Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can my house of worship or faith-based nonprofit apply for faith-based money?
2. Charitable Choice only covers a few federal programs, so what about all the other federal money?
3. Officials I talk to don’t know much about Charitable Choice or Equal Treatment, and think the faith-based initiative is mainly just politics. What should I do?
4. Our program includes prayer and scriptural teaching along with secular help. Is that OK under the new federal rules?
5. Isn’t the faith-based initiative really just an excuse to promote religious job discrimination?
6. Isn’t it unconstitutional to force religion on poor and vulnerable people?
7. Won’t the faith-based initiative make religion dependent on government?
8. Why should taxpayers have to pay for someone else’s religion?
9. Isn’t the faith-based initiative just a fancy name for the right-wing dream of shutting down welfare and turning the poor over to churches and charities?
10. Most federal money is awarded by state and local governments, not federal officials.  So isn’t all this attention to the federal faith-based initiative overblown?
11. Aren’t Charitable Choice and Equal Treatment just political slogans? Government has always funded religious organizations.
12. How can it be called a “level playing field” if faith-based organizations that integrate faith into their social services are still excluded from receiving federal support?

1. How can my house of worship or faith-based nonprofit apply for faith-based money?

There is no faith-based money—government money designated for religious organizations and no other competitors.  The new church-state standards of the faith-based and community initiative do not set aside government money for religious organizations.  Instead, the new rules create equal opportunity for faith-based organizations to compete for federal funds in the existing government programs in which officials buy social services from private groups.  Most federal funds are administered not by federal officials but by state and local officials.  These rules apply to federal social-service funds, whether the funds are used by federal, state, or local officials.  All of these officials are now required by law not to exclude faith-based applicants and to ensure that the regulations attached to the funds protect the religious freedom of both the providers and beneficiaries.

2. Charitable Choice only covers a few federal programs, so what about all the other federal money?

Charitable Choice is federal legal language ensuring equal opportunity for faith-based organizations, but it applies only to a few federal programs (welfare, core funding for community action agencies, and federal drug treatment money).  But the other federal programs are covered by very similar principles, called Equal Treatment principles, which are written into the rules of various federal departments.  Both sets of principles require that faith-based organizations have equal opportunity to compete for federal funds and ensure that they can retain their religious characteristics and continue to offer religious activities on a voluntary basis.  Both sets of principles require faith-based (and secular) organizations not to discriminate on the basis of religion against people seeking help and to keep inherently religious activities separate from the government-funded services (if a service is funded by vouchers, then beneficiaries may choose a faith-based service that includes religion).  The Charitable Choice and Equal Treatment rules apply whether it is federal, state, or local officials who administer the program that uses the federal money.

3. Officials I talk to don’t know much about Charitable Choice or Equal Treatment, and think the faith-based initiative is mainly just politics. What should I do?

Unfortunately, not all officials have paid attention to federal statutory and regulatory changes.  So equip yourself, using the information on this website—you might have to be the person who educates the officials.  But note that many states now have an office that can help you when you run into obstacles—a state office of faith-based and community initiatives.  There is also a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, too.  But at the federal level, a better place to start is with the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the federal department where the federal money originated (Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Justice, etc.).  Sometimes all that a resistant official may need is information from you, or from one of these specialized offices.  But the problem could lie deeper:  the official might be required to exclude your organization because a state or local law has not been brought into conformity with the applicable federal standards.  In that case, you may need to appeal to the official’s superior or to an elected official.  Be sure to keep the state faith-based office and the appropriate federal Center involved as you pursue solutions.

4. Our program includes prayer and scriptural teaching along with secular help. Is that OK under the new federal rules?

Religious activities are protected under the U.S. and state constitutions and, as the public and many officials acknowledge, programs of help with a religious dimension may be just what some people in crisis need.  Still, to protect the religious liberty of people needing help and because our governments are not permitted to establish religion, when the government directly funds a social service program by awarding a grant or contract, then that program cannot include religious activities.  However, your faith-based organization still can legitimately offer worship and religious teachings—as long as they are kept outside the government-funded program and the religious activities are voluntary.  Be careful to follow these rules, both because they are the requirements and as a way to honor the convictions of the diverse people who may turn to your organization for help. 

Occasionally social services are funded by government using vouchers or certificates.  That is commonly the case in child care.  When vouchers are the government’s funding mechanism, then religion can be incorporated into the services the government supports, because it is the beneficiary, and not a government official, who selects your organization to provide the help. 

If the direct funding rules are too restrictive for the kind of service your faith-based organization offers, don’t go after any of those grants or contracts but instead seek private support.  At the same time, consider asking officials if they can redesign their funding system to use an indirect method such as vouchers.

