NEWS ANALYSIS: Studies Begin to Probe Effectiveness of Faith-Based Programs

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ In the long-running debate about faith-based organizations receiving government money, there are many questions. Do they violate church-state separation? Do they proselytize? Do they foster hiring discrimination? But the biggest question _ Are they more effective than secular groups? _ has prompted far more rhetoric than research. Slowly, […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ In the long-running debate about faith-based organizations receiving government money, there are many questions. Do they violate church-state separation? Do they proselytize? Do they foster hiring discrimination?

But the biggest question _ Are they more effective than secular groups? _ has prompted far more rhetoric than research.


Slowly, some specific studies are starting to shed light on the answer to that query.

Two studies discussed by scholars this fall give two different answers: No and sometimes. But in both cases there are caveats that show the research has only just begun.

An evaluation of data from 5,683 people involved in job training in two Indiana counties found that clients who were placed in jobs after being trained through faith-based providers were as likely to get employment and had similar wages as those trained through secular providers. But those clients of faith-based organizations were less likely to have health insurance and less likely to have full-time jobs.

Overall, 31 percent of clients who were in faith-based programs and were placed into jobs got full-time employment compared to 53 percent of clients in secular programs.

“It seems to me that the proponents have been arguing that faith-based providers are better,” Partha Deb, an associate professor of economics at Hunter College, told Religion News Service. “This evidence suggests that is not the case.”

Deb worked with other scholars on the Charitable Choice Research Project at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, one of the first to compare effectiveness of secular and faith-based providers of social services.

Despite the sizable number of people studied, Deb said the findings should be viewed cautiously because they only reveal the situation in two counties and they are only focused on one aspect of social service.


A separate study by Pepperdine University professors conducted on welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles offered more mixed results.

The study found that faith-based providers who explicitly integrated religious elements into their programs were most successful in helping boost clients’ sense of optimism and in keeping in touch with clients after the program had concluded. Employed participants in these kinds of programs also were the most likely to say they still had jobs six months later.

But the study also found that these kind of faith-based providers were least successful at moving clients off welfare.

“Those who … view religious organizations as a panacea are naive but, on the other hand, those who view religious agencies as absolutely inadequate are also wrong,” said Chris Soper, who co-authored the study with fellow political science professor Stephen Monsma.

Their findings were based on initial questionnaires completed by 436 people and followed up by interviews of 75 percent of them at six months. Eighty-one percent of those interviewed at six months were interviewed again at the 12-month point.

The researchers looked at 17 programs that fell into five categories: government-run, for-profit, secular nonprofit, and faith-based groups that either implicitly or explicitly included religious elements in their programs.


Since the unveiling of his White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives in 2001, President Bush has touted religiously linked programs as, at least, deserving a “level playing field” with secular programs. But in speeches before religious audiences, he sometimes has placed them at a higher level, calling them in an address to the National Religious Broadcasters “some of the most effective social programs in America.”

Detractors such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State have pointed out the lack of research as a reason to oppose the president’s efforts.

“Few studies have examined whether religious ministries are more successful than secular groups in providing aid or producing better results, and it is unwise to launch a major federal initiative with so little research in the area,” the group argued in a 2001 report, “The Bush `Faith-Based’ Initiative: Why It’s Wrong.”

Steven Rathgeb Smith, editor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, said one of the difficulties in determining effectiveness of programs is the wide range of services provided in both the secular and religious realms.

“There’s a lot of interesting case studies out there or anecdotal stories about what works and what doesn’t work,” said Smith, associate professor at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. “We’re only just beginning to have the research out there that would help us understand this very complicated area.”

As more studies like the ones done in Indiana and Los Angeles are completed, perhaps the debate will move from individual stories of success or failure to findings that can shape public policy.


Scholars like Soper and Monsma predict that policy may best be shaped by inclusion of a range of services, some faith-infused and some not.

At the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy’s fall research conference in Washington, Monsma painted a picture of a potential collaboration where for-profit companies provided skills training and initial job placement services while faith-based and other community groups worked on issues of attitude, mentoring and retention. All of those aspects of social service are necessary to reach the goal of helping people make a transition that sticks.

Soper summed up their conclusion in an interview: “There is great value in a diversity of programs providing different needs for people.”

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