\n\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Event Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"Luis](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/lugo11.jpg\" "\\"Luis")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLUIS LUGO, PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today, including those of you who are listening in via conference call. It\u2019s always great to see a full house. And a special welcome, of course, to our panelists: Richard Nathan, Stephen Goldsmith and Joshua DuBois. I\u2019m Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life<\/a>, which is a project of the Pew Research Center<\/a>. The center, as many of you know, is a nonpartisan organization, and we do not take positions on policy debates, including this one.<\/p>\nThis event represents the formal passing of the baton, as it were, from the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy to the Pew Forum. Since 2002, the Roundtable has produced an impressive body of work on the scope and effectiveness of faith-based social services, as well as related legal and policy developments at both the federal and the state level. The report that is being released today gives you a glimpse of the range and richness of the Roundtable\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
That work has been generously supported by our parent organization, The Pew Charitable Trusts<\/a>, and it\u2019s good to have with us from Philadelphia Don Kimelman, who is the managing director of the information initiatives program at Pew, as well as Julie Sulc, the program officer at Pew who has been working with the Roundtable from the very beginning. There\u2019s a very nice tribute to her in this report, where Dick Nathan and David Wright call her \u201cthe very model of a foundation officer.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Pew Forum is taking over where the Roundtable is leaving off and hopefully, Dick, not dropping the baton in the process. Our plan is to provide timely, nonpartisan research and analysis on how religion intersects with some of the most pressing social issues in the United States, from prisoner reentry and economic maintenance to health care and immigrant services. Many of you have probably already met Stephanie Boddie, our senior fellow here at the Forum, who will be leading our work in this area.<\/p>\n
The purpose of this forum is to take stock. We want to look back at the eight years of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under the Bush administration and see what lessons we might glean from that effort. But we also want to look forward and discuss the plans of the Obama administration for its Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the challenges and opportunities that might lie ahead.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re delighted to have with us three very distinguished guests to lead us in this discussion. There were copies of their bios on your seats, so I\u2019m going to be very brief with my introductions. Richard Nathan is the co-director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government and the former director of the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy. Dick will present the findings of the Roundtable\u2019s summative report, \u201cTaking Stock: The Bush Faith-Based Initiative and What Lies Ahead.\u201d A copy of that report is available in the Roundtable\u2019s electronic archives<\/a>, which you can now access through the Forum\u2019s website<\/a>. That report was authored by David Wright, who served as project director at the Roundtable.<\/p>\nNext up after Dick will be Stephen Goldsmith. Steve is the former mayor of Indianapolis, Ind., and is presently a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was a key advisor to President Bush on issues related to government partnerships with faith-based organizations. Steve will offer his insights on the lessons learned from the Bush initiative.<\/p>\n
And last, but certainly not least \u2013 well, maybe with respect to age \u2013 we\u2019re pleased to have Joshua DuBois, who serves as a special assistant to President Obama and as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Joshua will share the administration\u2019s vision and plans for this policy initiative.<\/p>\n
Our format for this event is simple. After each of the guests speaks for about 10 minutes or so, we will open it up for your questions. I should mention that this meeting is on the record and is being recorded. That\u2019s because we want to post the written transcript on our website so many other people have a chance to benefit from this discussion.<\/p>\n
Dick, your mission \u2013 should you choose to accept it \u2013 is to summarize this thick report in 10 minutes or less. So go for it.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/photo11.jpg\" "\\"Richard")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nRICHARD NATHAN, NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENT<\/span>:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m pleased to be here with Professor Steve Goldsmith and to meet Joshua DuBois, whom we are all anxious to hear from. I envy him, in part, because he\u2019s 26 years old. I\u2019ve heard a lot of things about Joshua. He\u2019s clearly a person of deep and abiding faith. He was politically baptized in the 2008 campaign, and now he is to undergo a conversion \u2013 a conversion to being a bureaucrat \u2013 to running a system that he is inheriting and that, from everything I know, is continuing. And I wish him well.<\/p>\nI am excited and pleased to be here to talk about our work. The Roundtable was formed \u2013 as Luis said, he and Julie went to Philadelphia \u2013 I\u2019ll never forget the day \u2013 and we talked about, why don\u2019t you do this, Dick, and why doesn\u2019t the Rockefeller Institute do this? I\u2019m proud that we have. With Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle and lots of other people participating in the work, we\u2019ve issued as many as 50 reports. Our goal at the Roundtable was not to take a position but to provide a knowledge base and an information network for informed public debate and understanding in this policy area.<\/p>\n
David\u2019s report \u2013 I\u2019ll hold up a copy. Some of you are pictured here. You are, Joshua; Steve, you are, on the cover. It\u2019s 91 pages and what we aspire to is to have this report be a lasting, helpful document as a basic source that distills the most important parts of what the Bush administration did, the lessons of that experience, and the lessons for the future.<\/p>\n
Now, as people here know, there\u2019s been a long history of faith-based social services in America. This wasn\u2019t, and isn\u2019t, something new. In the last two decades, however, the laws have eased the way for an increase in contracting with faith-based groups to receive public funds for social services, and particularly to reach out to smaller, grassroots faith-based organizations, encouraging and helping them compete for social service grants.<\/p>\n
The most significant legislative change affecting government partnerships for faith-based organizations, to give you a little history, came in 1996. The welfare reform law, called The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which those of us who know and love it call PRWORA, fundamentally reformed welfare programs in the country. And it contained a provision called the Charitable Choice provision.<\/p>\n
Under that provision:<\/p>\n
\n- Faith-based groups may not be excluded as providers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- They need not abandon their religious identity to receive government funds: They may retain religious criteria for selecting officers and board members, as well as religious art or symbols that they have on their walls.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Hiring decisions may be based on the faith of applicants, as long as that practice does not conflict with local and state laws.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Now that last sentence I just read is a very important sentence because, while it was in the Charitable Choice provision, it is in some laws and not others. It is the central issue that Joshua and his satellite offices will wrestle with and are wrestling with.<\/p>\n
The Charitable Choice provision also said that providers may not discriminate on the basis of religion and that recipients must not be forced to receive services through a faith-based provider but must have the choice of a secular provider. The law said that no funds provided to institutions shall be expended for sectarian worship, instruction or proselytizing. A lot of that is in this report.<\/p>\n
That Charitable Choice provision applied to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families \u2013 TANF \u2013 the law that replaced AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]. It applied to Medicaid, which is the 800-pound gorilla in state and local finance \u2013 particularly state \u2013 and to Food Stamps and Supplemental Security Income programs, which aid the aged and are very important for the disabled. Congress added Charitable Choice provisions to other laws \u2013 to the Welfare-to-Work law in 1997, to the Community Services Block Grant in 1998, and to the substance abuse law in 2000.<\/p>\n
Building on his efforts in Texas, President George W. Bush came to office with this as something he talked about and cared about. He had high hopes to build on the foundation of what he had done in Texas \u2013 to expand opportunities for social action by faith-based groups. At first, they tried legislatively: a comprehensive bill that would have changed the laws, provided incentives and accomplished a multitude of purposes. But they were stymied on the legislation. Many of you were there and saw that happen.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/photo21.jpg\" "\\"Richard")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nSo the strategy changed, and this is one of the most interesting things we observed and wrote about. We called it \u201cthe administrative presidency strategy,\u201d where they set up a high-profile White House office with 11 satellite offices to penetrate the bureaucracy in 11 government agencies, to train and work with people, and to learn about and disseminate information about faith-based groups and social services. That was something special. Very interesting. We studied it.<\/p>\n
The new administration is picking up on that apparatus but doing different things, and they\u2019ve appointed quite a few people \u2013 more than half already \u2013 working with Joshua DuBois to head up those offices. So this is something in government, to use administrative powers to penetrate the bureaucracy and to reach out in the country. We studied the legislative side of the initiative. Bob [Tuttle] and Chip [Lupu] issued annual reports, which we usually presented down here at the National Press Club, on the state of the law, which changed, as I said at the beginning of my remarks. I also said that hiring was the key to a lot of what\u2019s been debated most.<\/p>\n
The administration set up a so-called Compassion Capital Fund. Maybe Steve will speak about that. The legacy of the Bush initiative is federal rules, training and assistance. Thirty-six states and 100 cities have copycat faith-based agencies \u2013 bureaucracies, Joshua. $300 million was expended to help small groups \u2013 and at a time when budgets were tight. There are plenty of things you could say about whether the money followed the enthusiasm \u2013 there was controversy. As this became more prominent in Washington and in the country, groups that wanted to go to court became stronger and bigger and had more people and more financing. So there was action administratively \u2013 not so much legislatively \u2013 and certainly judicially.<\/p>\n
Now the new president has outlined his plan, which sounds like a continuation in many ways, but not all ways, of what came before. There are lessons and shared values that, as in many ways in government, carry over. The new office is called the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and it has purposes that are similar to what I mentioned. There\u2019s a 25-member advisory council. Several members are here today \u2013 distinguished people working in this new structure. And that is different.<\/p>\n
President Obama has emphasized more of a policy role. Right away, he got legislation enacted for community services \u2013 voluntary programs \u2013 to reauthorize the provisions that apply. In the $787 billion \u2013 that is a very big number \u2013 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that is now playing out in the country, there are many ways in which faith-based groups can be, and I\u2019m sure are, involved in programs and activities, particularly, as we study all the time, at the state and local level.<\/p>\n
Several laws come up for reauthorization soon. The Charitable Choice provisions will be debated, including the hiring rights issue on TANF and other legislation that is soon to expire and is going to be discussed on the Hill. One of the other things I want to mention is that there\u2019s a lot of hard thinking to do and important research to do, I think, to answer the question, does it make a difference if a faith organization provides services to meet social needs? We\u2019re talking about families and people who have a lot of things they need to deal with as challenges in their community.<\/p>\n
In our research \u2013 and this is ongoing \u2013 we are finding that there are some people who definitely respond to and have a special need, where religious organizations can really resonate with them. Now that\u2019s a research question, and it\u2019s a hard question to answer, and we are working on that currently. So I think that I have covered most of what I should say. We did issue one report recently that shows that many small churches have offered faith-based services but not so many of them receive or even know about federal grants. It\u2019s mentioned in David Wright\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
The announcement of the new office means that the faith-based challenge will live on. We hope that the work of the Roundtable and the report we are presenting today and the material that, as Luis said, is now on the Forum\u2019s website will make a contribution and help people understand the hard challenges and benefit from lessons of experience. All through the country \u2013 not just in Washington \u2013 but all through the country. Thank you very much, Luis.<\/p>\n
LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Thank you, Dick. Steve?<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/goldsmith11.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSTEPHEN GOLDSMITH, HARVARD<\/span> UNIVERSITY<\/span>:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m less than flattered by the fact that I\u2019m here as the \u201cpast\u201d and the director is here as the \u201cfuture.\u201d (Laughter.) I haven\u2019t been invited in such a capacity before. I\u2019ll keep my remarks brief since I think the future may be more important than the past. I\u2019m going to try to do in five minutes the 20 years I\u2019ve been involved in this issue because I don\u2019t want to start just with the Bush administration. I\u2019d like to go back to Indianapolis because it has some relevance to how the initiative got started.<\/p>\nSo a brief anecdote. The first week I got elected mayor, I went to an inner-city African-American church on Sunday. I\u2019m so old that I\u2019d worked in the Model Cities Program and had developed a relationship with a great guy, and he invited me to his church. He was 6\u20197\u2019\u2019; he looked like he played basketball for some important group, and he said, at about the middle of the service, I want everybody to stand up and we\u2019re going to hold hands and we\u2019re going to pray until the mayor agrees to fix the sidewalks in front of the church. So I saw the power of faith and agreed, and that was the beginning of the initiative right there.<\/p>\n
Then, step two. We did a number of things to revitalize urban communities in Indianapolis, Ind., and modeled some of them on what a friend of mine, Kirk Schmoke, had done in Baltimore. After a couple of years, we\u2019d spent enormous amounts of public dollars on a lot of interesting community empowerment issues. Some were working and most weren\u2019t, and we said, what\u2019s missing here? Then we did this asset inventory of what were the most important assets in those urban communities. We did door-to-door in a rigorous way, and as you would assume, the more frequent asset in those communities was the faith-based institution. In our city, mostly the church \u2013 and these are not mega-churches. These are churches with an average congregation of less than 400. A part-time pastor pulled them together \u2013 a very tough neighborhood with a lot of work on the part of the pastor.<\/p>\n
We began then to figure out what the city government could do to relate to those faith organizations in order for them to extend their reach. The goal here, for those of you who follow my colleague at Harvard, Bob Putnam, was not just how to do a public service but how to do a public service in a way that leveraged social capital.<\/p>\n
We disregarded both of the extremes that were popular at the time. One, on the part of some in my party, was if government would just go away, the urban neighborhoods would get better. The view of some on the other side was, government can do everything. Neither one of those was accurate. It was the relationship of the two that we thought would lead to resurgence or revitalization in those communities. We ended up with something called the Front Porch Alliance, which has been written about, and many of you have read about.<\/p>\n
\n\n![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/goldsmith21.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNext issue. So then the president announces his campaign in Indianapolis at a church in 2000 and gives, what I think, is the excellent \u201cArmies of Compassion\u201d speech and talks a little bit about the faith-based initiative. So what happened was that the Indianapolis effort, the asset inventory and the Front Porch Alliance then became essentially the precursor for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Not exactly, obviously, because this is a big country and I\u2019m a little city, but nevertheless the concept was the same. So, to me, all along the issue was how to provide higher-quality services to individuals who needed them. It wasn\u2019t a choice between government and faith. It wasn\u2019t obviously an issue about how they would relate.<\/p>\n
When we began the effort, a couple things \u2013 and Dick actually referenced these \u2013 stuck in my mind. One was that it was a really big deal when President Clinton did the Charitable Choice law as part of the TANF legislation \u2013 a really big deal. But it was not universal across government.<\/p>\n
I got cited by the Department of Labor IG [Inspector General] for allowing summer job-training kids to say a voluntary prayer at lunch because they were doing job programs in church organizations but that violated the Department of Labor laws that weren\u2019t included in the Charitable Choice language. When I was trying to do homeless work with the Salvation Army with CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] dollars from HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development], we got cited because crosses were still up on the sides of the Salvation Army. All of these things led to an expansion of the Charitable Choice language across several other departments.<\/p>\n
I would say, as we look at it today, the goal was to create an even playing field that leveraged good results in urban communities. Picking up on what Dick said is that there is a culture of respect for the part that faith-based organizations play in community and personal renewal. And it\u2019s no longer all that controversial. There are aspects of it on the extreme that you could make controversial if you want to create a fight. But generally, if you are a mayor or a governor \u2013 maybe not a congressman, but a mayor or a governor \u2013 it\u2019s an issue of how to give the quality services that you need.<\/p>\n
As I look at this when we started, the reason I recommended to the president that we have the Cabinet offices was because I actually thought it probably didn\u2019t make any difference what the laws said if the bureaucrats didn\u2019t care. If we didn\u2019t have an official in a Cabinet office who reported to Joshua or John DiIulio, who would every day look at those grant RFPs and every day watch the peer-review process, I was totally sure that nothing would change. In fact, the Cabinet offices that had the most powerful faith-based assistance are the ones that did the most good.<\/p>\n
So we did see very substantial changes, and I think the culture change then, starting with President Clinton going through President Bush, that built up is a very significant one. The level playing field report that my friend John DiIulio was responsible for is terrific. The goal was to level the playing field, and I think a lot of that\u2019s been accomplished. If you look at those two together \u2013<\/p>\n
I see faces in the audience. David Caprara is back there about four rows. I was chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the parent of AmeriCorps and VISTA. So I\u2019m a chairman of an organization, I helped start the faith-based office, and the faith-based efforts in my organization were de minimis. It wasn\u2019t until David came over and helped straighten out the VISTA program by saying, here\u2019s what level playing field means, that we were able to actually leverage the efforts for faith across the programs in the Corporation for National and Community Service . So I think the culture is there.<\/p>\n
