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 Studyt