment in advancing Living Wage contracts and legislative initiatives. The gap between wealth and poverty is fast becoming the nation's most pressing moral and political issue. Organizations that are focusing on welfare reform and organizations that are supporting the expansion of Living Wage contracts should work together. Their issues are closely related.

"Cautious" Opponents of Charitable Choice. The American Jewish Congress expresses frustration that Charitable Choice is threatening church/state separation. Its leaders believe that the current U.S. Supreme Court, by sanctioning the guidelines embodied in Charitable Choice, is moving away from earlier strict-separationist Court decisions. In this situation, they argue, minority religious movements will always be handicapped. Privileges will inevitably gravitate toward majority religious organizations. When church and state are co-mingled, majority religious traditions will dominate the making of public policy.

The leaders of the American Jewish Congress do not argueat least at meetings attended by representatives of the California Religious Capacity Studythat Charitable Choice is unconstitutional. They readily acknowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bowen v. Kendrick provides a constitutional cover for Charitable Choice. They believe, however, that Court doctrines concerning church-state separation are currently in a state of flux. Within this situation, strict separationist views should be strongly supported. The emergent non-preferentialist approach to church-state relations should be strongly opposed.

Nevertheless, the American Jewish Congress cooperates with ecumenical and interfaith organizations that are generally supportive of Charitable Choice. Their mood is pragmatic. Acknowledging that Charitable Choice is the law of the land, its leaders urge colleagues to be careful. If congregations choose to move ahead in competing for welfare-to-work contracts, for example, the American Jewish Congress argues that they should utilize nonprofit corporations as vehicles for their human service programs.

Leaders of the American Jewish Congress argue that Charitable Choice can only be understood against the backdrop of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. It is a payback for right-leaning Christian supporters of that revolution. It is part and parcel with the Christian Right's attempts to expand the roles of religion in American public life.

Opponents of Charitable Choice. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, working with the American Civil Liberties and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, is aggressive in discouraging the implementation of Charitable Choice in California. For example, when the California Department of Social Services distributed "for comment" a 1998 draft letter that was designed to orient county welfare agencies concerning Charitable Choice, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League objected.

It strongly opposes the application of Charitable Choice guidelines to human service programs that are supported by state funding sources.

The views concerning Charitable Choice that have been advanced by leaders from the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League are often supported by politically liberal Protestants and by African-American leaders.

Protestant liberal activists speak about Charitable Choice as "payback time" for conservative Christian support of the Republican Party. They believe that Charitable Choice introduces a radical expansion in the use of vouchers or reimbursement certificates for faith-based public servicesa practice that conservatives have long wanted for their parochial schools and other faith-based services. (e.g., drug and alcohol addiction intervention, maternity care for unmarried mothers).

They also worry about the effect of Charitable Choice on their prophetic missions. Protestant liberal activists identify with the Old Testament prophets, who shunned governmental roles that made them subservient to the established powers. They seek critical distance, and they fear that success in achieving welfare reform contracts may compromise that critical distance. There is an urgent need for the prophetic voice in welfare reform.

Mark Chaves' 1998 National Congregations Study found that 64% of African-American congregations expressed their willingness to apply for government funds. Nevertheless, our qualitative studies in eight California counties and in five Los Angeles neighbors lead us to wonder whether this willingness to apply for government funds will extend expansively to contracts that support welfare-to-work programs.

At least among some politically liberal African-American religious leaders, Charitable Choice (i.e., as associated with welfare reform) evokes negative reactions.

For example, James Lawson (Pastor Emeritus of Los Angeles's Holman United Methodist Church), often speaks about welfare reform as being a new form of indentured servitude, and he suggests that African-American churches should seriously question whether they ought to conspire with the makers of such a corrupt welfare-to-work system. William Campbell, an African-American pastor who currently administers Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, agrees. "Welfare reform is a disentitlement program," he says. "We need to do guerilla work, not to cooperate with the dismantlers of our safety net.It's a feeding frenzy, an unseemly hustle to get contracts. We should be promoting advocacy around economic issues and standards. It shouldn't be about who gets money."

H. How are faith-based organizations responding to welfare reform within the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's "Case Study Neighborhoods?"

In the research design of the California Religious Capacity Study, five Los Angeles County neighborhoods were selected for focused investigation. The purpose of this micro-study was to develop an understanding of the extent to which faith-based organizations were offering social services, especially of the extent to which these organizations were directing social services programs to welfare-to-work participants.

Four of these neighborhoods (Boyle Height, Jefferson Park, Pico-Union, and Wilshire Center), we assumed, would be heavily impacted by welfare reform. The fifth, a suburban neighborhood in Northeast Long Beach, seemed isolated from the poverty and radical multiethnicity of "Old Long Beach." In that neighborhood, we wanted to know whether religious organizations were addressing issues related to welfare reform. We especially wanted to know whether they had developed ties with other faith-based organizations that were serving the region's welfare-to-work population.

We immediately discovered that religious institutions have a massive presence in the neighborhoods
selected for study by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture. In our Los Angeles case study neighborhoods, for example, there are 401 religious congregationsapproximately 47 per square mile. Thirty faith-based nonprofits offer social services for neighborhood residents. Religious congregations and their affiliated social service nonprofits, block by block, far outnumber other public and private sector organizations. In many neighborhoods, there are far more religious congregations than gas stations and grocery stores.

In Northeast Long Beach, our suburban case study neighborhood," 36 separate congregations are located in 7.5 square miles, approximately five congregations per square mile. Unlike the situation in central city Los Angeles, most congregations are clustered on main thoroughfares, geographically isolated from their surrounding housing tracts. Not a single congregation is located in Northeast Long Beach's upper-middle class neighborhoods. Near Long Beach's airport, on the western border of the neighborhood, the newly-renovated Jewish Community Center provides space for the region's Jewish Family and Children's Service.

Urban Case Study Neighborhoods

Small congregations (1-250 members). Most small congregations provide food, and clothing services. First Unitarian Universalist expands its capacity to offer these services by affiliating with HopeNet, a nonprofit organized by a coalition of congregations in Wilshire Center.

Clergy in small congregations occasionally argue that the fact that they do not offer social service programs should not be interpreted to mean that they are not attempting to meet the social needs of members and neighbors. Small congregations are like families. People reach out to each other. They help each other find jobs. They provide financial and other forms of support when families are experiencing crises. The pastor of a Korean congregation in the Westlake District of Los Angeles, for example, observed, "People think we don't pay much attention to the job needs of our members because we don't have the kinds of programs that First AME has. That's not right. We spend a lot of time helping people, but we don't do it through programs. They are like members of our family. You don't deal with family members through programs."

Small congregations refer individuals to public and private social service agencies. When they choose to expand their organizational capacity to serve the poor, they affiliate with locally-based community-organizing associations and/or with coalitional nonprofits that allow for the sharing of social service expenses.

Middle-sized congregations (251-750 members). With the single exception of one Japanese-American religious center in East Los Angeles, every middle-sized congregation in our central city neighborhoods offers emergency food and clothing services in one form or another. Five have organized their own feeding programs, and six have affiliated with cooperative feeding programs.

Middle-sized congregations are more likely than small congregations to develop social service programs that support their own members and their neighborhood's immigrant and working poor residents. Faithful Service Baptist Church, for example, offers assistance to the homeless in their efforts to find jobs. The Korean Philadelphia Church offers a citizenship program and a program that provides job training.

Innovative middle-sized congregations that want to expand community development services find
ways to expand their limited organizational capacity. First Nazarene, for example, has created a nonprofit corporation to seek funds for social service programs, to employ social service staff, and to manage outreach programs. Others, such as First Baptist, Angelica Lutheran, and White Memorial Seventh Day Adventist, have affiliated with incorporated social service/advocacy coalitions, (e.g., HopeNet, the Greater Hollywood Health Partnership, White Memorial Hospital's parish nurse program, South Central's New City Parish, and the Industrial Areas Foundation) to share the costs of creating program infrastructure.

Large Congregations (751-5000 members). All large congregations in our case study neighborhoods offer food and clothing programs. Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights also offers emergency, short-term shelter for the homeless in its sanctuary.

Roman Catholic congregations turn to Catholic Charities, St. Vincent de Paul, and to Roman Catholic social service centers to support the needs of welfare-to- work participants, the working poor, and illegal immigrants.

Dolores Mission, however, has created a public service nonprofit corporation, Proyecto Pastoral, to fund and to manage its social service programs for the residents of its neighborhood. For example, it sponsors the Dolores Mission Women's Cooperative, a program that serves children and adults alike. It offers child care services for toddlers and pre-schoolers, but will soon expand beyond these ages. Working with East Los Angeles Community College, the Cooperative offers a way for parents and other local residents to obtain professional certificates in early childhood education which prepare them to be employed as private pre-school teachers or as family-based child care providers. It serves as a satellite campus for the community college, offering programs in mathematics, English-as-a-Second-Language, and Chicana/o Studies.

Large Protestant churches are more likely than middle-sized Protestant congregations to establish nonprofit corporations for their social service ministries, and, also, to provide a wide range of staffed social services. They are more likely than middle-sized Protestant congregations to attract foundation and public funding.

For example, Immanuel Presbyterian Church has created JobBankan informal job placement program in which individuals who are in search of work are connected with members of Laguna Presbyterian Church and Bel-Air Presbyterian Church, who are primarily seeking domestic assistance. The congregation sponsors an English-as-a-Second-Language program, organized by the students themselves. The program caters to Mexican and Central American immigrants. A parish nurse program, which offers health screening, health education, and health service advocacy opportunities is affiliated with the Greater Hollywood Health Partnership (GHHP). Partners in Community Economics supports the development of micro-business enterprises in the local community. Immanuel Presbyterian is also affiliated with HopeNet and the Industrial Areas Foundation. It has created a nonprofit corporationthe Heart of LA (HOLA)to conduct an after-school program for neighborhood youths.

First Congregational Church sponsors programs in a wide variety of service areas ( e.g., literacy, housing, transportation, child care, addiction support, youth services, and health care). The congregation affiliates with the Greater Hollywood Health Partnership and with HopeNet. It also sponsors support groups for immigrant parents in their neighborhood.

St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church, St. Thomas the Apostle Church, and Angelica Lutheran Church are working together, along with a host of other community-based organizations and educational institutions, to develop a new Latino-Byzantine business/tourist area in Pico-Union. The project is funded by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to upgrade the region's transportation corridors, and thereby to create jobs and tourist-related sources of income for the neighborhood.

Mega-congregations (more than 5000 members). Mega-congregations are more likely than large congregations to use affiliated nonprofit corporations for their social services. When their ideological orientation allows for public funding support (e.g. First AME), they are often successful in attracting grants and contracts. They are also successful in attracting funds from foundations and large corporations.

Two African-American mega-churches in our case study neighborhoods have created sophisticated community development organizations. For example:

First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jefferson Park has created FAME Renaissance to function as the congregation's community development corporation. Among FAME Renaissance's programs are:

FAME Business Resource Center, which, through its Revolving Loan Fund and Entrepreneurial Training Program, provides support services to business located in low to moderate income areas of Los Angeles. The program has funded more than 65 loans to minority-owned businesses.

FAME Immediate Needs Transportation Program, funded by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, working in collaboration with the International Institute of Los Angeles, the program provides subsidized taxi service and bus tokens for persons who have immediate transportation needs that the area's established transportation systems cannot meet.

FAME Personnel Services is a temporary and full time staffing service. It provides office help and managers to meet the personnel needs of corporations throughout the Los Angeles basin.

FAME Renaissance cooperates with organizations such as the Community Financial Resource Center, East Los Angeles Community Corporation, Korean Youth and Community Center, New Economics for Women, and the Huntington Park Business Assistance Center.

West Angeles Church of God in Christ, also located in Jefferson Park, has created the West Angeles Community Development Corporation "to promote justice and peace, demonstrate compassion and eradicate poverty as tangible expressions of the Kingdom of God through the vehicle of community development." The nonprofit attempts to create and nurture enterprises that provide "lasting employment opportunity." It engages community leaders, residents, and business leaders in planning and evaluating development projects along the central Crenshaw Boulevard Corridor, which is the Church's immediate neighborhood. It develops and rehabilitates affordable, low and mixed income housing. It provides technical assistance for community developing strategizing in Los Angeles. It promotes literacy and educational initiatives among adults. It teaches English-as-a-second-language for its neighborhood's growing Latino population.

Like many Pentecostal clergy and lay leaders, the staff at West Angeles Church of God in Christ has mixed feelings about applying for government funding. They have generally relied on self-funding to support their community development programs, but they are aware that a number of Pentecostal congregations have chosen to compete for public funding to support their social service programs

The programs of African American mega-congregations indirectly serve the needs of welfare-to-work participants, but, until FAME successfully competed for a TANF job training contract, they had not focused on issues related to welfare reform. Indeed, there appears to be an odd disconnect between the social service programs of African-American mega-congregations and welfare reform. "These kinds of churches don't want to get their hands dirty with welfare reform," a neighboring African-American pastor confided. "They are not in touch with many welfare recipients, and they don't like what they think welfare reform is doing to African-Americans." Another African-American pastor said, "Churches like FAME and West Angeles are more into economic development than they are welfare reform." To some extent, the leaders of FAME Renaissance and West Angeles COGIC agree. In explaining FAME's interest in economic development, Mark Whitlock, FAME's executive director, says, FAME is not just interested in giving people job skills, i.e.,., "to teach people how to fish." "We want to help people own the whole pond." It wants to change the community so that welfare is not needed.