Also, as Dick mentioned, I never thought it was very difficult to create faith-based alliances with really big faith-based organizations. Catholic Social Services, Jewish Family Services and Lutheran Family Services really did not need the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. They had their own bureaucracies, not necessarily in a pejorative way. They can deal with government.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the little guy who found government either bewildering \u2013 certainly not helpful \u2013 and often quite harmful. I think as we\u2019ve moved out here to create a little bit of space for small guys to participate, that\u2019s important. I think also remarkably important is the fact, as Dick mentioned, that a large number of cities in 36 states have their own offices. Some of them have creatively said, okay, we\u2019re going to set aside 1 percent of our TANF money, and we\u2019re going to use that to stimulate the faith-based side and the like.<\/p>\n
I guess the last point in terms of accomplishments that might serve as a foundation for President Obama is that when the president went to start or support really big important programs like Pastor Goode\u2019s Amachi program, the faith-based initiative was the path to supporting a big program, or the AIDS program or Access to Recovery and the like.<\/p>\n
If we think about the faith world as a world of wonderful volunteers who want to help other folks and when they\u2019re connected to important government missions can create transformative change quickly, I think that\u2019s a lesson we learned. I think looking at Mayor Goode over here, Pastor Goode, and what he\u2019s done with children of prisoners in Amachi is probably the best example of that.<\/p>\n
Last couple points in terms of things to think about as we go forward because we\u2019re about through with the past here in about 30 seconds. One is \u2013 I don\u2019t want this to come out wrong like I\u2019m criticizing what we did \u2013 but I don\u2019t think that measuring how much money we spent on faith-based groups is really the standard that we want. It became the scorekeeping device and I understand why \u2013 because you can count it. But isn\u2019t a better issue here how many lives and neighborhoods have been transformed or revitalized, how many kids who would not have had opportunity otherwise have opportunity, how many women who would otherwise have been beat up have support through domestic shelters, etc.?<\/p>\n
We need to find a better way than money. I\u2019m encouraged and hopeful that what the director will be able to do with the Promise Communities and the Social Enterprise Fund and the other initiatives of the president is to think about the roles that the faith community can play that create transformative changes in the lives of the people they touch, and not just do government work the same way but diverting government money.<\/p>\n
It always felt to me even when I was in Indianapolis that what my contract managers were trying to do to save the faith-based groups was: You won\u2019t get in trouble if you follow all these rules, and if you follow all these rules, you\u2019ll act just like we did when we were delivering the services.<\/p>\n
The goal is to create an accountability regime that makes those organizations responsible to the government for the dollars they spend but provides flexibility in how they do it. So how effective the director is in getting the faith organizations incorporated in the Promise Communities and the Race to the Top and the Social Enterprise Fund in ways that can change lives and neighborhoods I think is particularly important.<\/p>\n
So as we look forward, I think some very substantial steps have been made, not the least of which is incorporation of the culture of fairness and even playing field, lots of offices in cities and states, and pretty good (inaudible) for President Obama and the director.<\/p>\n
LUGO: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Thank you, Steve. We are staying on time, and we\u2019ll continue to stay on time if Joshua remembers that we invited him to be a speaker as a government official rather than a Pentecostal preacher.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n![\"Joshua](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/dubois11.jpg\" "\\"Joshua")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nJOSHUA DUBOIS, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED AND NEIGHBOORHOOD PARTNERSHIPS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I will be brief, and I know we want to get to the Q&A as well. Thank you, Luis, for having me and, Stephen and Richard, it\u2019s great to be up here with you. Again, my name is Joshua Dubois, and I\u2019m the director of President Obama\u2019s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about why the president even has this office, and then we\u2019ll talk about how we function on a day-to-day basis and what some of our long-term goals are.<\/p>\nThe reason President Obama retained this office and changed it\u2019s name and mission just a bit is because he knows something that many of the organizations \u2013 I see Catholic Charities and others \u2013 represented in this room know well, which is that we\u2019ve got some big challenges as a country. We\u2019ve got too many kids who aren\u2019t getting the education they need; we have a health care system that\u2019s broken; we have challenges with housing, with our economic recovery, and so on and so forth. If we\u2019re going to address those things, we can\u2019t do it here in Washington alone \u2013 either at the White House or on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
Instead, what we have to do is to connect with individuals and families in communities all across the country, where ideas are bubbling up and where real change is made. That includes faith-based and community-based organizations. That\u2019s really at the core of the role of my office, to serve as that connection point, that link, between the federal government and local community groups. To serve individuals and families and communities \u2013 that\u2019s our core mission.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a bit tweaked from the mission of the previous office, which I think was a critically important mission. I sat down with the president; we were talking about how this office would move forward. We were thinking through the concept of a level and an even playing field, which is critically important and which I think was necessary. Because of the work that they were able to do to level the playing field, now we\u2019re at a place where we can think about what the specific goals are that we want to achieve through this office.<\/p>\n
What are we doing on<\/em> the playing field? What do we want to get out of our partnerships with faith-based and with neighborhood-based organizations? That\u2019s a shift just a bit from the previous lens. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a matter of being better or worse, but I think it enables us to take the next step in the progression of this office.<\/p>\nThe way that we function, the way that we address our core goals, which I\u2019ll get to in a moment, is through 11, or basically 11-and-a-half with our quasi-center at the Corporation for National and Community Service, centers for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Some of them are actually still centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; we\u2019re working to change the name on a center-by-center basis.<\/p>\n
