Tracking Charitable Choice

November-December 1997

By Stanley W. Carlson-Thies

WASHINGTON, D.C.—What is happening with the Charitable Choice provision signed into law as part of federal welfare reform last year? States are supposed to let faith-based organizations compete for contracts and vouchers while safeguarding their religious identity. Are welfare agencies paying any attention to the new rules? Are congregations or religious nonprofits coming forward to cooperate with public welfare programs? Up to the present moment, only anecdotal evidence can be cited in response to these questions.

We are pleased, therefore, to announce the start of a major new project that will generate the first systematic information about Charitable Choice. Our project will track how states implement the Charitable Choice provision and what consequences the provision has for faith-based organizations. The project has been made possible largely by a generous grant from a major foundation, which supports projects in international affairs, domestic governance, and social services. One of the foundation's particular interests is the impact of welfare reform on poor families and children. Other foundations have funded extensive studies of every significant aspect of welfare reform except Charitable Choice. That crucial gap will now be filled.

The new research will focus on eight or nine states, including Texas, which has most aggressively embraced the Charitable Choice idea; California, Illinois, and New York, because of their large metropolitan areas; and Michigan and Mississippi, which have in different ways taken noteworthy steps to include faith-based organizations as part of their welfare programs. The project will draw on the unique expertise of Center trustee Stephen Monsma, author of When Sacred and Secular Mix: Religious Nonprofit Organizations and Public Money (1996); Amy Sherman, author of the just-released study of Christian urban ministries, Restorers of Hope; and Carl Esbeck, who recently published 'A Constitutional Case for Governmental Cooperation with Faith-based Social Service Providers" in the Emory Law Journal. The project has two main parts. One is an intensive examination of what states actually do with the Charitable Choice rules. Do they remove from their contracts the language that pressures faith-based organizations to downplay or remove religious elements from their programs? Do welfare officials seek ways to connect with the many religious organizations that in the past always maintained their distance for fear of losing their spiritual mission? Charitable Choice will remain only a good idea unless state and local welfare departments implement it vigorously.

The second part of the project is an extensive survey of faith-based organizations to determine the extent of their community outreach, what connections they have with public welfare programs, and whether their experience with public rules and funding has been positive or negative. We hope to learn whether faith-based organizations that already have cooperated with public programs now experience greater freedom to follow their religious mission. Do other ministries now feel confident that their religious identity will be protected? Will they begin to participate in contract or voucher programs? Will the legal protections of the Charitable Choice provision prove to be sufficient safeguards or do they need to be extended or strengthened?

The project begins immediately and will run for two years. Because the Charitable Choice provision is so new, this research will capture the earliest stages of its impact on state policies and faith-based organizations. The project is designed to be followed by a second phase that will extend the examination of state policies and repeat the survey to see how policies and experiences change over time.

The Center for Public Justice has been an advocate of the Charitable Choice principle. We believe that assisting needy neighbors is neither a task for government alone nor the sole responsibility of private service providers. Yet for cooperation to be genuine, government must respect the integrity of nongovernmental organizations and not require that they act as departments of government. Preserving the autonomy of nonprofit organizations is one of the goals of Charitable Choice.

Equally as important, Charitable Choice represents the conviction that the First Amendment requires nondiscrimination toward religious organizations, not enforced secularization, when government supports nonprofit service organizations. By means of this research project, we will begin to document and evaluate how the Charitable Choice provision works out in the practice of states and welfare agencies and in daily experience of faith-based organizations.

[Dr. Carlson-Thies, Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Justice, directs the Charitable Choice project. He also directed the just-completed Religious Social Sector project, funded in large part by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and the earlier Pew Charitable Trusts funded project on Welfare Responsibility.]