Religiously-Affiliated Nonprofits. Among the thirty religiously-affiliated social service (including community development) nonprofits that were identified in our urban case study neighborhoods, ten are closely associated with congregations. Two (Industrial Areas Foundation and Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches) are community organizing associations, and two (HopeNet and Greater Hollywood Health Partnerships) are coalitional nonprofits, utilized by congregations to expand their social services. Four are organized to expand their neighborhood's fund of affordable housing.

Denominational Service Agencies. Catholic Charities operates Brownson House in Boyle Heights. It offers a broad range of services for immigrants, the working poor, and welfare-to-work participants. Services for the hardest-to-place welfare-to-work participants are supported by grants from the Department of Labor.

Northeast Long Beach

The religious congregations of Northeast Long Beach (zip code 90815) serve middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. Although occasionally their clergy receive requests for assistance from the poor, these requests arrive at their doorsteps only occasionally. In Northeast Long Beach, poverty seems far away.

Most of the area's congregations have created ways to respond to requests for emergency food and clothing. Somelike St. Gregory's Episcopal, Los Altos United Methodist, Bethany Baptist, College Park Church of God, and United Church in Christmaintain small food pantries.

All congregations refer individuals to faith-related social service providers in "Old Long Beach" (e.g., Catholic Charities, Christian Outreach Appeal, Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, Good Samaritan Counseling Center, Lutheran Social Service Center, Centro Shalom, and the Multi-Service Center). These agencies offer a variety of services, such as food distribution, feeding, mental health, legal assistance, dental care, shelter, job readiness, job training, job placement, job retention, and
health care.

Most Northeast Long Beach congregations create links with "Old Long Beach" faith-based social service agencies by supporting them financially, by providing volunteers, and sometimes by gathering food and blankets for use by the city's poor. Clergy and lay persons from Northeast Long Beach congregations serve on the boards of these agencies.

Bethany Baptist, Christ Lutheran, Los Altos United Methodist, and the Unitarian Universalist Church have committees or task forces that feel accountable for their congregations' social justice advocacy missions. The Unitarian Universalist Church has even provided funds to assist the region's union movement, and it is heavily represented in the current effort to establish an affiliate of the Pacific Institute of Community Organizing in Long Beach.

Four congregations in Northeast Long Beach have affiliated with the South Coast Ecumenical Council, which sponsors Farmers Markets at various Long Beach locations and which provides an ecumenical social justice voice on behalf of Long Beach's poor residents.

At least two congregations have affiliated with the Long Beach Interfaith Organizing Committee, a congregation-based organizing association that is currently being developed under the auspices of the Pacific Institute of Community Organizing.

Charitable Choice in Case Study Neighborhoods

Welfare reform is not an issue that has taken hold in our urban case study neighborhoods. Most clergy reported either that they had never heard about Charitable Choice or that they did not understand it. Some had heard about Chartable Choice but felt so strongly about the cruelty of TANF that they chose not to respond

Only one religiously-affiliated nonprofit (FAME Renaissance) had successfully competed for a welfare-to-work contract.

Almost all urban congregations are engaged in offering social services, but most of these services are offered on a relatively-modest scale. The likelihood that congregations will establish social service programs that realistically can compete for welfare-to-work contracts (either directly or through affiliated nonprofits) increases in relation to their size, their financial stability and their organizational complexity. Congregations with memberships of over 750, for example, are more likely to have staffs with expertise to prepare sophisticated TANF proposals and to manage social service programs.

Most religiously-affiliated nonprofits in our case study neighborhoods are not self-consciously structuring their social service programs to directly address the needs of welfare-to-work participants, and thereby to increase their attractiveness to TANF funders. Several, however, are serving welfare-to-work participants through programs that offer emergency food services, job placement, affordable housing, and health services.

Large-scale denominational and values-oriented social service agencies (e.g., Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, the YWCA, Goodwill Industries, and St. Vincent de Paul) play crucial roles in our case study neighborhoods. Their organizational resources are usually sufficient to compete successfully for major public, including TANF, grants and contracts. Other regional social service organizations (e.g., Long Beach's Centro Shalom and Christian Outreach Appeal) operate on a more modest scale and depend on funding and volunteers from affiliated congregations and other donors. They have the organizational capacity to compete successfully for public funding, but usually they do not do so.

Nonprofit coalitional programs (e.g., Industrial Areas Foundation, HopeNet, Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches, Greater Hollywood Health Partnership) also play crucial roles in our case study neighborhoods. They leverage the capacity of member congregations to offer social services. Although their organizational infrastructures are lean, their leaders are sophisticated, politically adept, and capable of attracting funding from foundations and public agencies.

Racial/Ethnic Generalizations

The leaders of urban African-American "civil rights" congregations often express their irritation with Charitable Choice. They are comfortable in seeking public funds for their social service programs. Many specifically resist seeking public funds for welfare-to-work programs, because they do not like what welfare reform is doing in African-American communities.

Latino Catholic churches rely heavily on Catholic Charities and St. Vincent De Paul and, also, on parish-based social service centers for social service referrals. The clergy of Catholic churches speak about the often-overwhelming demands on their time. They are grateful for the competent specialized services which these agencies provide. They expect these organizations to compete fore welfare-to-work contracts.

Latino Protestant congregations view social services as vehicles for evangelism. Since most of these congregations in our case study neighborhoods are small, very few offer structured social service programs.

Most Buddhist and "new Japanese religion" centers in our neighborhoods do not regard social services, except for religion-based healing rituals, to be consistent with their missions.

Most Asian-American Christian churches in our case study neighborhoods that serve first generation immigrant populations do not offer structured social service programs for their immediate neighborhoods. Their members help each other to find jobs. They often provide other forms of assistance to help families get through hard times.

Mainline predominantly-Anglo Protestant churches regularly expand their capacity for social services by participating in coalitional organizations. Large mainline Protestant churches especially ones that are supportive of Charitable Choiceare positioned to expand their involvement in welfare reform programs.

I. What is the profile of faith-based welfare-to-work contracts that have been funded by state and federal programs?

The following generalizations are based on a survey of publicly-funded, welfare-to-work contracts that have been awarded to faith-based organizations in thirty-four California counties. These contracts have been awarded by county welfare agencies (using CalWORKs funds), by the federal Department of Labor, by the State Department of Labor, by the "Governor's 15% set-aside", and by other state and federal agencies.

Among the thirty-four counties where the Center for Religion and Civic Culture has accumulated data, forty-seven percent report that no TANF contracts have been awarded to faith-based organizations.

The major beneficiaries of TANF contracts have been faith-based nonprofit corporations and faith-based organizations that are affiliates of national or regional social service networks.

Very few contracts have been awarded to California congregations. Over half of these contracts have been awarded to congregations in San Bernardino County. The fact that very few congregations have received TANF contracts, however, does not mean that California congregations are unengaged in welfare-to-work programs. Many choose to offer welfare-to-work programs through coalitional organizations in which they can share the costs of maintaining specialized staffs and facilities. Some congregations organize their own nonprofit corporations to conduct social service programs.

Congregations that hold TANF contracts tend to be African-American, politically conservative, evangelical, and Protestant.

TANF promotes the expansion of so-called "new paradigm" inter-institutional and inter-sector relationsi.e., multiform contractual relations among public, for-profit, and faith based organizations. For example, faith-based organizations are functioning as sub-contractors under contracts held by other faith-based organizations. They are functioning as sub-contractors under contracts held by for-profit corporations. Social service agencies from diverse faith traditions and from diverse sectors (i.e., public, secular nonprofit, for-profit, and faith-based) cooperate as "contractual partners."

Available Data. The data on which these generalizations are based are incomplete, but, to our knowledge, they constitute the best estimate of welfare-to-work grants made to faith-based organizations in California. Many of the data were self-reported by county welfare administrators in response to a survey conducted by the California Department of Social Services. Twenty-seven counties responded, and, in counties where the Center for Religion and Civic Culture research team had already accumulated information, it was obvious that a number of respondents were not aware of all the contracts that had been awarded to faith-based organizations, even by their own agencies. Respondents often were not able to report the size of sub-contracts held by faith-based organizations in cases where the primary contract had been awarded to another, non-faith-based organization. Internet reports of welfare-to-work contract awards typically do not list sub-contracts. Not all California counties report the CalWORKs contracts that they have awarded on the Internet. Not all
county welfare agencies maintain records that allow for the easy recovery of welfare-to-work award records.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture had actively searched for information about publicly-funded welfare-to-work contracts in eight counties, not all of which replied to the California Department of Social Services survey.

In interpreting the data accumulated in our survey, it is important to recognize that various California counties have chosen to approach faith communities in different ways. Shasta County, Lassen County, Yolo County, Fresno County, and Sacramento County, for example, have chosen to fund faith-based programs that coordinate the activities of large numbers of faith-based organizations. Thus, the numbers of CalWORKS contracts they have awarded is very small.

San Bernardino's CalWORKs program has structured its procedures for awarding contracts in ways that encourage faith-based organizations to compete. Thus, although the number of faith-based organizations that are involved in San Bernardino's CalWORKs program may not be as large as the number involved in Shasta's County's FaithWORKS, the actual number of separate contracts awarded to faith-based organizations is far higher.

The numbers of awards in San Diego County is limited by the fact that the county has chosen to create a system of large-scale comprehensive case management contracts to serve its five regional service districts. Catholic Charities holds one of those contracts. Lockheed Martin holds two. Maximus holds one. Two faith-based organizations function as sub-contractors of Lockheed Martin.4

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The following profile is structured in relation to our typology of faith-based organizations:

Congregations. Although much of the debate concerning Charitable Choice has focused on the eligibility of congregations to compete for TANF contracts, it appears that in California very few congregations have been successful in securing these contracts. Our research team has been able to identify only eleven awards.

Over half of these are in San Bernardino County, where a concerted effort has been made to encourage the participation of faith-based organizations. The congregations are predominantly African-American, conservative/evangelical Protestant. With reference to their own institutional history, most are taking their first steps into the use of public funds for social services. Two are large congregations. Four are relatively modest in scale. One is a small Catholic Church that serves Latinos in a low-income neighborhood. They are using their grants for child care facility upgrading, job training, job readiness, and life skills training.

In Los Angeles County, where over 50% of the state's welfare-to-work participants reside, one religious congregation has received a contract. This grant went to an African-American Pentecostal congregation, Shield of Faith, in Pomona, for job placement services. Shield of Faith collaborates with the Urban League of Pomona, the Pomona YWCA, and the Pomona Unified School District (Adult Education). Marjory Benjamin, the coordinator of Shield of Faith's welfare-to-work contract,
says that this is a "first time venture," but that already the congregation is trying to expand its welfare-to-work services. "We would love to expand our program," she observes, "but we are having difficulty.We are currently in relationships with the Los Angeles Department of Public Social Services and with the Department of Labor, but sometimes these agencies seem to be at odds."

Only one of the congregations in the state that has successfully competed for a TANF contract can be regarded as mainline Protestant, liberal, and socially active: Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco. Glide received a $157,000 award. It is offering job readiness and computer skills training.

The fact that only a small number of congregations has received TANF contracts does not mean, however, that California congregations are unengaged in welfare-to-work programs. Shasta County's FaithWORKS program, for example, has mobilized a broad and diverse coalition of congregations (along with other faith-based organizations) in a county-wide mentoring program. The Fresno Leadership Council also mobilizes large numbers of congregations. So does the Mobilization for the Human Family in Los Angeles, the Pomona Inland Valley Council of Churches, the Sacramento Valley Organizing Council, Interfaith Services in San Diego, the Southeast Churches Service Center in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, and All Congregations Together in San Diego.

Denominations and Religious Orders. Among California's religious denominations and religious orders, only the Salvation Army in Solano and Stanislaus counties5, and Los Angeles's St. Joseph's Center (sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet) have received TANF awards, three of which function as sub-contractors. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego offers a countywide mentoring program that is self-funded.

Faith-Based Networks. The primary faith-based beneficiaries of Charitable Choice in California are denominational social service agencies.. In the thirty-four counties where we have been able to accumulate data, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture has identified thirty-two contracts that have been awarded to service agencies which affiliate with faith-based national networks.

Contracts have been awarded to ten Catholic Charities agencies, with funding levels ranging from $2,281,000 (Orange County, for job search and job readiness programs) to $15,375 (Stanlislaus County's Catholic Charities' Samaritan House, for drug rehabilitation). A coalition of Catholic Charities, Armenian Evangelical Social Services, Jewish Vocational Services and thirteen other organizations has received a $16,300,000 contract in Los Angeles County from the Department of Labor.

Redding-based Northern Valley Catholic Social Servicesan affiliate of Catholic Charities of Sacramentois the contractor of record and the fiscal manager for FaithWORKS, an interfaith, coalitional program that serves Shasta Counties welfare-to-work participants

Jewish social service agencies (including Jewish Family Service and Jewish Vocational Service) six contracts and major sub-contracts. The awards range from $77,340 to Jewish Family Service, Los Angeles to $25,000 to Jewish Family Service in Sonoma County. Jewish Vocational Service shares in the mega $16,300,000 coalitional contract with Los Angeles's Catholic Charities and Armenian Evangelical Social Services, recently awarded by the Department of Labor.6

Other affiliates of national faith-based (and/or values-oriented) social services networks that have received major TANF contracts include Goodwill Industries in Los Angeles County, Orange County, and San Diego County, Lutheran Social Services in Sacramento County, and several YWCAs in Los Angeles County

Nonprofit Corporations: Faith-based nonprofit corporations are also major beneficiaries of TANF welfare-to-work grants and contracts. The Center for Religion and Civic Culture has identified thirty-one contracts in the thirty-four counties for which we have data.

Almost 30% of these contracts were awarded to faith-based nonprofits in San Bernardino County.

HELP Net, a faith-based nonprofit in San Bernardino County, has developed a particularly innovative model for bringing congregations together for social services. It has compiled a list of the social services that are provided by religious congregations and other agencies in San Bernardino County, and the list is used to provide referrals for people with emergency needs. Anyone can use HELP Net. According to Jan Burrus, the program's founder. "[People] want help, and they want it today in one hour from now." Looking into the future, Burrus hopes, the list will serve a more fundamental purpose. "Our mission is to have [a system of]store houses for the church. The little churches," she explains, "might be store houses of food and clothes, furniture, and gifts." Larger congregations might have storehouses of other resources. Burris believes that the capacity of congregations in San Bernardino can be expanded when they are encouraged to specialize. Congregational specializations, she observes, can complement each other.

California nonprofits holding TANF contracts are serving in the following areas: mentoring, transportation, addiction intervention, homeless services, job readiness, job training, job placement, job retention, child care, housing, service to the homeless, life skills training, emergency shelter, emergency, and domestic violence intervention.

Coalitions TANF encourages congregations, faith-based nonprofits, and other for-profit, nonprofit, and public agencies to coalesceto experiment with a variety of coalitional approaches to funding, staffing, and managing social service programs. For example:

FaithWORKS in Shasta County is a interfaith coalition of congregations, denominational groups, and faith-based social service programs that has not chosen to incorporate as a nonprofit. It has
chosen instead to function under the organizational umbrella of a Northern California affiliate of Catholic Charities, which is the contractor-of-record.

The 1byOne/Fresno Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit corporation, is a sub-contractor under a TANF contract that was awarded to Fresno City College and the Fresno Economic Opportunity Commission. The Foundation, in turn, works through an interfaith coalition of congregations and various civic and community leaders from the Fresno area.

All Congregations Together, an incorporated, largely evangelical and Pentecostal coalition of churches in San Diego, operates as a sub-contractor under a contract that San Diego County awarded to Lockheed Martin, a for-profit corporation.

Adopt-a-Social Worker, a publicly funded program sponsored by the Orange County Child Abuse Prevention Center, brings religious congregations, other community-based organizations (like Rotary, Kiwanis, and Exchange Club), and businesses together to support case workers who are serving welfare-to-work participants. "Once the social workers are adopted, they go to their adopting organizations and make requests on behalf of their families," the program's manager, Robin Hoffman, explains. The program's membership currently includes United Methodist, Mormon, Jewish, Presbyterian, Bahai, Unitarian,, Seventh Day Adventist, Religious Science, Friends, and Catholic congregations.

Goodwill Industries of Los Angeles, a nonprofit that affirms the importance of spiritual values in its mission, holds a TANF contract for job training, job placement, and job retention. It has sub-contracted with Mobilization for the Human Family, a faith-based nonprofit. Mobilization for the Human Family works with congregations, most of which are not members of their organization. These congregations, located in areas where welfare-to-work participants reside, provide volunteers to mentor participants who have found employment. The mentors support the participants' goals and provide help in meeting particular needs such as child care, transportation, and dealing with the county welfare bureaucracy. Mobilization works in cooperation with a wide variety of public and private agencies to help connect community resources to the efforts of the mentor teams.

J. What disincentives affect the willingness of faith-based organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

The following disincentives have been identified by leaders of faith-based organizations during focus groups conducted by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture in seven California counties and, also, during interviews conducted by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture over the past two years:

Organizational Capacity Disincentives. It is too difficult to compete for county contracts. It is almost impossible, for example, to track requests for proposals. Requests for proposals emerge from a labyrinth of separate departments, and, at least in urban counties, there is no single place where information is brought together for dissemination. It is difficult to review the record of contracts that have previously been granted in order to assess an organization's probability of success. The language of requests for proposals is often bureaucratic. It is difficult to understand.

Faith-based organizations usually do not have the financial capacity to subsidize programs when reimbursements are delayed.

Faith-based organizations may not have the capacity to upgrade their facilities to comply with contract-imposed safety standards (e.g., with safety standards associated with child care licensure).

Most faith-based organizations do not have the financial, staff and capital resources to allow them to accept risks associated with welfare-to-work contracts. They have trouble maintaining their staffs and programs when government reimbursements are delayed.

Even large-scale denominational social service agencies often cannot accept risks that are associated with performance-based welfare-to-work contracts.

Government contracts are too labor-intensive. They require too much paperwork and too much record keeping. Their program evaluation requirements are often too severe. They often require accounting procedures that are too complex.

County welfare agencies are notoriously negligent in following through with promised referrals. Thus, faith-based organizations may not have the power to fulfill their contract obligations.

In order to significantly expand their involvement in welfare to work programs, faith-based nonprofits may need "organizational development" funding from statewide and regional foundations. Although nonprofits may have the ability to mount and to maintain single social service programs, expanding their menus may require increases in the size of their core staffs, and, additionally, increases in the size of their facilities.

Theological/Ideological Disincentives. The mission of most faith-based organizations is not to create "multi-service centers." Their mission is essentially spiritual. Although they regard limited forms of community outreach as legitimate expressions of this mission, the process of sponsoring long-term social service programs may negatively change the organizational cultures of their institutions.

The prophetic edge of faith-based programs may be dulled by government contracts. Faith-based organizations may be less able to respond to the self-expressed needs of the poor.

Opportunities for evangelism may be seriously threatened.

Charitable Choice blurs important boundaries between church and state. It is not appropriate for congregations to become government social service vendors.

TANF dismantles the nation's social safety net. Faith-based organizations should not participate in this cruel program.

K. What factors expand the capacity and the willingness of faith-based

organizations to participate in welfare-to-work programs?

The following generalizations are based on comments made by leaders of faith-based organizations during focus groups conducted by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture in seven California counties and, also, during interviews conducted by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture over the past two years.

Clarity concerning constitutional church/state issues. Leaders of faith-based organizations are more likely to expand their participation in federally-financed welfare-to work programs when they are assured that the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution allow for the public funding of faith-based social service programs. By and large, they express their willingness to comply with Supreme Court guidelines for church-state separation, and they want to be clear about what these guidelines are. They do not want to get into legal trouble.

The willingness of mainline Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic organizations to participate in federally-financed welfare-to-work programs is increased when they are assured that the Charitable Choice provisions of PRWORA do not break new legal ground. That is, Charitable Choice does not fundamentally change the constitutional guidelines that have structured these organizations' searches for housing, youth services, and emergency food services since the late 1960s.

The willingness of politically-conservative, evangelical and Pentecostal Christians to participate in federally-funded welfare-to-work programs increases when they are told that its primary Congressional sponsor is Senator John Ashcroft (R-Missouri), whose religious affiliation is Pentecostal. They respond positively to the suggestion that Charitable Choice creates constitutionally-approved opportunities for the public funding of "what we have been doing for a long time."

Federal, state, and county leadership. The willingness of faith-based organizations to expand their welfare-to-work programs is expanded when federal, state, and county agencies: (1) find ways to increase the access of community-based organizations to information about requests for proposals; (2) develop requests for proposals in ways that encourage faith-based organizations to compete; (3) hold bidders conferences that provide the kinds of technical assistance which prepare community-based organizations to write competitive proposals; (4) interact with the leaders of faith-based organizations around issues related to the preparation of their proposals; (5) actively cooperate with the leaders of faith-based organizations that hold welfare-to-work contracts to maximize chances that their programs will succeed; and (6) assure faith-based organizations that contract reimbursements will be delivered in a timely manner.

When state political leaders and/or their staffs encourage the leaders of faith-based organizations to take advantage of Charitable Choice, their efforts have generated tangible results, especially among conservative evangelical and Pentecostal congregations.

Denominational and regional religious leadership. The likelihood that faith-based organizations will compete for welfare-to-work contracts increases when religious leaders provide theological and political reasons for participating in welfare reform's public/private partnerships and for affirming Charitable Choice.

When the leaders of regional organizations like the California Council of Churches, for example, urge "cautious support" for the expansion of faith-based welfare-to-work services, and when these organizations back up their "cautious support" with technical assistance and clear-cut information about church-state separation guidelines, local religious leaders demonstrate a willingness to consider opportunities to serve.

In conservative evangelical and Pentecostal circles, local leaders who are encouraged to view welfare-to-work contracts as vehicles for "life style evangelism" are more likely to compete for these contracts. When highly visible evangelical and Pentecostal congregations model "life style evangelism" through public/private partnerships, these precedents have a powerful effect on the leaders of other congregations

Entrepreneurial leadership. During the past two years, researchers from the Center for Religion and Civic Culture have repeatedly observed situations in which entrepreneurial religious leaders dramatically expand the capacity of their organizations to serve welfare-to-work participants. They do this in a variety of ways. They draw, for example, on political leaders who can tell them which government agencies may be interested in supporting their vision. They negotiate agreements with institutions whose organizational interests coincide with their own. They locate funding institutions, then nurture relationships with program officers who oversee the distribution of those institutions' resources. They seek out individuals and organizations who can provide knowledgeable advice.

One example especially stands out. If the Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team had visited Bellflower's Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church in early 1998, it would have concluded that the congregation's capacity to serve welfare-to-work participants was zero. Holy Redeemer's congregation is very small. Its members are mostly elderly. It serves a lower middle class neighborhood. Nevertheless, in the space of six months, the pastor of Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church found ways to place a thriving, bilingual child care program in his church's underused facilities. He invited the local YWCA to use Holy Redeemer's education building as a much-needed site for its child care programon the condition that the YWCA would view Holy Redeemer, not as a landlord, but as a program partner. Members of the congregation were invited to make quilts for families whose children came to the new center. Members were also invited to help maintain the building, and even to provide volunteer assistance. Grants from the California Department of Education simultaneously assisted the church to renovate its education building and enabled the YWCA to recruit a staff who that would receive living wages, retirement benefits, and health benefits.

Brokering Resources. The capacity of faith-based organizations to offer publicly-funded welfare-to-work programs is expanded when they turn to "brokering institutions" for assistance. In virtually every region of the state, various institutions play brokering roles that assist entrepreneurial leaders in finding appropriate partners, funding sources, and the technical expertise they need in realizing their visions. For example, institutions like Vision Los Angeles, Shasta County's FaithWORKS, the California Council of Churches, San Francisco Foundation's FAITHS Initiative, Faiths Initiative of Santa Barbara County, San Bernardino's Inland Congregations United for Change, San Bernardino's Somebody Cares Foundation, San Bernardino's HELP Net, and USC's Center for Religion and Civic Culture routinely put organizations in touch with individuals who can provide the resources they needor at least who can point the way to these resources. Program officers from funding institutions such as The James Irvine Foundation, the California Endowment, the Wellness Foundation, and a number of regional community foundations also play this role.

Intermediary Organizations. The capacity of congregations to offer welfare-to-work programs is significantly expanded when they establish professionally staffed nonprofit corporations, whose mission is to write proposals, attract funds, manage these funds in accord with contract requirements, manage social service programs, and interface with program funders.

The capacity of congregations is further expanded when they coalesce with other congregations under the auspices of already-established nonprofit corporations, whose missions are accomplished through the activities of member organizations. Congregations can thereby share the costs of maintaining specialized staffs and facilities.

Congregations can also expand their capacity by entering into informal and formal partnerships with other capacity-rich organizations such as Maximus, Lockheed Martin, Goodwill Industries, Fresno City College, Sacramento Valley Organizing Committee, and YWCAs. These relationships may take the form of sub-contracts, or they may take the form of informal agreements to work together.

Religiously affiliated nonprofits can expand their capacity by creating contractual and/or informal agreements with other nonprofits (e.g., Mobilization for the Human Family's sub-contract with Goodwill Industries of Los Angeles). Even large, capacity-rich social service agencies can expand their capacity to compete for public funding by coalescing as contract partners (e.g. the contractual alliance of Catholic Charities of Southern California, Jewish Vocational Services, and Armenian Evangelical Social Services, which is competing for a grant of over sixteen million dollars).

III. Conclusions

For over two years, scholars who study faith-based organizations have lamented the fact that so little is known about the capacity of these organizations to expand their menu of social services within the nation's new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. The California Religious Capacity Study has been an attempt to move into this void, at least in the State of California.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture's researchers now understand why there have been so few studies of the social service capacity of faith-based organizations. It is not a simple matter to assess the social service capacity of a state's (or a nation's) faith communities. These communities (along with their affiliated congregations, nonprofits, for-profits, and social service networks) are dizzyingly diverse. They speak in different languages and dialects. They are embodied in a variety of organizational structures. Their faith commitments predispose them to radically different forms of community ministries.