What those little, mini-offices do is connect their agency with local faith-based and neighborhood-based organizations to fulfill the mission of that agency and to serve people in need. So our center at the Department of Labor, for example, will form connections between that agency and local community-based groups to provide job-training services.<\/p>\n
The center at the Department of Justice \u2013 and I see our VA acting director in the back \u2013 will work to connect their agencies with local organizations to fulfill their particular mission. So that\u2019s really how we function on a day-to-day basis. And, quite frankly, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to do that if it wasn\u2019t for Stephen\u2019s idea to create this network in the first place.<\/p>\n
\n\n![\"Joshua](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/dubois21.jpg\" "\\"Joshua")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA few other things are a bit different though. Based on this idea that we\u2019re able to talk about what we\u2019re doing on the playing field instead of still having to do the work to level the playing field, we have four overall goals, four things that we\u2019d like to achieve at the end of the day through this office. I\u2019d like to talk a bit about them, and then we\u2019ll talk about a few other small differences as well.<\/p>\n
The four goals are as follows: The first one is connecting community-based and faith-based groups to the economic recovery. As we\u2019re getting our economy back on track, as we\u2019re trying to create new jobs, how are we incorporating faith-based organizations and local neighborhood organizations? Often they\u2019re the ones that are providing job-training services or financial literacy counseling. The job of my office is to be a watchdog and to make sure that the federal agencies are working with them and learning from them as we try to get our economy back on track.<\/p>\n
The second goal is responsible fatherhood and healthy families, and this is something that the president cares a lot about, both based on his own personal story and also his perception of a crisis of father absence in many communities. He wants my office to serve as a convening point to pull together federal agencies and intermediaries and local organizations to think about how we can support models that work to address these challenges, and, quite frankly, how he can use the bully pulpit of the presidency to talk about what it means to have a healthy family and to strengthen healthy families that are out there. That\u2019s a critical topic of our office, especially as we lead into Father\u2019s Day coming up in just a few days.<\/p>\n
The third priority \u2013 and this is done in conjunction with the interagency Council on Women and Girls \u2013 probably the most politically contentious priority, but one that\u2019s important nonetheless, is how can we find common ground on the issue of reducing unintended pregnancies, supporting maternal and child health, strengthening adoption, and reducing the need for abortion? Now obviously on this difficult issue there are clear perspectives on both sides, and our goal is not to navigate those polar ends, to re-litigate Roe v. Wade<\/em>, but instead, what are the areas in the middle? How can we identify policies that will support adoption, that will come alongside pregnant women who choose to carry their pregnancy to term and support them? So we\u2019re working and meeting with groups on both sides of this important issue to formulate policies in this area.<\/p>\nThen the last goal is how can we serve as a convening point, as a catalyst, to promote interfaith dialogue and cooperation? And that cooperation word is key. The president thinks we can do a better job of bringing people from different religious backgrounds together through both our foreign policy but also here at home. But it\u2019s not enough just to bring them together; we want to talk about what we\u2019re doing together across religious lines, whether it\u2019s combating malaria abroad or interfaith service projects here at home through the Corporation for National Service. How are we bringing people from different religious backgrounds together to serve particular needs?<\/p>\n
So, taking a step back \u2013 we\u2019re still working on the metrics and identifying how we measure success in these areas, but we\u2019re going to measure our success based not just narrowly on how many groups have received federal funds and the total dollar value of those funds, as Stephen mentioned, but instead how we are achieving these specific goals.<\/p>\n
A few other things that are a little different \u2013 again, this is just an evolution of this office, not better or worse \u2013 is that we have a renewed focus on engagement broadly. We\u2019ve had hundreds of meetings with both religious organizations and also non-sectarian organizations about the work that they\u2019re doing, and we have a steady flow of groups into the office so that we can learn from them.<\/p>\n
Another key point of engagement is the president\u2019s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This is a 25-member council, individuals serving one-year terms who are going to provide advice about how this office is going and how we\u2019re working to achieve these goals. These are both religious and secular community leaders, and I think a very important feedback mechanism for us. So that focus on engagement is certainly renewed.<\/p>\n
Two additional ways that I think we\u2019re changing course just a bit is one, a focus on what we\u2019re calling civic partnerships, nonfinancial partnerships. What are the ways that we can support organizations outside of just the federal grant-making process? The bare facts are that there are far more faith-based and neighborhood organizations than there are federal grants. So we\u2019ve got to find some other ways to come alongside these groups and share best practices with them and connect them with one another so that they can learn from each other. This focus on civic partnerships is, I think, something that will be at the forefront in the years ahead.<\/p>\n
Then the last way is, how can we strengthen the legal and constitutional footing of this office? The president definitely believes based on his personal history and his work with faith-based groups that there is a role for responsible partnership between the federal government and these organizations.<\/p>\n
But that word \u201cresponsible\u201d is key \u2013 how are we making sure that federal funds aren\u2019t being used for sectarian purposes? How are we encouraging organizations to form 501(c)(3)s so that it helps them come into clearer legal lines and parameters. We are sort of doing an agency-by-agency review of that process, working with our council and others to think about how we strengthen the legal footing of this office.<\/p>\n
