Faith Partners Transform Communities
The following comments are highlights from a seminar, “Faith Partners Transform Communities,” featuring how private foundations partner with faith-based organizations. This seminar was part of the Annual Council on Foundations, held in Dallas, in April 2003. [To hear this complete seminar, visit www.softconference.com/storefront/230428.]
Seminar speakers included Carol Goss, Vice President of Programs for The Skillman Foundation; Carol Thompson, Senior Program Associate of The Annie E. Casey Foundation; Robert Franklin, Consultant for The Annie E. Casey Foundation; and Michael Nabors, Senior Pastor of NewCalvaryBaptistChurchin Detroit.
For ease of reading, the panelists’ comments are summarized and presented in bullet points.
Ø Commenting on work at The Skillman Foundation, Ms. Goss said philanthropies are learning to partner with faith-based organizations to strengthen their work and expand philanthropies’ roles. While right now discrete grants are being made, she said, Skillman wants to take funding to a new level. The foundation wants its assistance to be “systemic and long lasting.”
Ms. Goss said Skillman is in the third year of a five-year commitment to partner with clusters of faith-based organizations that are working in neighborhoods. They fund eight clusters made of 40 churches in Detroitthat represent 700 families and children. In addition to funding, Skillman provides technical assistance and evaluation to the clusters.
Ø Ms. Thompson, said The Annie E. Casey Foundation began focusing on funding to faith-based groups in 1999 when it had “an epiphany.” Change in communities involved faith organizations working on the ground level. “Our point of view is that faith matters,” she said.
In discussing Casey’s history, Thompson explained that the foundation realized that they could maximize the influence of faith-based organizations because FBOs have social capital, community investments, strength in the community and neighborhood resources. Casey decided to work only in existing areas where the faith-based organizations felt they needed help. They also wanted to support inter-connections among faith-based organizations. And they provided research and technical assistance to them.
Ø Robert Franklin, a Casey consultant, praised the foundation for its willingness to enter the realm of funding faith-based organization. “It’s a complex social terrain,” Franklinsaid. “Many foundations are still having that conversation about faith and funding and the motivation of faith in changing lives.”
Mr. Franklin outlined Casey’s “Making Connections” program which is now underway in 22 sites. Working with National Seminary, they compiled a demographic map of “congregations in each community and “the role of the congregations’ leaders to determine who was mobilizing people in the community. Visit Casey’s website at www.aecf.org to access a related workbook called “National Horizon.” This workbook contains:
§ descriptions of the policy environment in which the faith-based organizations work;
§ how their work impacts neighborhoods;
§ case studies in six areas examining how faith based organizations work in a community;
§ a directory with contact information.
Franklin said there is an anxiety over the separation of church and state issue when foundations consider working with faith-based organization. The faith community is surprised and taken back by how that debate derails the work for suffering kids, he said.
Expanding on that point, Franklin explained, “It’s important to identify ‘wise elders’ and urge them to preach restraint to the faith community because part of the anxiety that drives this derailing conversation about faith disrespecting American democracy and American First Amendment concerns is that faith will not simply bring its passion into the public square and do all sorts of good things that we see here. It’s on the other side. It’s faith proselytizing. It’s faith bringing its spiritual message and insisting that everyone at least pay attention, if not embrace it.
“I think we all share anxiety about that. And yet there are theological messages about restraint within these traditions that the gurus of the tradition say, ‘Hey if you look at what Martin Luther King was doing in the public square, he was talking about faith in the public square, but it’s not imposing Christian values upon American public life.’
“It is rather faith creating the kind of community and society that provides faith for all, including non-conformists, including theists, including people who don’t share your theological perspective, but who are concerned about the future of our kids.”
He continued, “I think it is this issue of pressing the agenda on behalf of the poor and the voiceless. It is demanding justice and social righteousness and accountability by American corporations and government and affluent individuals. Who is going to raise that issue as you think about the good of your city? Who has the moxie and the track record of service and the masses of people to back it up? In fact, it is that set of houses of worship, when they are at their best, that are pushing the concern for who is being left out. I think the just agenda is the agenda we want and need the faith communities to advance. If they can do that, and be true to that, while functioning as effective non-profits with accountability and collaboration, then that’s a win-win and philanthropy can help make that happen,” Franklinsaid.
Ø Rev. Nabors of New Calvary Baptist Church in Detroitsaid it’s time to explore collaborations between foundations and houses of worship to learn how to maximize their impact of good will at the neighborhood level. He outlined seven ways foundations can get involved in a positive way.
Seven Ways Foundations Can Help
#1: Encourage and work with neighborhood clusters instead of individual churches.
#2: Help each house of worship identify its strengths.
#3: Help individual houses of worship develop community councils.
#4: Provide start up resources for cluster development that incorporate small churches.
#5: Provide resources for ongoing technical assistance and training.
#6: Teach clusters to develop 501 C3’s.
#7: Encourage clergy to come to the table and be part of the foundation plan.
A Different Perspective
Helen LaKelly Hunt, founder and president of at The Sister Fund in New Yorkoffered two points for caution and consideration:
Ø First, she said imposing values on grantees can be problematic. Many of the grass roots activists were leery about working with faith communities and the possible imposition of their values. Commenting further, Ms. Hunt added that The Sister Fund decided to listen to each of its grantees and ask if they include spirituality as part of their program. Is faith a part of their mission? Yes, she discovered. It was sort of a closeted part of their work because funders are worried about faith as an element of grantees’ work. But she said she found it liberating to ask questions about faith instead of imposing our views of religion and faith.
Second, ecclesiastical structures are viewed by some as among the greatest opponents of women, and so having places of worship as supporters of women’s rights issues has been tricky for them. But many faith-based organizations have closeted support for women’s issues, they just don’t know how to bring faith into their work on women’s rights issues, especially reproductive rights issues.
Ms. Hunt raised the question: What is the role of prayer in this? When philanthropies began, prayer was a part of philanthropy. But there’s been a “Hegelian swing” away from that. Her staff prays together for their grantees when they send out a check, but it’s an anonymous intercessory of prayer because the grantee doesn’t know they’ve blessed the check.
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