5. Isn’t the faith-based initiative really just an excuse to promote religious job discrimination?

In fact, under federal, state, and local civil-rights laws, faith-based organizations have the freedom to take account of religion when they select their staff, similar to the practice of elected officials declining to hire for their offices members of the opposite political party.  In some federal programs, in some states, and in some large cities, however, this freedom has to be given up as the price of accepting a government grant or contract.  But that restriction is by no means a general rule.  Moreover, sometimes a faith-based organization has recourse against the restrictions.  A faith-based organization considering taking part in a government program should look carefully at any restrictions that might be imposed on its employment policies.

Challenge the pejorative language of “religious job discrimination.”  Under the federal Civil Rights Act, it is not “discrimination” when a religious organization chooses to consider religion when it makes employment decisions.  Note, too, that, where it exists, the freedom to staff on a religious basis is a freedom of the faith-based organization—it isn’t a government action, but rather the government’s acknowledgement that this practice can be important to the religious identity of the organization and that the government does not know better than the organization how it can best carry out its operations.  If the government offers such an organization a grant or contract because the organization is the best supplier of a social service, the government is not “supporting discrimination” but rather buying the most effective help it can—from an organization that is legally and constitutionally entitled to staff on a religious basis.

6. Isn’t it unconstitutional to force religion on poor and vulnerable people?

It is! Under the U.S.  and state constitutions, the poor and vulnerable, like everyone else, are entitled to respect for their religious convictions. The faith-based initiative doesn’t go against that respect.  Rather, the faith-based initiative honors it with explicit requirements: providers cannot discriminate against recipients on the basis of their religion or lack of religion, and providers cannot force recipients to take part in religious activities such as prayer or Bible study.  When the program is governed by Charitable Choice, then the government must be prepared to offer a secular alternative if a recipient does not want to receive services from a religious provider. Consider this, too.  These new standards honor religious liberty in a positive sense, too. By removing barriers to the participation of religious service providers, they enlarge the variety of services that government can fund, making it more likely that people who prefer to be served by a faith-based organization can get such help.

7. Won’t the faith-based initiative make religion dependent on government?

The new church-state standards level the playing field so that faith-based organizations, if they choose to, can compete for government funds to provide social services without first suppressing their religious identity.  There is no requirement that a religious group must collaborate with the government. Still, if a faith-based organization does accept government funding, then it should take care not to become dependent on government—and it should take care not to become detached from the faith community that gave it birth.

Taking too much money from any one source (government, a foundation, a corporate donor, or a rich individual) makes any organization vulnerable. It is better to seek funds from a variety of sources, and to plan in advance what to do if a major source dries up or later adds unacceptable strings to the money.

At the same time, organizations have to be careful to nurture their ties with their original backers and supporters, who provide priceless guidance, enthusiasm, volunteers, and spiritual direction. Be careful so that no one begins to think that success in getting government funds means that the organization no longer values people who can contribute a few dollars, prayer, volunteer hours, and their wisdom.

Beyond that, the new church-state rules are designed to enable government and faith-based groups to become respectful allies in serving the needy, keeping religious providers from becoming mere arms of government—acting as if they were duplicates of government agencies.  Among other things, faith-based organizations, even if they receive government support, should, when necessary, advocate against officials on behalf of beneficiaries and appeal to elected officials for changes in policies. 

8. Why should taxpayers have to pay for someone else’s religion?

When government officials contract with a faith-based provider for social services, officials are not “buying religion” but rather making it possible for recipients to get help from an effective provider of services. Of course, those services will be shaped by the faith of the organization, just as the services offered by a secular provider are shaped by some secular viewpoint. Government’s concern, and the concern of taxpayers, is that the services be effective and that the rights of recipients be protected. The new church-state rules protect recipients and tell officials to select the most effective providers, whether secular or religious. And the rules specify that government contracts and grants have to be used to provide the specific services government is seeking, and not be diverted to pay for worship or evangelism.

It may bother some taxpayers that the government contracts with a Protestant or Jewish or Muslim provider.  But, of course, it bothers other taxpayers that the government gives so much money to secular organizations!  In any case, long before any faith-based initiative, the government routinely turned to religiously affiliated groups like Salvation Army, Jewish social services, Lutheran Services of America, and Catholic Charities to buy needed services. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that taxpayers have no general right to object when officials choose one provider or another or make other decisions that some taxpayers object to on moral grounds. How could government carry out its programs if each taxpayer had an individual right to refuse to support whatever programs and purchases he or she found objectionable?

9. Isn’t the faith-based initiative just a fancy name for the right-wing dream of shutting down welfare and turning the poor over to churches and charities?

Right-wingers will have to speak about their own dreams.  The faith-based initiative, in fact, does applaud privately funded social services and it urges corporations and foundations to be more open-minded about supporting faith-based organizations that so often play a vital role in neighborhoods and are often a first resort for people in crisis.  But a major effort of the faith-based initiative is to revise how the government spends its billions of dollars of social-service money—making sure that effective faith-based organizations have the same opportunity to win the grants and contracts as do secular competitors.  That’s a far cry from shutting down government social spending and dumping the poor on the doorsteps of churches!  Of course, if a faith-based provider offers great services for less cost so that the government can save money, who can object? And who can object if government doesn’t have to do so much in the future because religious and secular groups, using private funds, have become stronger, and because neighbors are doing a better job of supporting one another?  The best society isn’t the one with the highest government welfare spending but the one that best responds to need and best prevents poverty in the first place.

10. Most federal money is awarded by state and local governments, not federal officials.  So isn’t all this attention to the federal faith-based initiative overblown?

It is true: 80-90 percent of federal social service money is awarded to private organizations not by federal officials but by state or local officials.  Most federal social service money is transferred by block grants or formula grants to state or local governments, and then state or local officials award funds to private groups.  But those state and local officials are bound by the federal faith-based rules when they award that federal money, just as federal officials are bound. So a faith-based organization newly interested in working with the government because the federal faith-based initiative promises a level playing field should consider looking to a state or local government agency that uses federal funds to help the needy and distressed neighborhoods, instead of becoming one of several hundred or more competitors for the small amount of federal money that is awarded by federal officials in Washington, D.C. 

11. Aren’t Charitable Choice and Equal Treatment just political slogans? Government has always funded religious organizations.

Government collaboration with religious organizations has always been an important characteristic of the American social safety net. However, in the past, in principle (practice has always been more flexible), officials sought to work only with “religiously affiliated” or “religion sponsored” organizations, not groups that seemed to be “primarily religious” or “pervasively sectarian.”  They were worried that if the organization was “too religious,” then it would violate constitutional restrictions.  The courts have warned the government not to discriminate in this fashion, however.  Every variety of faith-based organization, along with secular groups, should be able to compete for government support, and every kind of organization is subject to the same rules:  no discrimination on the basis of religion in serving the needy, no diversion of government funds to religion instead of social services. 

The new church-state rules update government practice and clarify the freedoms and restrictions that apply when a faith-based organization becomes the government’s social-service partner.  The new rules were actually drafted as an antidote to unnecessary and unconstitutional restrictions in a variety of federal and state laws.  What’s new with Charitable Choice and the Equal Treatment regulations is not government support for religious organizations that provide social services but rather the specific freedoms and restrictions under which the government now provides the support.

12. How can it be called a “level playing field” if faith-based organizations that integrate faith into their social services are still excluded from receiving federal support?

Good question. The many reforms of the faith-based initiative, reforms made by Congress and by the executive branch during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, have eliminated a major barrier:  the old principle that an organization that seemed to be very religious, too religious, primarily religious, or pervasively sectarian was simply excluded from competing for government funds.  Now, officials are required, by law, to ignore whether an applicant is religious or secular and instead to ask how well the applicant will provide the designated services and whether it will follow applicable restrictions. 

So that’s a leveling of the playing field.  Still, a major restriction is this:  when the government money involved in a grant or contract, then a faith-based organization (or a secular group) that accepts the money must be sure to keep religious activities outside the social service funded by that government money.  Prayer is out.  Religious instruction is out.  Such religious activities can only be offered on a voluntary basis, separately from the government-supported service, and funded with private dollars.  Still, such voluntary religious activities are protected by the law, now, and that is also a gain.

What about the faith-based organization whose social services have religion built into them as a dimension of how the person is to be helped to get off drugs, or to overcome a promiscuous sex life, or to reconcile with others and leave a life of homelessness?  Such services cannot be funded with government grants and contracts.  But the courts have made it clear that such services can be funded by government “indirectly”—using vouchers or certificates:  methods by which the person needing the help, not the government, becomes the agent that chooses the provider.  In that circumstance, then religion can be part of the social service that the person chooses and that the government then funds.  The faith-based initiative has clarified this important alternative funding mechanism, and it has started to work out when a government service can better be funded through an indirect funding mechanism than by a direct funding method.  Some government services have for many years been funded indirectly (think of child care and of the places that have school-choice programs), and states and the federal government are experimenting with new indirectly funded programs.  Encourage your state, local, and federal officials to seriously consider indirect funding.