I think if we do all of that, if we focus on our goals, if we can engage and learn from folks who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have, quite frankly, through our outreach and through our council and others, and if we can strengthen the legal and constitutional footing of this office, then we can bring the federal government into robust and wonderful partnerships with local organizations that, at the end of the day, will help serve individuals and families and communities who are in need.<\/p>\n
So I look forward to working with many of you all in the process, and I think it\u2019s time for Q&A.<\/p>\n
LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Thank you, Joshua. Thank you to all three of you. Just as an explanation, we have regular luncheons here for journalists, invite 24 or so around a table and bring in speakers. We thought for this one we would expand and invite a few other folks \u2013 and, again, thank you for coming. In keeping with the spirit of these luncheons, I\u2019m going to give journalists the first shot at asking questions here. That series, incidentally, we co-host with E.J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution and Mike Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and they\u2019re tremendous partners with us in that.<\/p>\nSo let\u2019s begin with some of the journalists.<\/p>\n
<\/a>SALLY QUINN, THE WASHINGTON POST<\/em>‘S “ON FAITH”:<\/strong> Joshua, I think after listening to what everyone has to say, it seems to me that the whole issue really comes down to the legality of the hiring and how do you deal with that. That really is the crunch. That\u2019s the question. What are the legal aspects of hiring people who are not of a certain faith working for one faith or not allowing people of a certain faith to be hired? Without the legal aspects being cleared up, how do you do anything?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Well, two points. One, I\u2019ll address the question directly, but two, I just want to go back to something Stephen said earlier: the range of issues that this office is confronting and the dire need to connect with organizations on the ground that are serving people in need.<\/p>\nThe hiring issue, which I will address in just a moment, is important. It\u2019s something that is an important part of the public dialogue and that a lot of people on both sides care deeply about. What\u2019s also important, though, is the fact that we have too many folks who need job training and aren\u2019t getting it. We have too many folks who are struggling to find affordable housing and could use responsible partnerships between the federal government and local organizations to get that housing.<\/p>\n
There are a range of issues that we\u2019re working on on a day-to-day basis that, quite frankly, aren\u2019t as titillating as some of these more controversial issues that are discussed in the press but that at the end of the day impact people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s where we spend the vast majority of our time, thinking about those and working on them. So I will say that I know that it\u2019s an important topic in the press and with some key groups, but there are a range of other issues that this office is addressing that I think are equally important as well.<\/p>\n
On the hiring issue, this is a difficult issue and there are clear perspectives on both sides. What the president has decided to do and what we believe is the best approach to this is to fully understand this issue. As issues arise out in agencies, whether it\u2019s on co-religion in hiring, hiring discrimination or any other difficult legal issue, we will consider them. We will work with the White House counsel and with the Department of Justice, the attorney general, to fully explore that individual case and make a recommendation to the president. At the end of the day, he will determine what he thinks the best path forward is.<\/p>\n
Now I know that\u2019s certainly not satisfying to individuals on both sides \u2013 many of our friends in conservative communities are in some ways not happy that a new mechanism has been created to really look at this issue. And many of our friends in progressive communities have expressed that they wished for more sweeping action at the outset of this office. So we recognize that there is some disagreement there, but the president really thinks that before we take any action on this or other challenging legal issues, we need to fully understand, get the lawyers involved and address it as fully as we can.<\/p>\n
QUINN:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Are you saying that you will do it on a case-by-case basis?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>On a case-by-case basis, that\u2019s correct. Thanks, Sally.<\/p>\nLUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Before we go to the next question, Stephen, could you comment? I\u2019m just curious, to what extent was this particular issue, the legal one and particularly the hiring issue, a practical obstacle to you at the local level in seeking to implement these initiatives?<\/p>\nGOLDSMITH:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Well, until you called on me, I saw no reason to get in the middle of this conversation.<\/p>\n(Laughter.)<\/p>\n
DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Come on in, the water\u2019s fine.<\/p>\nLUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I saw you ducking the question.<\/p>\nGOLDSMITH: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>That\u2019s totally Joshua\u2019s problem. I didn\u2019t want to get into it at all. (Laughter.) First of all, I appreciate his answer. This was a big issue when President Bush introduced the legislation, as your question reflects. It\u2019s what killed the legislation and what kind of drove many of us crazy.<\/p>\nOf all of the mayors I know who had faith-based organizations, it never was an issue. I know there have been lawsuits, and you can come up with examples. I kind of agree with the way Joshua put it; it\u2019s important to some folks. But as a practical matter, it wasn\u2019t. I appreciate the First Amendment consequences and all the like, but if the guy is homeless and needs help, that really was a more essential focus. I don\u2019t want to demean the question; the question is an important question. But as a practical matter, never.<\/p>\n
I come from this kind of idea that if you\u2019re trying to do the right thing, you can always reach consensus, and I couldn\u2019t figure out why I couldn\u2019t reach consensus on the legislation the president had suggested on this issue. I realized that people really didn\u2019t want consensus; they really wanted to argue about the issue. But at the local level, it never was an issue for any of the Democratic mayors or the Republican mayors.<\/p>\n
LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Interesting. Dick, did you want to say anything?<\/p>\nNATHAN: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>First off, picking up on what Joshua said, when it comes to outreach \u2013 getting the government to penetrate the bureaucracies to encourage alliances, cooperation, new groups coming in and working together \u2013 that\u2019s an important effort and there\u2019s momentum, and I think the way he said it is very good. At the same time, when it comes to a grant and an organization has to decide, should I apply, and what do I say in my application, and what\u2019s going to happen to my application \u2013<\/p>\nSo my less cautious commentary, Steve, than yours to Joshua is, that\u2019s absolutely right what you said, that this is delicate and difficult, legally very complicated. You should take some time to get your legal experts \u2013 and there are two in this room who are very smart and special \u2013 to look at what you\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think you can have that as an operating premise on a long-term basis because there would be too much uncertainty in the system. So my suggestion to you, in as constructive a way as I can advance it, is that at the same time you bring the legal experts in and get deeply into this question and see what it really is in your world, you look toward an end-game that gives clarity to the many groups out there that you want to work with because it will need that, I think.<\/p>\n
Not for alliance-building and not for the sort of bully pulpit function of all of this, in past and future, but for the money, grant-making side. I\u2019m fascinated that that was the first question and the crunch word that you used \u2013 you\u2019re going to have it. I would urge you to think about the fact that at some point you may have to come to grips with it more than you may want to.<\/p>\n
DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I definitely appreciate that.<\/p>\nNATHAN:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Is that okay, Chip?<\/p>\nLUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Just like there are continuities between administrations on this, there are also continuities between the Roundtable and the Pew Forum on this issue because we are retaining the A-team of Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle, who have worked with the Roundtable on this, to help us in the Forum continue to provide you with good, legal analysis on this issue. So stay tuned on that score.<\/p>\nNATHAN: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>And they are terrific.<\/p>\nROBERT MARUS, ASSOCIATED BAPTIST PRESS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>As Joshua and the rest of the panel knows, hiring is not the only legal issue that remains controversial. The president taught constitutional law, and the people who supported him might have a higher sensitivity to Establishment Clause violations, and the lawsuits still come up all the time with these programs.<\/p>\nHas the president, Joshua, given you and your office any kind of instruction on how to deal with these kinds of cases in the future and how to investigate your programs, your agencies, to make sure that they are abiding by the First Amendment\u2019s religion clauses, both of them?<\/p>\n
DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I think what he\u2019s done is appointed some great folks in the Justice Department, who will fully explore these issues as they arise and who have both a clear understanding and respect for the Constitution but also are sensitive to the need for responsible faith-based partnerships. So beyond that, I think he\u2019s put some good folks in place who can address these issues, and I think that\u2019s probably the best way forward.<\/p>\n<\/a>KIM LAWTON, RELIGION AND ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Joshua, I keep hearing about people who are on the council, people who are on task forces, people who are on both, people who are on task forces and not on the council \u2013 can you give me a sense of how many task forces there are under your office?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Sure, the overall structure of this whole thing. Let\u2019s do that.<\/p>\nLAWTON: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Yeah, how they\u2019re meeting and what they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\nDUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>The overall structure is an Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. That\u2019s sort of the umbrella for everything \u2013 not everything, but everything in my little world. We unfortunately don\u2019t have the Department of Energy underneath us. (Laughter.)<\/p>\nSo that\u2019s the overall umbrella. We then coordinate 11 centers for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, plus a strategic advisor at the Corporation for National Service, and they work on a day-to-day basis to connect those agencies with local organizations. We also have this advisory council that you\u2019re referring to, the president\u2019s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.<\/p>\n
These are 25 people who are serving one-year terms, and they\u2019re focused on six separate issues. And really, there\u2019s been a lot of misreporting about the goals and the mandate of that council. It\u2019s not to provide grants or weigh in on grant funding or the management of this office, but instead it\u2019s to think about how the federal government can come into more effective and responsible and legal partnership with local community organizations, both faith-based and secular, to fulfill some specific goals.<\/p>\n
The six things they are looking at are:<\/p>\n
\n- the environment and climate change. How can the federal government work with local groups to address environmental issues?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- the economic recovery. How can we form better partnerships around the recovery?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- international development. How can we work though our center at the Agency for International Development to form better partnerships in that regard?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- responsible fatherhood and healthy families, which you heard me mention before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- reform of the faith-based office. How can we, both on the technical assistance side but also on the legal side, come into more appropriate and effective relationships with faith-based groups?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- interfaith dialogue and cooperation. How can we, through various mechanisms, whether the State Department, AID, but also here at home through the Corporation for National Service, come into better relationships with faith-based groups?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Those are the six task forces of the council. On the task force level, which is below the overall council level, we can add in other experts, and that\u2019s what you\u2019re referring to, that other people can weigh in on these issues. We have a range of players and actors who are providing their advice in that regard.<\/p>\n
So there\u2019s an overall office. There are 12 centers. There\u2019s an advisory council that has some task forces. It actually functions well even though that\u2019s a lot of words there.<\/p>\n
