News Tip: Faith-Based Initiative Had Little Impact on Congregations' Social Service Activity, Says Duke Professor

President Obama is expected on Thursday to announce his version of the Office for Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which supports collaboration between government and religious groups to provide social services.

Using data from the first (1998) and second (2006-07) National Congregations Study (NCS), a survey of a nationally representative sample of congregations from across the religious spectrum, Duke University professor Mark Chaves says President Bush's faith-based initiative did not broadly change congregations' behavior in terms of social service activity or their role in the social welfare system.

"The data imply that the faith-based initiative probably increased congregations' interest in social service and government funding, but it did not increase congregations' social service activity, extent of collaboration with government or nonprofit organizations, or receipt of government funding," said Chaves, a professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke and lead researcher on the National Congregations Study.

"One goal of President Bush's Office of Faith Based Initiatives was to enhance the overall involvement of religious organizations, including congregations, with social services. But the initiative was based on faulty assumptions about the nature of congregations' involvement in human services.

"One fundamentally incorrect assumption was that there was untapped capacity for this sort of work among congregations who were not already doing it," Chaves said. "The data suggest, on the contrary, that no such untapped capacity exists. Eight years of trying to find and mobilize that capacity have produced no increased congregational role in the system. Congregations long have played an important but limited role in our social welfare system, and they still do. The faith-based initiative didn't change that role."

Chaves said Obama "should look for ways to better support the full mix of religious and secular organizations, including congregations, who already are out there doing this work, and to look for ways to strengthen the existing system through better integration among the religious and secular organizations that already play a big role in the social service arena. He should not make the mistake that the previous administration made of trying to bypass the currently active organizations or change administrative rules in a vain attempt to bring new religious organizations into the social services mix."

Chaves' paper about the Faith-Based Initiative's effect on congregations will be published in the journal Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.