Just as important, the Center's researchers now understand that the definition of institutional capacity is itself fluid. The capacity of faith-based organizations to expand welfare-to-work services cannot quantitatively be assessed in terms of personnel, capital, and financial resources, although these resources are obvious components. At any given time, an institution's capacity for social service is affected by the presence or absence of opportunity, by the presence or absence of visionary leadership, by the presence or absence of supportive ideologies/theologies, and by the presence or absence of capacity-expanding regional resources. In short, institutional capacity can only be as
sessed in context.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team has attempted to take context into consideration, but that context has been changing rapidly. During the next two years, we expect, the situation will stabilize. The California Department of Social Services, for example, will publish guidelines for implementing Charitable Choice in the state. Counties will have more experience in adjusting their competitive bidding procedures to encourage faith-based organizations to expand their welfare-to-work services. Faith-based organizations will have time to reflect on their place in welfare reform, and they will have opportunities to react.

Our conclusions, then, should be regarded as a "first stage" reporta report that assesses the evolving social service capacity of faith-based organizations during the initial months of a period of cultural transition.

Especially in central city neighborhoods, during the last thirty years faith-based organizations have become increasingly involved in offering social services, financed both by public and private sources. The Center for Religion and Civic Culture research team has begun to speak about the "African-Americanization" of central city congregations, i.e., the extension of traditional African-American commitments to the social and civic well-being of their neighborhoods into the congregational lives of other ethnic and racial groups. Following the African-American model, congregations (along with neighborhood schools) increasingly regard themselves as multi-service centers, serving the diverse needs of their region's multiethnic residents.7

In this same period of time, the number of religiously-affiliated nonprofits in central city neighborhoods has expanded dramatically, reflecting decisions by many congregational leaders to create nonprofits to manage their community development programs. The proliferation of faith-based nonprofits has changed the face of religion in our county. The Center for Religion and Culture has estimated that at least two-thirds of the religiously-affiliated nonprofits that are serving the poor in Los Angeles did not exist before 1965.

During the past three decades, the social service arms of major denominations and faith traditions (e.g., Catholic Charities, Episcopal Social Services, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Vocational Services, and Lutheran Social Serviceshave also expanded their services to the state's homeless, immigrant, and working poor residents.

Thus, there are good grounds for Congress's positive assumptions concerning the ability of religious groups to play the social service roles envisioned by the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. As Ron Lopez, chief administrative officer of Catholic Charities of Southern California, observed, "There is really not much that is new in Charitable Choice. We are already doing what Charitable Choice encourages us to do. It's our mission to serve the poor." Although most religious leaders in central city neighborhoods do not share Lopez's familiarity with Charitable Choice, they do share his belief that community services are long-term commitments.

Congregations. Most of the social service programs offered by California's congregations are modestly-scaled and informal. Virtually all congregations, for example, informally offer emergency food and clothing services. Virtually all congregations help members andsometimes neighborhood residents in finding jobs and in getting through hard times. Most provide volunteers for other
charitable organizations. A few provide financial support for other charitable organizations, especially faith-based social services. Very few of these congregations have even attempted to compete for TANF contracts.

Free-standing Nonprofits. Religiously-affiliated nonprofits will continue to offer programs that support welfare-to-work participants and probably will continue to compete for TANF contracts. By and large, these are organizations that have employed professional staffs that have the expertise to respond to requests for proposals, to manage funds, to handle project-related paperwork, and to offer community service programs. Many have already demonstrated their capacity to use public and foundation funds.

Whether or not these organizations can significantly expand their welfare-to-work programs is an open question. The capacity to conduct social service programs is different from the capacity to expand and to diversify these program offerings. When nonprofits expand and diversify their program offerings, for example, they usually need more complex organizational structures and expanded staffs.

Coalitions. Charitable Choice encourages faith-based nonprofits and congregations to coalesceto experiment with a variety of coalitional approaches to funding, staffing, and managing social service programs.

Councils of churches and interfaith social service programs have been a part of the California religious landscape for a long time. Their histories go back to a pre-World War II era in which Californians were beginning to acknowledge the pluralist character of their state's religious identity (e.g., "Protestant, Catholic and Jew"). Some started as neighborhood ecumenical coordinating councils. Some were created to provide released-time educational programs for public school students. Some were created to provide structures for ecumenical social services and political advocacy. Some were exclusively Protestant. Others were inclusive. During the past three decades, many of these groups had hit hard times, reflecting changes in the state's religious culture. Top-down denominational and ecumenical programs increasingly experienced difficulties in attracting financial support from member organizations

Some of these older ecumenical and interfaith coalitions, however, are currently being re-energized. New ones are being born. Together with community organizing associations, these coalitional groups are becoming the primary vehicles through which congregations and smaller nonprofitstogetherbuild sufficient capacity to realistically compete for TANF contracts. Like community organizing associations, their agendas are pointed and tangible. They offer food programs. They offer job training and placement programs. They manage drug and alcohol addition programs. They sponsor culturally sensitive preventive health services and health education at congregational sites. In short, they no longer function mainly as ecumenical and interfaith coordinating councils, but rather as organizations that exist to expand the capacity of faith-based organizations for particular community services.

Denominational social service agencies. Organizations like Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Vocational Service, Lutheran Social Services, and Episcopal Community Services will undoubtedly expand their involvement in welfare reform. They have built the staff and capital infrastructure for managing multiple social service programs. Serving welfare-to-work participants is consistent with their institutional missions. They have a long history of attracting and managing contracts from public and private funding sources.

Whether or not they can (or should) offer faith-based organizational alternatives to county welfare agencies is problematic. Representatives from denominational social service agencies are currently paying careful attention to the experience of Catholic Charities of San Diegoan organization that has accepted contractual accountability for CalWORKs case management in an entire region of San Diego County. Does a faith-based organization have the capacity to function as a surrogate public welfare agency? Should an organization whose mission is to serve the poor engage in sanctioning practices that are required by CalWORKs in dealing with welfare-to-work participants? Will large scale case management contracts tempt faith-based organizations to act like for-profit organizations? These are important questions.

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture's research team did not speak with a single individual who believes that faith-based organizations will be able to provide income support for individuals who exhaust their CalWORKs eligibility. There is no question: California's faith community does not have the capacity to be the state's welfare provider-of-last-resort. Only public agencies have the capacity to maintain the nation's safety net.

Most representatives of California's faith community believe that the state is ultimately responsible for maintaining the social safety net. Faith-based organizations have the capacity to participate in public/private partnerships that serve the poor. They have the capacity to mount imaginative programs, whose effectiveness is extended by the trust they have already earned in their own neighborhoods. They do not agree that it is in the public interest, however, for faith-based organizations to try to re-assume all or most of the welfare roles that were transferred to public agencies in the 1930s.

"Of course we will always try to work alongside the poor," Larry Fondation (Industrial Areas Foundation) said in early 1998. "Faith communities will do all they can to keep people from starving and from living in the streets. But we can't do everything. We can do some things well, but not everything." Sister Georgianna Cahill, director of Catholic Charities in Riverside and San Bernardino, agrees with Foundation's assessment. Religious organizations will always assist where there is need, she says, but there is a big difference between helping 100,000 refugees and replacing the entire social safety net. "Religious groups can do a substantial amount of service; they cannot take care of everyone."

Although religious leaders often remark that, under welfare reform, "we are doing what we have
always done," welfare reform does promote important changes in the culture of California's faith-based organizations. For example:

The culture is increasingly contractual. "Money talks. Contracts talk," James Conn, who oversees the social justice ministries of Los Angeles's United Methodist Church, dryly observed in a Center for Religion and Civic Culture focus group. These kinds of relationships are encouraged by welfare reform, because they are efficient and because they allow faith-based organizations with limited institutional capacity to participate in TANF contracts.

The culture increasingly permits contractual ties between faith-based organizations and public agencies.

The culture increasingly permits contractual ties between faith-based organizations and for-profit corporations.

The culture increasingly values coalitional interfaith organizations. Older councils of churches and ecumenical associations breathe fresh air when they realize their potential for offering publicly-funded welfare-to-work services. New collaboratives are being formed for this purposecollaboratives that cut across racial, ethnic, theological, and ideological boundaries in the interest of serving their region's poor. Collaboratives leverage capacity. They are efficient, in the sense that they tap into the existing strengths of participating institutions.

The culture increasingly values inter-sector (nonprofit, for-profit, and public) coalitional organizations.

The culture encourages faith-based organizations to be realistic about their institutional capacity to offer social services and not to over-reach. Except for very few large denominational social service agencies, faith-based organizations serve best when they carefully delimit the scope of their social services and when they use collaborative organizations to leverage their capacity.

1 According to the San Francisco-based Child Care Law Center, however, California state law does authorize the indirect funding of federally-funded service providers through vouchers in at least one areachild care. Following practices that have been used in the allocation of Child Care and Development Block Grants since the early 1990s, CalWORKs authorizes parents who are welfare-to-work participants to select the types of licensed and license-exempt child care that they wish, including sectarian forms of child care that involve proselytizing, worship, and religious instruction, and to carry redeemable vouchers or Child Care Certificates to these providers-of-choice. In California, CalWORKs-related child care services are made available in three stages that are designed to move families from the welfare system into the regular subsidized child care system. Stage 1 is administered by the State Department of Social Services through county welfare departments and serves CalWORKs clients during their first six months of eligibility. Stage 2 is administered by the State Department of Education. It begins when county welfare departments transfer clients out of Stage 1generally after six months of aid. Stage 3, also administered by the Department of Education, focuses on child care services for the working poor. Services begin whenever a funded slot is available. Parental choice, empowered by the CalWORKs voucher system for reimbursing parent-selected providers, is an element of all three stages.

By inference, client choice (subsidized by redeemable CalWORKs vouchers or certificates) in the selection of providers for services other than child care is permitted, also.

This inference, however, has not been tested in either the California Supreme Court or in the United States Supreme Court. These courts have not as yet considered the constitutionality of practices which, through client choice, allow public funds to flow through vouchers to programs which involve worship, religious instruction, and proselytizing.

There is a high likelihood, however, that the Supreme Court will in the near future consider an appeal of court decisions from Ohio and Florida, which reject the use of publicly-funded vouchers to reimburse parochial schools.

Whether or not Supreme Court decisions concerning educational voucher programs will be applied to other welfare-to-work voucher programs is uncertain.

2 Italics are ours.

3 San Bernardino County apparently made a careful assessment of the faith community's capacity to respond to welfare reform. Welfare administrators seem to have decided that faith-based organizations do not have the capacity to operate comprehensive job training/job placement centers. They do, however, have the capacity to contribute in limited ways.

4 The situation in San Diego County is slightly more complicated. For example, the Catholic Archdiocese, operating without a contract, has developed a regional mentoring program, Join Together. Episcopal Community Services holds a contract to provide job coaching, job placement and home visitation services. A contract held by the San Diego Workforce Partnership Alliance includes three faith-based sub-contractorsMetro United Methodist Urban Ministries (Metro UNUM), Chollas View Methodist Church, and All Congregations Together.

5 In competing for these contracts, Salvation Army affiliates are breaking with guidelines that in the past did permit the acceptance of public funding.

6 The willingness of Jewish Family Service to compete for welfare-to-work contracts may reveal disagreements between California Jewish community's service agencies, who compete for TANF contracts, and Jewish advocacy organizations that lobby against Charitable Choice.

7 Quaford Martin, an administrative assistant at Los Angeles's Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, describes the situation: "The Black Church has always been involved in providing social servicesfood for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and shelter for the homeless. This is certainly not new to us. We have simply not used the language of welfare reform.

Faith-Based Communities and Welfare Reform

California Religious Community Capacity Study

Quantitative Findings and Conclusions

Carol Silverman

Research Director

Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management

University of San Francisco

This paper is dedicated to Dr. Richard Orend who designed the initial study and would have completed the research and analysis, if he had not tragically died before this was possible. Special thanks to Dr. Michael O'Neill who took over the study after Dr. Orend's death and was responsible for all the subsequent work up to the actual analysis of the data. Thanks also to Scott Anderson, Mark Chaves, Michael Cortés, Nancy Kinney, Kenneth Koziol and John Orr for their many helpful comments on this report.

Executive Summary

The California Religious Capacity Study was conducted by the California Council of Churches, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, and the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco. The research looks at the faith-based community's current involvement in and knowledge of programs operating under the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. It further assesses the community's interest in and capacity for participation in welfare-to-work programs.

As a part of this effort, the Institute for Nonprofit Management at the University of San Francisco conducted a state-wide survey of congregations and faith-based nonprofit social service agencies. More than one thousand congregations and organizations were surveyed, via phone interview, about their participation in welfare-to-work programs, the current services they are providing as a part of their social ministry efforts and their organizational capacity to provide such services.

Findings

Participating congregations were ethnically diverse and included a variety of income levels. They also represented a range of denominational affiliations. The overwhelming majority of those who responded represented congregations (92%) rather than faith-based nonprofits.

Congregations varied widely in their size, staffing, and budgets. Half the congregations in the sample had fewer than 150 members, and 20 percent had no full-time staff. Half had annual budgets of less than $112,000. Thus, while there are large congregations in the state that might be able to support welfare-to-work contracts, the "average" congregation would have problems finding the staffing to write applications and oversee contracts.

Only 3 percent of the congregations and organizations in this study currently had a "working arrangement" under the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. Furthermore, only 33.2 percent had any familiarity with the provisions of the act. Those who knew about its provisions were most likely to have heard about it from their religious group (that is, for example, from their diocese or district) rather than from governmental sources. Yet, state and local government were the most likely agencies to encourage participation.

Congregations overwhelmingly did not apply for public funding for any of their programs. Only six percent had applied for such funds in the past five years and only 3.7 percent had actually received funds. When asked why they did not apply, congregations typically mentioned concerns about accepting government dollars, the absence of resources such as staff or volunteers, or space limitations. They did, however, support other organizations that administered public funds.

Every congregation in the study performed at least one social ministry function, although some were probably doing so informally rather than through formal programs. Social ministry programs were often performed in partnership or coalition with another program.

Congregations felt that the demand for their services was increasing and that they were capable of growing to meet the increased demand.

The study generally shows that there is the will among much of the religious congregational community to undertake social ministry programs and to absorb the growing demand for such programs. There is not, however, the organizational capacity to administer formal welfare-to-work programs internally. Instead, the greatest potential is through partnerships with other agencies.

Introduction

In 1996, the United States government dramatically changed the way it provided benefits to poor families. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), signed by the President on August 22, 1996, eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Instead, benefits were granted under time-limited programs, no longer as entitlements. Under the provisions of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), five-year limits were placed on the total time a household could receive benefits and 18 month to two-year limits on the continuous time a household could receive cash assistance. Families were to take advantage of various support services and work-readiness programs while they made the transition into paid employment. As with previous programs, Federal monies were block-granted to the states. The states, in turn, had greater discretion over program content, with the intent of better matching local needs and capacities. (The full text of the bill can be found via the internet at www.thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:H.R.3734.ENR.)

Under the new act, the government could enter into a contractual arrangement with agencies, whereby providers would be paid directly to administer contracted services. Alternatively, the government could provide certificates, vouchers, or other forms of disbursement, which a recipient could redeem at an eligible provider of her or his choice. In the latter case, the government enters
into an indirect arrangement with service providers, through the redemption of the voucher.

Each originating county welfare department determined what array of services were eligible for TANF funds, either by contract or by voucher reimbursement. However, the act specified a wide array of programs that could be so funded. Providers potentially could offer subsidized jobs themselves, could offer job readiness or skills preparation, could assist the recipient in looking for jobs, or could provide educational or vocational training. Providers also could offer food programs, maternity homes, or childcare or medical and health services.

Section 104 of the act was intended to expand the involvement of the nonprofit sector, including faith-based organizations. Under its "Charitable Choice" provisions, if a state were to offer contracts to any independent organization, it had to make such contracts available to religious organizations. If awarded such a contract (in California this program is called Cal Works), religious organizations could continue to "retain their independence from Federal, State and local governments" including "control over the development, practice, and expression of its religious belief." Organizations then could display "religious art, icons, scripture, or other symbols" and use religious criteria in hiring, promotion and firing decisions. They could neither discriminate in whom they served under the contract nor require participation in any religious services. Furthermore, potential service recipients had to have a choice of participation in a program run by a faith-based organization or one run by a secular group (Center for Public Justice, 1997).

There are very real unresolved issues at stake in considering the participation of the faith- based community. As expressed by many of the participants in this study, could the integrity of the faith-based organization could be maintained, while satisfying program requirements? Will governmental reporting requirements alter the work that faith-based institutions are already doing in serving the poor? Do faith-based congregations have the internal capacity to administer such programs?

As a first step, it is important to at least understand what is already occurring in the faith-based community. We do not know how many programs are participating in welfare-to-work programs, what their interest in participating might be and the extent to which they are already providing the services included under Charitable Choice, but doing so with private funding or volunteer labor.

In order to begin to answer these questions, at least for California, a consortium of three organizations conducted the California Religious Community Capacity Study. The participants were the California Council of Churches, the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at the University of San Francisco, and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. Funding for the study was provided by the Irvine Foundation.

This report, produced by the Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management, looks at the results of a statewide survey of faith based institutions. Specifically, it includes congregations, faith-based nonprofit service providers such as Catholic Charities and other faith-based organizations that are more difficult to categorize such as a council of rabbis. The report summarizes the findings from a phone survey of 1107 religious leaders of these organizations. The actual implementation of the survey was conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Methodology

There is no single comprehensive sampling frame that is list of faith-based organizations. The list used for this study was compiled from several sources. We first used organizations registered with the California Secretary of State's compilation of incorporated organizations. This was combined with information from the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trust listings. Other lists were obtained from religious denominations that were willing to share membership directories. Finally, we supplemented these sources with telephone directory listings of religious organizations. The final list, once duplicates were removed, contained approximately 50,000 organizations, to our knowledge the largest such listing ever compiled for the state of California.

Next, a simple random sample of 2,898 names was drawn from this list. Of these, 1105 or 38 percent were ineligible because there was no valid phone number obtainable from directory assistance or respondent who spoke English (25 cases). Of the remaining 1,793 organizations, 366 respondents were never available to be interviewed and 320 directly refused the interview. This left a final sample of 1107, or 61.7 percent of those eligible. This response rate was extremely high, compared to some other studies in this area of research. The Independent Sector study, for example, using telephone books to establish a sampling frame, achieved a 19 percent return rate. (Hodgkinson & Weitzman, 1999; See Chaves et al.(1999) for a notable exception; this national survey achieved a 80 percent response rate.)

The original interview schedule was constructed by Dr. Richard Orend, who died before it was finalized. It underwent extensive discussion in focus groups with religious leaders, and was revised by members of the three collaborating sites. The actual interviewing for the California Congregation study occurred over the telephone between March and June of 2000. Interviewers were instructed to speak to the "most senior pastor or religious leader."

Throughout the following discussion, the "significance" of findings is mentioned. This is a technical term that refers not to the importance of the results but rather to their generalizability. The results presented here are from a sample, not from all congregations or faith based organizations in the state. If a result is significant, this means that, subject to a small, but known risk of being wrong, we are willing to conclude that the result is true for the entire population of congregations and organizations that were sampled for this study.

Survey Participants

Overwhelmingly, people who answered our questions described their group as a religious congregation/faith based-community (92%). Only 5.8 percent said they were faith-based social service nonprofits and the remaining 2.2 percent described themselves as "other" that is something other than the pre-structured choices. Most of these, when asked to use their own words, labeled their organization as a church, a religious organization or a combination of a faith-based congregation and a non-profit.

As shown in the second column of Table I, the majority of organizations in the study were Protestant (76.3%). Of these, more organizations defined themselves as Baptist (16.2%) than any other affiliation. Less than 10 percent selected any other of the offered Protestant affiliations. Instead, the second most often selected alternative was 'other.' Many of those selecting this category saw themselves as non-denominational.

For the entire sample, the next most often selected religious affiliation was 'other,' which encompassed a variety of affiliations with non-denominational or Christian the most often selected. Interestingly, a number of religious leaders affiliated with groups usually listed as Protestant, such as Jehovah's Witness, also selected 'other'.

Table I

Distribution of Denomination/Faith Tradition

Denomination Percent of Organizations Percent of total Members

Protestant 76.3 53.9

Roman Catholic 4.9 27.2

Jewish 2.6 5.1

Eastern Orthodox 1.1 1.1

Mormon/LDS 1.5 3.1

Buddist 1.4 1.1

Hindu 0.3 0.1

Muslim/Islam 0.8 1.2

Other 11.0 7.2

Total 100% (1,107) 100% (506,268)

Sixty-eight percent reported their congregation/organization to be a part of a larger group, that is a denomination.

The percentage distribution of affiliations does not tell us about the percentage distribution of the membership since congregations vary in their size. The religious leaders responding to the survey also gave information on the size of their congregation. If the purely service organizations are removed from the sample because those they serve may not share the faith of the organization and the percentages are therefore recomputed to reflect the different congregational sizes, the results shown in the last column of Table I are found. Thus, while a relatively small percentage of the congregations that responded to the survey were Roman Catholic, they represented a much larger proportion of the total membership.

Religious leaders were asked to estimate what percent of their membership had a household income of less than $20,000, between $20,000 and $100,000, between $100,000 and $250,000 and over
$250,000. The responses documented that the membership of these congregations tended to be concentrated in the middle income ranges. In half of the congregations, 15% or fewer earned household incomes of less than 20,000 dollars. In only ten percent did 25% or more earn less than 20,000 dollars. Accordingly, the membership also did not receive welfare or other government transfer programs for low-income households. Twenty-five percent of the leaders stated that no one received these forms of public assistance; an additional 26 percent stated that 2% or less did. Only 14 percent of the congregations/organizations had 10% or more of the membership receiving such public benefits. It should be added that 11.4 percent of those responding to the survey were unable to answer this question.

If congregations were not concentrated among the lowest incomes, neither were they found among the highest. In only two and a half percent did as many as 30 percent earn between $100,000 and $250,000; in only .1 percent did 30% or more earn over $250,000.

Congregations/organizations were primarily Caucasian, although a good deal of ethnic variation was also present. Fifteen percent were 95-100% white and half were 65% or more white. Seven percent were 95-100% African American, four percent were 95 to 100% Hispanic and 6 percent were 95 to 100% Asian/Pacific Islander. Again, if the ethnic distribution of the congregations or organizations is recalculated, weighting for size of the membership, the results seen in the second column of percentages in Table II are obtained (it should be noted that 11.6 percent of the respondents were unable to answer this question and that may affect the percentage distributions).

Table II

Ethnicity of Membership Compared to California's Population

Ethnicity Percentage of membership 1998 California Population

White non Hispanic 50.4 50.5

African American/Black 15.9 7.5

Hispanic 19.4 31.0

Asian/Pacific Islander 11.0 12.1

Native American 0.4 0.9

Other 2.7 -

Total 100% (491203)

(California Population Estimates from the Bureau of the Census, 2000)

It is of course not to be expected that any survey would precisely reflect population demographics, and this survey is not of the entire population but rather of religious leaders' estimates of the ethnic makeup of their congregations. However, when

compared to California population estimates, the study under-represents people from Hispanic backgrounds and over-represents people who are African-American/Black.

Recent (in the last two years) immigrant congregations were sparse. Eighty-eight percent of the congregations were less than 5% recent immigrants, only one percent was more than 50% recent immigrants.

While members of congregations typically were not receiving welfare benefits, the congregations often were located in neighborhoods where many residents were welfare recipients. According to the religious leaders' estimation, eleven percent of the organizations were in localities where more than half of the households were estimated to be receiving welfare benefits, 11 percent where about half were, 60 percent where less than half were and 17.5 percent where no family was receiving such benefits. Almost 11 percent were unable to make this estimate.

Thus, the organizations in this study were diverse, encompassing a mixture of denominations, populations, and income groups.

When the sampling frame was created, it was decided to include all religious organizations including congregations, faith-based social service agencies, and other faith-based groups. The assumption was that faith-based social service agencies would be the most likely to have entered into a welfare-to-work contract. However, the major interest of this study is in congregations. The sample contains only a small percentage of faith-based social service agencies. In the remaining analysis, these social service organizations will be discussed only briefly and separately. When the report discusses congregations and organizations, it includes the entire sample. When, as is most often the case, it discusses congregations, it is excluding the social service agencies.

Organizational Capacity

For those organizations that described themselves as congregations or faith-based communities, the average membership was 503 participants (both adults and children). This single number, however, obscures the tremendous variation in organizational size. Half of the congregations had fewer than 150 members. Forty percent had fewer that 100 participants. Twenty-five percent had fewer than 70 members. Only 25 percent had congregations of 387 people or more. The high average reflects a few organizations that listed very large memberships, the largest being 18,900 individuals. These numbers contrast favorably with those found by Chaves et al.(1999) in a national study of congregations. Using a slightly different question that asked for adult participation, they found that half the congregations had fewer than 75 regularly attending members.

Echoing the difference in size was the difference in the number of full-time employees. Fully 20.3 percent of the congregations had no full-time staff. (This number is similar to that found by Printz, 1998 in a study of congregations in the Washington DC area. She found that almost a quarter of the congregations that responded to her survey had no full- time staff. ) An additional 28.6 percent of the California sample had only one staff person. Thus almost half had no or only one full-time staff member to support the organization. Seventy five percent had 3 or fewer staff persons, and only 8 percent had as many as 10 full-time employees.

Just as the organizations varied in size, so did their budgets. The mean annual budget was $306,566; fully half of the congregations had budgets of less than $112,000. While the most affluent organization had an annual budget of $15,000,000, 10 percent of the groups had annual budgets of $18,000 or less. None-the-less, 19.1 percent of the congregations described their financial health as excellent, an additional 40.5 percent as good, 36.3 percent as fair, and only 3.0 percent as poor.

Many organizations also had seen an improvement in their financial health over the past two years. One hundred and thirty congregations retrospectively rated their financial health as excellent two
years ago compared to 199 congregations at present. Eighty-eight stated that they were having serious financial difficulties two years ago compared to only 31 today.

