November 4, 2002

Faith-based funding moving ahead
___By Adelle Banks
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Fourteen months after issuing its audit citing the need for improved relationships between government and faith-based organizations, the Bush administration is moving ahead with conferences, grant disbursements and training efforts to enhance public/private partnerships.
___At a conference on faith-based social services, administration officials updated an audience of about 200 scholars and religious leaders on their work.
___Tens of millions of dollars in grants have been announced by the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services while other Cabinet-level departments are fostering efforts to get community and faith-based groups more involved in education, justice and housing programs.
___Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said his office, along with its five department-based centers, has begun regional training conferences with a large turnout at an Oct. 10 event in Atlanta.
___"We turned away 1,000 people and still had about 2,000 people there," he reported at an Oct. 23 conference sponsored by the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy.
___The roundtable is a research project of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., and is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
___The administration's educational efforts are continuing even as legislation aimed at broadening Bush's initiative is stalled.
___Towey said he failed to understand the critics of the initiative and hopes the Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment Act, which has been mired in the Senate, will still pass.
___"It is unfortunate," he said. "The real losers in this and the ones being held hostage are our poor."
___But work on the administrative level--spurred by an August 2001 audit indicating barriers between faith-based groups and government--includes new brochures, such as one from the Labor Department whose cover reads, "Not everyone has a burning bush to tell them their life's calling."
___Brent Orrell, director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Labor Department, described a pilot program involving Prison Fellowship and other groups that is providing mentors to ex-offenders seeking employment.
___"We've gotten a group of employers to say, 'Yes, we will take people with felony records if you will provide them with community and faith-based support,'" he said.
___The Department of Education expects to enhance its work with faith-based and community groups to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, which seeks to close the achievement gap between poor and richer children.

The Baptist Standard



News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

---

Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook