The White House is supporting the idea that faith-based organizations can apply for and get federal funding to provide social services. Here are some issues related to that:

1. What does 'faith-based organizations' mean?
2. What are the possible motives behind this initiative (possible candidates: Christian resolve, belief in the importance of spirituality in healing, desire to build local social capital, favors for political support of Conservative Christian groups during the last campaign and for 2004, desire to reduce the 'red tape' of public welfare agencies . . . add your own)?
3. Churches are an important part of many communities' store of social capital. Why should they be prevented from receiving federal aid to serve people in their communities?
4. Should faith-based organizations receiving federal funding be able to discriminate (based on religious beliefs) in their hiring practices? Is there a difference between hiring for purposes of the grant, and hiring in general by the organization?
5. Will these organizations be allowed to use federal funds to proselytize (preach, convert, etc.)?
6. Is there a need to hold recipients of this aid accountable for the services they render? How would this happen (think of bureaucracies, all that 'red tape,' rules and such, and particularism).
7. Will this affect social workers, counselors, people with clinical degrees, and their ability to find work, or to use their training and skills?
8. Remember how the feds, in the 1960s, went around existing welfare bureaucracies to provide blacks in cities with resources (and remember the reasons they did this). Is this a variation on that theme, or something different?
9. Think back to the idea of the politics of welfare addressing who gets, what, when and how? Will federal funding give advantages to politically well-connected, larger organizations with resources for applying for funds? If so, how might this affect the program (you might think in terms of rural/urban, conservative/liberal, Christian/Non-Christian, different regions of the country, etc.)? In other words, could this become another form of corporate welfare? There is money being spent on efforts to 'level the playing field,' so to speak.
10. Could this program be used to support Conservative Christian groups more likely to vote Republican? What kind of research could we do to test this hypothesis?
11. Will the money coming from the federal government make these organizations more political? Will they become more dependent on the feds for money?
12. Some organizations receiving funding have strong political ties to Republicans, and engage in political lobbying for conservative causes. Would they still be tax-exempt?
13. In terms of developing social capital, what happens if the funding stream runs dry (for example, the Republicans lose in 2004 and the Democrats dramatically scale back funding)? What happens in communities whose welfare services and safety nets have become more dependent on federal funding?
14. What happens to public welfare agencies? Will their budgets be slashed if the faith-based initiatives grow?
15. Wouldn't the patch approach lend itself to the funding of faith-based initiatives?
16. Who will sit on the review committees that decide who gets the money? Will they represent diverse views?
17. Is there anything wrong with people receiving help from churches and other faith-based organizations and coming away with a more spiritual outlook?
18. Is anyone making any effort to evaluate the success of these efforts? How would you go about evaluating their success? What kinds of questions might you ask?

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Some resources:

• Associated Press. 2004. Bush seeks billions for religious groups. January 15. Online at http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040115/pl_afp/us_politics_bush_040115193416 or try here
• Funding made available to help organizations develop competitive grant proposals
• For a mere $4.95, you too can gain access to the many funds being made available to faith-based and community organizations! (and if you act now . . . )
• This is a good FAQ (frequently asked questions) from the White House
• Federal Register notice (describes some of the dos and donts)
• President Bush does end-around on funding of faith-based organizations (Washington Post, by Dana Milbank)
• Let the faith-based funding begin (Pat Robertson's group is one of the first recipients, from the Washington Post)
• One of the recipients, Pat Robertson, who has a small cable TV empire, ran for President, and initially criticized the faith-based initiative, among other things.
• The old point man, John DiIulio, for faith-based initiatives--an insider's perspective
• John DiIulio's strange turnabout
• Fox News' reporting of DiIulio's recanting (I tried to find a more reputable news source, but couldn't)
• The new point man for faith-based initiatives
• The White House's FBCI page
• Hints of the underlying politics (from the Prospect)
• Possible perils of de-bureaucratizing welfare (from the Prospect)
• In defense (from the new chief, on the Heritage Foundation Website)