In summary, the congregations surveyed in California are diverse. Many are extremely small and lack full-time paid staff. Their operational budget reflects their smaller size. Others are larger and can draw upon greater financial and staff resources. Most consider themselves financially stable. However, there is a great difference between having the resources to fulfill their current mission and having the resources to expand their mission. In this regard, the high percent of congregations with no or only one full-time paid staff person must be considered. Preparation of a formal application for funding probably requires resources that go beyond current internal capacities of these small congregations.

Participation in Welfare to Work Programs

The simple answer to the major question of this study is that both congregations and organizations do not participate in welfare-to-work programs. Only 33 (3 percent) of the congregations stated that they had "entered into a working arrangement with a government agency" under the charitable choice provision and an additional 57 (5.5 percent) had tried for such an arrangement but been had unsuccessful for unstated reasons. The interview did not define "working arrangement". Thus a congregation could actually have a contract, could accept vouchers, or could collaborate in some fashion with an external agency that held the actual contract.

Of the 64 faith-based nonprofit agencies 2 (or 3 percent) had entered into a working arrangement under Charitable Choice and an additional 7 (10.9%) had tried unsuccessfully for such an arrangement. Thus the social service agencies were no more likely to have an existing relationship than the congregations.

The absence of participation among all participants was first understandable because they did not know about the provisions. Only 4.7 percent of the congregations felt very knowledgeable about the act, 28.5 percent somewhat familiar and 37.4 percent not at all familiar, with the remaining 29.3 percent not very familiar. The percentages for the faith-based social services agencies were only slightly higher: 7.8 percent of these were very familiar with the act, 39.1 percent somewhat familiar, 28.1 percent not too familiar, and 25 percent not at all familiar.

Unsurprisingly, those who were or who had tried to participate were more likely to be familiar with the provisions of the act. As shown in Table III, 22.2 percent of the congregations who had a working arrangement or who had applied for such an arrangement were very familiar with its provisions compared to 3.1 percent of those who had not applied. Fully 40.9 percent of those who had not applied were not at all familiar with the act.

Table III

Familiarity with Charitable Choice by Whether Had Applied

Has or applied for working arrangement under Charitable Choice

Familiar with Charitable Choice Provision No Yes

Very familiar 3.1% 22.2%

Somewhat familiar 26.3 52.2

Not too familiar 29.7 25.6

Not at all familiar 40.9

Totals 100% (950) 100% (90)

Chi Square Sig. .000

Those congregations who had at least some familiarity with the act were most likely to have heard about it from their religious group (41.8%) and secondarily from a variety of "other" sources, most notably the California Council of Churches, from members of other religious orders, or from the media. Only 21.8 percent of those with some familiarity with the act had received information from either state or local government (18.6% from local and 8.7% from state). The absence of government information was particularly salient since government sources were the most likely to encourage participation. Thus of those encouraged to participate by an outside source, 35.5 percent were encouraged by local (city or county) government, 9.1 percent by state government, 18.2 percent by a larger religious body, and 24.5 percent by some other source (multiple sources are possible).

The obvious question is whether there is something that distinguishes the congregations or organizations that do have a working arrangement from those that do not. Extreme caution must be taken in any comparison, since one or two organizations can appreciably affect summarized information when there are only a small number of organizations involved. However, with this caveat, the 35 organizations that participated included two faith based social service agencies, 32 congregations and one organization that called itself "other" with no further explanation. Three of the participating organizations were Roman Catholic, four were "other," and the remainder were Protestant. The average operational budget was higher for this group than that of the sample as a whole (for the congregations $756,518 compared to $306,566); and organizations who have a working arrangement also have approximately two more full-time employees on the average. Yet, two congregations had no full-time paid staff members and eight had only one full time person. We cannot tell if participation in Charitable Choice activities occurred in partnerships/coalitions. However, all save one of the congregations stated that at least one social ministry function occurred in partnership or coalition with another organization. Thus, these congregations had experience in delivering services to the poor in partnership and very probably were engaged in such a partnership under Charitable Choice.

The congregations not only did not apply for government funding under the Charitable Choice Provision, most did not apply for government funding for social programs at all. Only 6.1 percent had applied for any such funds in the past 5 years; of these 39 or 3.7 percent of the total sample had received funding, 11 or 1.1 percent of the total sample had been turned down and 12 or 1.2 percent were awaiting a decision. (Chaves, 1999b found that 3 percent of congregations in a national sample had government funding).

A slightly higher percentage of the faith-based social service nonprofits had applied for funding
(12.5%). Of these 9.4 percent (8 organizations) had received funding and the remaining 3.1 percent (3 organizations) had been turned down.

Of the reasons offered to respondents for not applying for government funding, people were more likely to mention concern about government controls, bureaucracy, and red tape (47.8%). They were next most likely to mention that they had created or supported other organizations that did this (45.6%). In all 49.8 percent of those who did not apply mentioned some problem with resources - either lack of staff or volunteers (39.4%) or lack of space (33.9%). Finally, 29.7 percent stated that theological or philosophical objects to using government funds was an issue, and 22.6 percent mentioned that social ministry/services were not a priority for their congregation.

Some of the reasons given varied by organizational size. Table IV divides the congregations into quartiles. That is the smallest 25 percent are found in the first percentaged column, the next 25 percent in the subsequent column and so forth. As shown in table IV, smaller congregations were more likely to say that social ministry/services were not a priority for them. While 30.6 percent of the smallest organizations mentioned this, only 15.9 percent of the largest ones did so. Conversely, the larger organizations were more likely not to apply because they created or supported other organizations. This was mentioned by 56.8 percent of the largest organizations compared to 38.8 percent of the smallest. Smaller organizations were more likely to mention lack of staff/volunteers (50.9% compared to 40.2%) but not significantly more likely to mention lack of space. Size did not make a difference in terms of mentioning theological or practical objections to working with the government.

Table IV

Why Did Not Apply by Congregational Size

Size in Quartiles

Why did not apply 0-70 mem 71 to 150 mem 151 to 375 mem 376 to 18,900 mem Total Chi-Square Sig.

Type work not priority for organization 30.6% 25.2% 16.8% 15.9% 22.6% (943) .000

Created or supports other organizations 38.8% 43.3% 47.0% 56.8% 46.1% (945) .001

Theological objections to gov't funds 29.8% 33.1% 31.4% 23.2% 29.5% (935) NS

Concern about gov. control/red tape 49.6% 50.0% 49.0% 42.4% 47.9% (938) NS

Lack of staff/volunteers 50.0% 41.2% 37.2% 31.0% 40.2% (938) .000

Lack of space for more activities 37.7% 32.0% 32.3% 35.4% 34.2% (943) NS

The open-ended responses to this question were extremely illuminating. Fully 63.7 percent gave some other reason for not applying for government funding for social ministry/programs. The overwhelmingly most often selected reason was absence of knowledge. Of those who had not applied, 54.3 percent stated this as a reason. Indeed, several asked the interviewer how to apply or stated that they were going to investigate applying now that they knew that it was a possibility. As one respondent related:

There was not I was not fully informed. I didn't know a lot of the different things that would benefit me. I didn't know about it. I wish there was some way we had some direct response from the government, city or state government. Some agencies
may mention something vaguely, but in terms of really coming out and saying what's available, that hasn't happened.

Others mentioned lack of knowledge about the mechanism and requirements for applying as well as concern about whether the program would alter their mission.

We were functioning on a level Z consciousness instead of a level one we never knew about it until 6 months ago, and I have to say this is the financial equivalent of a unicorn. I've never seen one, and the process is difficult, takes for granted a knowledge of the process without explaining it, and there seems to be a veiled contempt for the church. Some of what we do is regarded as fairly cosmetic.

The other frequently mentioned reason for lack of participation was really an elaboration upon the closed-ended response concerning church/government separation. Some mentioned concern about how government requirements would affect their organization; others discussed basic philosophical tenets about the role of religion and the role of the state.

Basically we don't believe in using tax dollars to do God's work. We just believe that it is something that we can do as a church, and helping is the ministry of the church.

Well we wouldn't apply for government (stet) under any circumstances. We hear a lot about separation of church and state and it seems the state wants that separation unless it benefits them and I think they are two-faced in that they stick their nose in our business all the time so where's the separation?

I don't want to be involved in the government, ruling over me and telling me what to do. I think many Christians are coming to a point where we would rather do something hands on than just send a check. And we'd rather do something that changes us rather than just be a cog the machine There is a real tendency to focus fewer programs and actions that we can take ourselves rather than just be a part of another program.

Social Ministry/Social Service Involvement

Faith based organizations did not participate in government-funded programs; they did perform social services. The percentages listed below are appreciably higher than found by some others. Chaves (1999b), for example, found that 57 percent of congregations offered social services. The estimate, however, is not out of line with yet other researchers such as Cnaan (1997), Hodgkinson et al.(1993), or Printz (1998). The problem is that the sources that find comparably high percentages of congregations are typically looking at larger organizations with more resources. As such, the Chaves study is more comparable. The higher percentages found in this study may be because the question did not restrict respondents to formal programs it asked about "programs or services." Thus, informal and occasional service provision might trigger a "yes" answer (see Appendix for the full questionnaire).

Table V

Social Ministry Services

Emergency Services

Food 78.2

Shelter/Housing Vouchers 40.8

Clothing 67.7

Transportation 46.3

Medical Care 24.6

Cash Assistance 59.8

Percent any Emergency Services 90.7

Non-Emergency Services

Food 36.5

Shelter/Housing Support 29.0

Transportation 42.6

Percent any Non-Emergency Service 63.3

Family Services

Child/Adult Care 28.4

Family substitution/supplement 23.4

Mentoring/Big brother, sister programs 31.5

Percent Any Family Services 53.9

Education Programs

Training 15.6

Job Search 23.2

Language/literacy 24.0

Tutoring/GED 20.9

Scholarship 34.1

Percent Any Education Program 58.0

Health Care Programs

General Health Care 27.7

Special Services 42.7

Percent Any Health Care Program 51.5

Advocacy Programs

Needs of the poor 33.0

Community Organization 41.0

Economic Development 11.7

Percent Any Advocacy Program 55.0

Other programs for the needs of the poor 35.6

Percent any social ministry/service programs 100%

As shown in Table V, overwhelmingly the congregations in this study engaged in some form of social ministry/service. Every organization has at least one such program or service. Over half participated in every major category list above. The most often found activity was the provision of emergency services, in particular emergency food. Slightly more than 90 percent had some form of emergency program and 78.2 percent gave out food on an emergency basis.

These activities were encouraged by the larger religious community. Those congregations that were a part of a larger religious group were asked about the group's approach to social ministry/social service programs. Only 10 percent of those who were part of a larger group said that the group did not promote such programs. Two-thirds stated that the group recommended involvement but left the specifics to the local congregation. The remaining 23.6 percent said that the larger group suggested specific programs to them.

Of greatest importance for the possibility of welfare-to-work programs, 58 percent of congregations had some involvement in education programs. The two programs most strongly linked to Charitable Choice involvement are educational training and job search and transition to work skills. In all, 27.3 percent of the congregations performed one of these activities. Congregations were as likely to provide these services as were faith- based service providers.

Congregations could perform these social ministry/service functions themselves, they could provide them in partnership/coalition, or a combination of the two.

As shown in Table VI, congregations that performed social ministry functions did so about equally as sole provider, as a member of a coalition/partnership, or as a combination of the two. Programs that required substantial resources that might fall outside the purview of a congregation such as substitutive family care (foster care programs and the like) or running a shelter were most likely to be accomplished in coalition. Programs that could more easily be accomplished by congregations such as mentoring/big brother-sister programs were most likely to be undertaken solely by the congregation. In all 84.9 percent performed at least one social ministry program solely by the congregation and 77 percent performed at least one program in coalition or partnership with another program.

Table VI

Social Ministry Performed Alone or in Partnership

Services Solely by Part of Both

Congregation Coalition

Emergency Food 38.6 37.1 24.2

Emergency Shelter 32.2 55.6 12.3

Emergency Clothes 49.4 34.8 15.8

Emergency Transportation 68.1 19.2 12.7

Emergency Medical Care 43.3 40.6 16.1

Emergency Cash Assistance 72.8 8.7 18.5

Non-Emergency Food Program 29.7 57.1 13.3

Non-Emergency Shelter/HH Supports 35.8 53.3 10.9

Basic Needs Transportation 75.5 15.0 9.5

Child/Adult Care 64.7 24.1 11.2

Family Substitute/Supplement Programs26.7 60.9 12.3

Family Support Mentoring 64.9 22.9 12.2

Education Job Training 43.8 45.1 11.1

Education Job Search 47.3 42.7 10.0

Language/Literacy/Citizenship Training 56.6 32.5 10.8

Tutoring/GED Preparation 58.1 31.8 10.1

Scholarships 63.7 22.1 14.2

General Health Care 31.0 56.1 12.9

Special Health Services 40.6 47.2 12.2

Advocacy on Behalf of Poor 29.8 44.2 26.0

Community Organization 44.3 37.5 18.2

Community Economic Development 24.6 63.9 11.5

Other Programs for the Poor and Needy 60.6 26.9 12.5

Congregations often devoted substantial resources to their social ministry programs. Half the organizations estimated that they spent more than 10 percent of their annual budget on such programs; fifteen percent estimated that they spent 25 percent or more of their budget. Six percent of those sampled estimated that they spent 50 percent or more. Congregations were most likely to devote 10 percent of their budget to social ministry programs, while the average was 16.1 percent. In dollar terms, 10.9 percent of the congregations spent no money on social ministry programs while half spent $10,000 or more. The maximum amount spent in this study was $9.5 million and the average amount was $53,574.

Furthermore, although the association was not a strong one, the more staff a congregation could draw upon, the greater percentage of its budget went to social ministry functions. (Pearson's r =.12 sig.= .000). Congregational size, in contrast, did not so predict. Thus, what seems to matter is having the staff to administer the program rather than simply having a large congregation.

Some of the congregations could also count on substantial volunteer hours to assist with social ministry functions; 24.6 percent estimated that volunteers put in at total of more than 1,000 hours a year. An additional 18.1 percent were assisted by volunteers 501 to 1,000 hours. However, over half (57.4%) of the congregations were assisted by volunteers 500 hours or less.

Unsurprisingly, the larger organizations were able to command more volunteer hours. As shown in Table VII, slightly more than half of the smallest groups use 0 to 100 hours of volunteer time a year. In comparison, only 10.7 percent of the largest congregations do so. In contrast, only 1.2 percent of the smallest organizations could count on more than 10,000 hours a year while 7.8 percent of the largest did so.

Table VII

Conregational Size by Amount of Volunteer Hours Available

0-70 members 71 to 150 151 to 375 376 to 18900 Total%

0 to 100 volunteer hours 54.8% 33.0% 20.3% 10.7% 30.3%

101 to 500 volunteer hours 23.8 36.2 31.1 16.8 27.2

501 to 1,000 volunteer hours 11.9 14.3 21.2 25.8 18.0

1,001 to 5,000 volunteer hours 7.9 10.0 19.8 26.2 15.6

5,001 to 10,000 volunteer hours.4 4.3 4.7 12.7 5.5

More than 10,000 volunteer hrs1.2 2.2 2.8 7.8 3.4

Totals 100%(252) 100%(279) 100%(212) 100%(244) 100%(987)

Chi-Square sig.=.000

Increased Demand/Capacity

Congregations felt that the demand for their services was increasing. Only 10.4 percent felt that demand had declined in the past two years while 32.7 percent felt that it had remained the same. Almost half (46.3%) stated that demand had increased and an additional 10.6% that it had significantly increased. Moreover, congregations saw demand as increasing more in neighborhoods with a large population receiving welfare. As shown in table VIII, 17.5 percent of those congregations located in neighborhoods where more than half of the residents received welfare reported a significant increase in demand, while 12 percent of those in neighborhoods where no one received welfare also reported such an increase.

Table VIII

Percentage of Families Receiving Welfare by Demand for Social Services

Percentage Local Families Receiving Welfare

Demand for Social Programs

More than half Half Less than half None

Less 5.0 2.9 11.6 13.3

Same 25.7 31.1 33.4 36.7

More 51.1 52.4 46.5 38.0

Significantly More 17.8 13.6 8.6 12.0

Total 100% (101) 100% (103) 100% (536) 100% (150)

Chi Square sig.=.003

Congregations felt themselves certainly capable of maintaining the current level of services, but many also saw themselves capable of increasing what they did. Only 1.8 percent thought their congregation would provide fewer services in the next two years, 35.8 percent that they would provide the same level of services and 62.4 percent that they would provide more services. Of those who foresaw an increase, 31.6 percent thought that it would be up to ten percent more, 34.3 percent between eleven and twenty percent, 22 percent between twenty-one and fifty percent more and 12.2 percent that services would increase over fifty percent. Furthermore, 68.8 percent thought it very likely that the congregation would actually increase its support of such programs, 29.4 percent thought it somewhat likely, and only 1.9 percent not very or not at all likely.

IX shows the various reasons given for expanded programs. Increased need was the most often given single reason followed by increased likelihood of coalitions.

Table IX

Reasons for Increasing Programs

Congregational/regional leaders pressure 48.5

Likelihood of greater cooperation through coalitions/partnerships 67.6

Needs of poor becoming more severe 71.2

New funding opportunities 45.1

Other 73.0

When these reasons were examined, controlling for the size of the staff or congregation, in all cases but one there were no significant differences. That is, large congregations or congregations with larger staffs were as likely to mention each answer as were smaller ones. Only the question concerning the greater likelihood of cooperation through coalitions or partnerships showed a difference, albeit not a large one. Approximately 60 percent of the smallest congregations (under 70 members) mentioned this compared to approximately 72 percent of the ones with memberships over 150 participants.

While a higher percent (73%) of those asked said that there were reasons other than those in the pre-structured questions for their plans to increase services, the open-ended responses revealed a remarkable consistency in their reasons. Social ministry was a spiritual imperative, and the respondents saw an increased need for what they did. Many also mentioned that their congregation was growing so there was a natural increase in what they could do.

The reason would be because of our philosophy of ministering. The Lord gives us and we give out so long as we continue to grow.

We just believe that it's the heartbeat of ministry. We believe we have to meet the needs of the spirit, soul and body. A spark is starting in the congregation.

The growth of our congregation, as it grows we get more resources and volunteers to provide these services.

Table X shows the reasoning of the 397 people who felt that their congregation would not be able to
increase supports for social programs. Overwhelmingly people cited limited resources rather than absence of demand. In all 83.1 percent of those who felt that they could not expand their program mentioned a lack of resources (money/volunteers/skills or space).

Table X

Reasons Why Program Cannot Be Expanded

Lack of money 66.2

Lack of volunteers 59.8

Lack of skills and training 51.7

Lack of sufficient interest 32.8

Lack of sufficient demand in community 29.4

Lack of space or facilities 52.9

Other 40.3

Here there were two significant differences found by congregational size. Smaller congregations were more likely to mention the absence of money and volunteers compared to the larger ones. Approximately 78 percent of the congregations with memberships of 70 or below mentioned the lack of money compared to 52 percent of those with memberships of over 375 people. About 76 percent of the smallest congregations mentioned the absence of volunteers compared to 50 percent of the largest ones.

Again the open-ended responses were instructive. Many here mentioned that social ministry/services programs fell outside the mandate of their church. Many others mentioned limitations in resources.

The reason that we don't get involved in these social programs is that because Biblically, we don't have the authority. But, as individuals we are very active.

God is calling us to do something different.

We are a small church and we are dying.

Conclusion

The results of this study show first the large diversity in the size and resources of the religious congregations in the state of California. Perhaps because of the use of multiple sources to establish the sampling frame of congregations, the study is able to show how very small many congregations are in the state. The results also show that many congregations cannot count on the assistance of even one full-time staff person. It is not to be expected that congregations without adequate staffing could apply for CalWorks dollars, administer a program, or keep up with reporting requirements.

Results from the survey of congregations show next that overwhelmingly congregations do not participate in Charitable Choice programs or indeed in any program that is publicly funded. They do not participate because they do not know about the possibility of participation, because they are concerned about how the requirements of participation might affect their traditional religious mission, and because they mistrust their abilities to conform to the red-tape that accompanies
government dollars. They further lack the resources to participate without assistance. But of even more importance, they do not participate because they have not been encouraged to do so.

Yet, these organizations are heavily involved in performing many of the same services that a welfare-to-work program would include, although undoubtedly in a less-structured form. They minister to the poor as part of their spiritual mission and because they see the need. They see the demand for what they do in helping the poor as growing and they largely feel that they are capable of meeting the increased demand.

Clearly, some of the organizations in this study have the organizational capacity to operate under a Charitable Choice contract. They already administer substantial budgets, manage diverse programs that serve low-income populations, and count on a great deal of volunteer time. But even these programs may have problems because of the amount of paid staff time available to apply for and administer the contracts. The smaller congregations would require even more assistance to fit their organizational capacities into the requirements of a government-funded program.

Collaborations or partnerships with social service or other organizations would help many of the congregations with interest in participation in conforming to the strictures of a CalWorks contract or arrangement. As documented above, many already have experience with collaborative or partnered work. As also shown, the larger congregations see the possibility of expanded partnerships as increasing what they are capable of doing.

But to say a congregation could take on a Charitable Choice program does not say whether they should. There is no easy answer to whether congregations should increase their participation in welfare-to-work programs. Certainly the findings show that almost half of the congregations have reservations about participation. The concerns expressed by the religious leaders in this study are real, but they are also based on an absence of information. At bare minimum there is a need for a collaboration between public and religious entities in providing this information, that is, in telling congregations realistically what would be required of them and what would be available to help them expand the services they are already providing. Knowledge that they could count on assistance in preparing the grant and in handling its reporting requirements would also remove one substantial barrier to participation.

Congregations in the study were asked to indicate their amount of agreement to the statement: meeting the needs of the poor demands collaboration between government, the religious community, and the secular community. Their answers show their collective belief in the need for all these groups. Only 5 percent disagreed strongly with this statement, 8.4 percent disagreed somewhat while 52.3 percent agreed strongly with it and 34.3 percent agreed somewhat. This study, echoing the work done by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, documents that there is a calling in much of the religious community to minister to the poor and a belief in the need for partnerships among the three major sectors of society. Faith-based organizations, however, do not have the resources to carry the full or even partial burden of that calling on their own. Providing monetary incentives through welfare to work contracts or vouchers does not remove the resource issue, since it requires an existing organizational capacity on the part of the congregation and may move them in directions in which they are disinterested. Instead, the real challenge is to create more opportunities for partnerships between social service organizations and the religious community.

References

Bartkowski, John P.; and Helen A. Regis. (1999) Religious Organizations, Anti-Poverty Relief and Charitable Choice: A Feasibility Study of Faith-Based Welfare Reform in Mississippi. Grant Report. Arlington, VA.: PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Business of Government.

Center for Public Justice. (1997) A Guide to Charitable Choice: The Rules of Section 104 of the 1996 Federal Welfare Law Governing State Cooperation with Faith-Based Social Service Providers. Washington DC: The Center for Public Justice and the Center for Law and Religious Freedom.

Chaves, Mark. (1999a) "Congregations' Social Service Activities." Charting Civil Society. No. 6, Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute.

Chaves, Mark. (1999b) "Religious Congregations and Welfare Reform: Who Will Take Advantage of "Charitable Choice?" American Sociological Review. Vol 64: 836-846.

Chaves, Mark; Konieczny, Mary Ellen; Beyerlein, Kraig; and Emily Barman. (1999) "The National Congregations Study: Background, Methods and Selected Results." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 38(4): 458-476.

Cnaan, Ram, A. (1997) Social and Community Involvement of Religious Congregations Housing in Historic Religious Properties: Findings from a Six City Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work.

Hodgkinson, Virginia A; and Murray S. Weitzman, (1993) From Belief to Commitment: The Community Service Activities and Finances of Religious Congregations in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Independent Sector.

Orr, John. (2000) Faith Based Communities and Welfare Reform: California Religious Community Capacity Study. University of Southern California, Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

Printz, Tobi Jennifer. (1998) "Faith-Based Service Providers in the Nation's Capital: Can They Do More?" Charting Civil Society. No. 2, Washington, D.C. The Urban Institute.

United States Census Bureau (May, 2000) "State and County QuickFacts." www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/countypop.html. [September 14, 2000].

Addendum

CALIFORNIA SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS

CONGREGATIONS

On Behalf of The California Council of Churches

Metropolitan Anthony

Greek Orthodox Church

Diocese of San Francisco

Rev. Charles Blaisdell

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Northern California/Nevada Region

Rt. Rev. Frederick Borsch

Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles

Rev. Robin Crawford

Presbytery of San Francisco

Bishop Paul Egerston

Evangelical Lutheran Church

Southern California/Western Synod

Rev. Mary Susan Gast

United Church of Christ

No Ca./Nevada Conference

Dr. Thomas Goble

Church of the Nazarene

Anaheim District

Frank Hudson

Catholic Charities

Archdiocese of San Francisco

Glen Cole

Assemblies of God

Northern California/Nevada District

Iftekhar A. Hal

United Muslims of America

Dr. William Hoyt

Southwest Baptist Conference

Mary Elva Smith

Presbytery of San Diego

Bishop Melvin G. Talbert

United Methodist Church

California/Nevada Conference

Rabbi David Teitelbaum

Board of Rabbis of

Northern California

This California Survey of Religious Congregations is being conducted to determine the views of congregations and other religious organizations about the underlying problems which plague the poor or needy given the change in government sponsored welfare programs. It is being conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley on behalf of the California Council of Churches and the University of San Francisco, Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management, with funding from The James Irvine Foundation.

Regardless of the role you believe religious congregations should play in providing support to the needy, it is clear that important changes are taking place in the way our country and our communities are thinking about this issue. The religious community has always played an important role in supporting the underprivileged. Many legislators and other policy makers now believe that our community can play an even larger role and fill in gaps that may have been created by the changes in the welfare system. However, there have been no studies to assess whether the religious community can or will expand its involvement.

We recognize that there are many different perspectives on the role of religious groups in providing aid to the needy. It is important that all of these perspectives be recognized and heard. This study on the capacity and willingness of religious organizations to respond to changes in the welfare system will help us understand, for the first time, the response of the religious community from the perspective of the religious leaders of individual congregations. Your cooperation is critical to the success of this research. Your participation is voluntary and any information you share will be kept confidential.

Your cooperation will help all of us, religious leaders, political leaders at the state and local levels, leaders of individual congregations, and the members of your congregation, gain a better understanding of the role the religious community can play in addressing these critical social issues. Please help.

A study interviewer will be calling you in the near future to complete a telephone interview at your convenience.

In order for the interviewer to reach you at the most convenient time, please take a moment to fill out the enclosed postcard and return it to us today or call Pat Moore collect at (510)643-5220.

Thank you for your cooperation.

CALIFORNIA SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS

Introduction and Verification

I. A. If no name, what is the name of the most senior pastor or religious leader?

Enter name: ____________________

I. AA. May I speak to [Name or the most Senior Pastor or Religious Leader]?

Yes

No [Ask for time to callback]

Hello, this is _____________ and I'm calling from the University of California for the California Council of Churches about the Survey of Congregations.

You may remember receiving a letter we sent recently about this survey. [Paraphrase: The Council of Churches is conducting this survey to determine religious congregations and organizations' views about the underlying problems plaguing the poor as the result of the change in government sponsored welfare programs.]

I want to assure you that all individual answers will be kept completely confidential. They will never be publicly released, seen by the California Council of Churches or by any other agency except the Survey Research Center of the University of California at Berkeley.

I'd like to verify some information about your congregation or organization.

1. What is the name of the congregation or organization?

2. What is your own full name? [Or: "What is the name of the senior religious leader or organization head?"]

3. What is your title? [Or: "What is that person's title?"]

4. Let me confirm the accuracy of our information about street address and so forth. [Read street address, city, state, zip code, phone number including area code.]

5. What type of organization is this?

Religious congregation or faith community

Faith-based nonprofit (service) provider

Other (SPECIFY)

6. What best describes the religious affiliation or perspective of your congregation [organization]?

Protestant (Go to 6A)

Roman Catholic

Jewish(Go to 6B)

Eastern Orthodox (PROBE: Catholic)

Mormon/Latter Day Saints

Buddhist (Go to 6C)

Hindu (Go to 6C)

Muslim/Islam (Go to 6C)

Other (SPECIFY: ________) (Go to 6C)

6 A. Which protestant denomination?

(Do NOT READ THESE CATEGORIES)

Baptist... 1

Church of God (Disciples of Christ). 2

Community Churches... 3

Episcopal.. 4

Jehovah's Witness. 5

Lutheran 6

Methodist.. 7

Pentecostal (all) 8

Presbyterian.. 9

Unitarian/Universalist.. 10

United Church of Christ.. 11

Other (SPECIFY: ___________________________). 12

6 B. (Jewish) Is it...

(READ CATEGORIES)

Orthodox.. 1

Conservative 2

Reform. 3

Other. 4

6 C. (All others) PLEASE SPECIFY GROUP OR BRANCH:

Attitudes and Awareness

READ: Some religious congregations have social ministry or social service programs for the poor and other needy people, others provide aid more informally, and others do not engage in this kind of activity. In this survey, we are only interested in finding out what congregations [faith-based organizations] do or don't do. This study takes no position on what congregations [organizations] should or shouldn't do.

7. In this regard, how strongly do you think your congregation [organization) would agree or disagree with the following four statements:

7.A. Care for the needy should be provided by private agencies including religious congregations and organizations, and government should have little or no role in providing such services.

Agree strongly

Agree somewhat

Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly

7.B. The religious community, the secular community, and government all have roles in supporting the needy, but the religious community should not work directly with government in providing these services.

Agree strongly

Agree somewhat

Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly

7.C. Meeting the needs of the poor demands collaboration between government, the religious
community, and the secular community.

Agree strongly

Agree somewhat

Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly

7.D. Government should play the leading role in meeting the needs of the poor.

Agree strongly

Agree somewhat

Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly

8. In 1996, Congress passed and the President signed a law changing the system of providing

welfare-related services to the poor and other needy persons. That law included a section called "the Charitable Choice provision," which allows and encourages states and local governments to use religious congregations and other faith-based organizations to help welfare families become self-sufficient.

8.A. How familiar are you with the Charitable Choice provisions of this 1996 law?

Very familiar

Somewhat familiar

Not very familiar

Not at all familiar (Skip to 9)

8.B. Have you received any information on Charitable Choice, through written materials,

meetings, and so forth, from any of the following sources?

Local county of city government Yes No

State government Yes No

Your religious group (for example, diocese, district, judicatory Yes No

Any other source (SPECIFY) Yes No

8.C. Have they urged or encouraged you to take part in the Charitable Choice programsfor example, by contracting with government to provide services to people on welfare?

Yes (Go to 8C1)

8.C.1 Was it

a. Local county or city government

b. State government

c. Your religious group (for example, diocese, district, judicatory)

d. Some other source

8.D. Have you in fact entered into any working arrangements with a government agency under the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 law?

No (Go to 8D1)

Yes

8.D.1 Have you tried to enter into a working arrangement with a government agency?

Yes

9. Within the last five years, has your congregation [organization] applied for government funds of any type to support social ministry or social service activities?

No [to Q1O]

Yes

What was the result?

Received some government funds

Was turned down

Decision is pending

[to Q 11]

Don't know [to Q 11]

10. Were any of the following reasons for not applying for government funds?

A. This type of work is not a priority for our congregation Yes No

B. This congregation has created or supports other organizations to do this Yes No

C. Theological or philosophical objections to using government funds Yes No

D. Concern about government controls, bureaucracy, red tape, etc. Yes No

E. Lack of staff or volunteers to apply Yes No

F. Lack of space for more activities Yes No

G. Anything else (SPECIFY: __________________________________________)

11. Is your congregation [organization] part of a larger regional religious group such as a diocese, district, or judicatory?

No [to Q13]

Yes

12 Which of the following three statements best describes this larger religious group's approach to your social ministry or social service programs?

This larger group does not promote these programs..1

This larger group recommends that we have such programs but leaves the specifics to

us. .2

This larger group suggests specific kinds of programs. 3

Delivery of Services

13. Now I'd like to ask you some questions about social ministry or social service programs for the poor or and needy that your congregation [organization] may currently be operating. Which, if any, of the following programs for the needy is your congregation [organization] currently operating or involved in?

I 3. A. Emergency Needs - First, lets talk about emergency needs that is those needs provided to individuals right away or within 24 hours. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

13.A.1 Food pantry or other ways of providing food Yes (Go to 14) No

13.A.2 Sleeping/homeless shelter or vouchers for short-term residence Yes (Go to 14) No

13.A.3 Emergency clothing Yes (Go to 14) No

13.A.4 Emergency transportation Yes (Go to 14) No

13.A.5 Emergency medical care Yes (Go to 14) No

13.A.6 Money/cash assistance Yes (Go to 14) No

13. B. Ongoing Basic Needs - Now we will ask about programs to meet ongoing basic needs. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

13.B. 1 Meals on wheels or some other food programs Yes (Go to 14) No

13.B.2 Shelter and household support (housing projects,

rent supplements, etc.) Yes (Go t6 14) No

13.B.3 Transportation (for shopping, medical appointments, work, etc.) Yes (Go to 14) No

13. C. Family Support Needs - Now we will ask about programs to support family needs. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

13.C.1 Child and/or adult day care, after-school programs, etc Yes (Go to 14) No

1 3.C.2 Family substitute or supplement (adoption, foster cave, group homes,

violence intervention, etc.) Yes (Go to 14) No

13.C.3 Mentoring, big brother/sister, etc. Yes (Go to 14) No

l3.D. Educational and Training Needs Now we will ask about programs for education and training. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

l3.D.l Job/vocational training (technical, computer, etc.) Yes (Go to 14) No

l3.D.2 Job search and transition-to-work skills Yes (Go to 14) No

13.D.3 Language, literacy, citizenship training Yes (Go to 14) No

13.D.4 Tutoring, preparing for GED (high school equivalency exam) Yes (Go to 14) No

13.D.5 Scholarships for the poor and needy Yes (Go to 14) No

1 3.E. Health Needs - Now we will ask about programs to meet health needs. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

I 3.E. I General medical and preventive health care for the needy (screening, clinic, hospice, health education programs, wellness programs) Yes (Go to 14) No

I 3.E.2 Special health services (drug and other substance abuse,

rape, prison support, etc.) Yes (Go to 14) No

I 3.F. Community Needs- Now we will ask you about programs to meet community needs. Do you currently operate this service or social program either solely or in partnership or coalition with others?

13.F. 1 Advocacy on behalf of the poor and needy

(poverty/welfare rights, racial justice) Yes (Go to 14) No

13 .F.2 Community organization, civic/neighborhood improvement,

voter registration, legal aid, community policing Yes (Goto.14) No

13.F.3 Economic development programs such as job creation programs Yes (Go to 14) No

I 3.G. Do you provide any other programs, of any type, for the poor

and needy which have not been mentioned? Yes (SPECIFY)(Go to 14) No

14. Is this provided by...

your congregation [organization]

as part of a coalition or partnership

or both?

14 A. During the last two years, would you say there has been less, more, or significantly more demand by your congregation or in the community for these kinds of services and social programs?

Less demand

More demand

Significantly more demand

Capacity of the Congregation

Now I'd like to ask you to look ahead a bit, at what your congregation [organization] can and will do.

15. Within the next two years, which of the following three statements bests describes what you think your congregation [organization], will be able to

maintain the current services/social programs provided to the poor and needy? (Go to 18)

provide less services/social programs to the poor and needy? (Go to 18)

provide more services/social programs to the poor and needy (Go to Q16)?

16. Approximately how much more?

Up to 10% more

11-20% more

21-50% more

51% or more

17. How likely is it that the congregation [organization] will actually increase its support of such programs? (Go to 19)

Very likely (Go to 17A)

Somewhat likely (Go to 17A)

Not very likely (Go to 18)

Not at all likely (Go to 18)

I 7.A. Are any of the following reasons why you might expand or increase your social services or social ministry programs?

17.A.1 Congregational and regional leaders are

pressing for more outreach and social service/programs Yes No

I 7.A.2 Likelihood of greater cooperation with others

through coalitions or partnerships Yes No

I 7.A.3 The needs of poor people in our community

are getting more severe Yes No

I 7.A.4 We could take advantage of new funding opportunities Yes No

17.A.5 Other reason Yes No

18. Are these principal reasons why you unable to increase support?

18.A. Lack of money Yes No

18.B. Lack of volunteers to do work Yes No

18.C. Lack of the skills/training to perform services Yes No

18.D. Lack of sufficient interest Yes No

18.E. Lack of sufficient demand for these services in our community Yes No

18.F. Lack of space or facilities Yes No

18.G. Some other reason (SPECIFY ____________________________

19. In addition to what you have already said, do you think your congregation [organization] would consider entering into either a coalition or more coalition-based social ministry or social service programs?

Definitely yes

Probably yes

Probably not

Definitely not

20. Approximately what is your current operational budget (Exclude expenses for new buildings or other major capital expenses)?

$___________________

21 About what percentage of this expenditure goes to your congregation's [organization's] social ministry or social services programs, either operated by your congregation or payments your congregation made to coalition-based programs?

________________% to social ministry/services

Don't know (accept amount $__________________)

22. How many paid full-time equivalents (FTEs) staff members are currently employed by the congregation [organization]?

# ____________________

23. What is your best estimate of how much volunteer time members of your congregation gave to social ministry or social service programs during the past 12 months?

AS NEEDED: [Thinking of the approximate number of volunteers involved and the average amount of time given, what is your best estimate of the total amount of time volunteered for such programs?)

Up to 100 hours

l0I-500 hours

501-1,000 hours

1,001-5,000 hours

5001-10,000 hours more than 10,000 hours

24. About how many adults and children participate in the worship life or activities of this congregation [organization]? Include members and non-members.

# ____________________

25. [For congregations only] Approximately what percentage of these participants, if any, are receiving public welfare benefits such as cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid?

26. [For congregations only) Approximately what percentage of these participants are

under $20,000 per year? ____

$20,000-100,000? ____

$100,000-250,000? ____

more than $250,000? ____

27. [For congregations only] Approximately what percentage of these participants are

White/Caucasian ____

Black/African American ____

Hispanic/Latino ____

Asian Pacific Islander ____

Native American/Indian ____

Other ____

28. [For congregations only] Approximately what percentage immigrated to the United States within the last two years?

________________%

29. [For congregations only] Approximately what percentage of your adult participants

have 4-year college degrees?

have high school diplomas?

didn't graduate from high school?

30. About how many families in the neighborhood surrounding the location of your congregation [organization] receive public welfare benefits such as cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.? Would you say...

more than half?

about half?

less than half?

none?

We have only a few more questions.

31. How would you describe your congregation's (organization's] current financial health?

Excellent

Good

Fair, having some difficulty

Poor, having serious difficulty

32. How would you describe your congregation's [organization's] financial health two years ago, in 1998?

Excellent

Good

Fair, having some difficulty

Poor, having serious difficulty

33. Are you [or "Is the senior religious leader (or head of the organization}] paid or volunteer?

Paid

Volunteer

34. Are you [or "Is the senior religious leader (or head of the organization primarily}] full-time or part-time?

Full time

Part time

These are all the questions we have.

Thank you for your help with this research.