Product Description: Religion in Philanthropic Organizations explores the tensions inherent in religious philanthropies across a variety of organizations and examines the effect assumptions about "professional" philanthropy have had on how religious philanthropies carry out their activities...read more

Product Description: Debates on public policy in the United States are shaped, in part, by moral and religious commitments of individuals and communities. Heclo (2003) writes in Religion Returns to the Public Square, Government policy and religious matters ...read more

Product Description: Here is the story of Faith in Action, the acclaimed nationwide grant program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that brings together Americans of all faiths to provide volunteer care and support to those in their communities who are confined to their homes because of a chronic health condition or disability...read more

Too often, say its critics, U.S. domestic policy is founded on ideology rather than evidence. Take "Charitable Choice": legislation enacted with the assumption that faith-based organizations can offer the best assistance to the needy at the lowest cost. The Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act―buttressed by President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative of 2000―encouraged religious organizations, including congregations, to bid on government contracts to provide social services. But in neither year was data available to prove or disprove the effectiveness of such an approach.Charitable Choice at Work fills this gap with a comprehensive look at the evidence for and against faith-based initiatives. Sheila Suess Kennedy and Wolfgang Bielefeld review the movement's historical context along with legal analysis of constitutional concerns including privatization, federalism, and separation of church and state. Using both qualitative and, where possible, statistical data, the authors analyze the performance of job placement programs in three states with a representative range of religious, political, and demographic traits―Massachusetts, Indiana, and North Carolina. Throughout, they focus on measurable outcomes as they compare non-faith-based with faith-based organizations, nonprofits with for-profits, and the logistics of contracting before and after Charitable Choice.Among their findings: in states where such information is available, the composition of social service contractor pools has changed very little. Reflecting their varied political cultures, states have funded programs differently. Faith-based organizations have not been eager to seek government contracts, perhaps wary of additional legal restraints and reporting burdens.The authors conclude that faith-based organizations appear no more effective than secular organizations at government-funded social service provision, that there has been no dramatic change in the social welfare landscape since Charitable Choice, and that the constitutional concerns of its detractors may be valid. This empirical study penetrates the fog of the culture wars, moving past controversy over the role of religion in public life to offer pragmatic suggestions for policymakers and organizations who must decide how best to assist the needy.

Publisher's description: On January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. This action marked a key step toward institutionalizing an idea that emerged in themid-1990s under the Clinton administration--the transfer of some social programs from government control to religious organizations. However, despite an increasingly vocal, ideologically charged national debate--a debate centered on such questions as: What are these organizations doing? How well are they doing it? Should they be supported with tax dollars?--solid answers have been few. In Saving America? Robert Wuthnow provides a wealth of up-to-date information whose absence, until now, has hindered thepursuit of answers. Assembling and analyzing new evidence from research he and others have conducted, he reveals what social support faith-based agencies are capable of providing. Among the many questions he addresses: Are congregations effective vehicles for providing broad-based social programs, or are they best at supporting their own members? How many local congregations have formal programs to assist needy families? How much money do such programs represent? How many specialized faith-based service agencies are there, and which are most effective? Are religious organizations promoting trust, love, and compassion? The answers that emerge demonstrate that American religion is helping needy families and that it is, more broadly, fostering civil society. Yet religion alone cannot save America from the broad problems it faces in providing social services to those who need them most. Elegantly written, Saving America? represents an authoritative and evenhanded benchmark of information for the current--andthe coming--debate.

Product Description: For any individual donor or foundation giving money to a faith-based organization, this guide is indispensable. Equipping the Saints offers sage advice on recognizing the qualities of good leaders, effective programs, and the methods of evaluating outcomes...read more

Product Description: Rising Expectations examines the current attempts to enlist religious congregations as partners in social services and community development. It highlights stark demographic realities about urban congregations in order to challenge current assumptions about welfare reform and to encourage realistic expectations for the future...read more

Product Description: This volume collects several of Amy Sherman's published and unpublished reflections on "faith-based welfare reform". Part One estabishes why public policymakers should care about the faith community, including both a discussion of the specific contributions religious institutions are making to solve social problems and an analysis of how religious institutions are strengthening society's moral and cultural fibre...read more

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Product Description: Who will provide for America's children, elderly, and working families? Not since the 1930s has our nation faced such fundamental choices over how to care for all its citizens. Now, amid economic prosperity, Americans are asking what government, business, and nonprofit organizations can and can't do—and what they should and shouldn't be asked to do...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: This volume focuses on the spirituality and religious belief of clients within health and human service professions. The text addresses the challenge of understanding the client's perspective, even when it involves a religious tradition unfamiliar to the practitioner. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Book by Cherry, Conrad

Product Description: Miracle in Ethiopia: A Partnership Response to Famine

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Product Description: Book by Gulker, Virgil

Product Description: This history of the Salvation Army Men's Social Service Department covers the first century of its existence, and includes a bibliography of materials in the Salvation Army archives.