LAWTON:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>There are six task forces specifically on this issue?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>That\u2019s right. Thanks, Kim.<\/p>\nLYNN SWEET, CHICAGO<\/em> SUN-TIMES<\/em>: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Josh, how many people do you have on your payroll? Is it the same as in the Bush White House? And how do you overlap, if at all, with the newly renamed Obama Office of Public Engagement?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s a great question. We will be at about the same number, between five and seven folks in the White House office, and then the centers will be between three and five people in each of those offices as well. We\u2019re still staffing up. That will go well into the summer and fall.<\/p>\nThe way we relate to OPE, the Office of Public Engagement has a faith-outreach liaison within its office, whom we engage with multiple times per day so that we can make sure we\u2019re closely coordinating.<\/p>\n
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Do you actually have a budget to make grants, and what is it? Are you doing any oversight of grants that were made during the Bush era, and have you drawn any conclusions about those?<\/p>\nDUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I am thankful for that question. I love answering this. Thankfully we have no money in the White House office to disperse to any faith-based organizations. This is one thing that \u2013 I don\u2019t think it was at all intentional \u2013 but for some reason there was a perception in the previous administration that there was this big pot of money in the White House that could be dispersed out to faith-based organizations. That didn\u2019t exist and doesn\u2019t exist now.<\/p>\nCLIFT: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>That is the urban myth, if you will.<\/p>\nDUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It is.<\/p>\nCLIFT:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s usually the way to give money to groups that \u2013<\/p>\nDUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u2013 you\u2019re friendly with and so forth. Now there are competitive grants all across the federal government, and our job is to make sure that faith-based and local neighborhood organizations are aware of those opportunities and can apply for them. We continue to do that. But there\u2019s no set of faith-based funds, although that perception is certainly out there.<\/p>\nOne of the things we\u2019re trying to do as we focus more on civic partnerships is to disabuse folks of the notion that the only way we can and should partner with local organizations is through grants because, quite frankly, there aren\u2019t enough grants out there, and then some organizations aren\u2019t ready to come into partnership with the federal government.<\/p>\n
ADRIEL BETTELHEIM, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>You\u2019ve talked about the importance of reducing unintended pregnancies and reducing abortion. I\u2019m wondering if you could point to any programs around the country that you\u2019re holding up as models for other similar activity?<\/p>\nDUBOIS: \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>The answer is not yet, quite frankly, because we are in a process where we\u2019re reaching out to a range of organizations and just listening to what they\u2019re doing, what\u2019s working on the ground in each of those areas. We\u2019re compiling all of that data, that information, both about programs that work, about policies, potential legislative approaches, and then we\u2019ll put together recommendations for the president, who will then sign off and announce the way forward on that issue. There are a lot of great organizations out there. I wouldn\u2019t want to preempt the president by highlighting them just yet, though.<\/p>\nLUGO: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Stephen, could I ask you whether there was any thought given during the Bush administration to expanding the scope of the faith-based office because it seems to me like they\u2019re taking on a lot more policy domains than was ever anticipated in the Bush White House. Any discussions along these lines?<\/p>\nGOLDSMITH:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m not sure whether they are or not. I don\u2019t mean that in a critical way. I mean, in the Bush White House there were multiple points of entry into domestic policy, and the faith-based office was one voice. Depending on who was there and who was elsewhere at the time, sometimes a more forceful voice and sometimes not.<\/p>\nIf you just think about urban policy in the Obama administration, there are multiple places for that voice. You can think about this a couple of ways. One is the policy influence of the faith-based office, so the extent to which the faith-based office is a powerful voice with the Domestic Policy Council, that\u2019s really important. That was an issue in the Bush White House, where that voice came from. Some people in the room have actually written about John DiIulio\u2019s relationship and how all that happened.<\/p>\n
I think rather than answer your question directly, I would say the extent to which the director is effective, not just with the bureaucrats but with senior policy officials because of his strength and his position, he can make a difference. Sometimes that ebbed and sometimes it flowed in the Bush White House.<\/p>\n
<\/a>ADELLE BANKS, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Question for Joshua as well. I\u2019m wondering about the advisors on the advisory council and how you view them. Do you see them more as sounding boards whom you call up perhaps every day, every week, depending on the issue, or do you expect them to come up with recommendations that will actually turn into policy that the president will work for?<\/p>\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLUIS LUGO, PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today, including those of you who are listening in via conference call. It\u2019s always great to see a full house. And a special welcome, of course, to our panelists: Richard Nathan, Stephen Goldsmith and Joshua DuBois. I\u2019m Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life<\/a>, which is a project of the Pew Research Center<\/a>. The center, as many of you know, is a nonpartisan organization, and we do not take positions on policy debates, including this one.<\/p>\n This event represents the formal passing of the baton, as it were, from the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy to the Pew Forum. Since 2002, the Roundtable has produced an impressive body of work on the scope and effectiveness of faith-based social services, as well as related legal and policy developments at both the federal and the state level. The report that is being released today gives you a glimpse of the range and richness of the Roundtable\u2019s work.<\/p>\n That work has been generously supported by our parent organization, The Pew Charitable Trusts<\/a>, and it\u2019s good to have with us from Philadelphia Don Kimelman, who is the managing director of the information initiatives program at Pew, as well as Julie Sulc, the program officer at Pew who has been working with the Roundtable from the very beginning. There\u2019s a very nice tribute to her in this report, where Dick Nathan and David Wright call her \u201cthe very model of a foundation officer.\u201d<\/p>\n The Pew Forum is taking over where the Roundtable is leaving off and hopefully, Dick, not dropping the baton in the process. Our plan is to provide timely, nonpartisan research and analysis on how religion intersects with some of the most pressing social issues in the United States, from prisoner reentry and economic maintenance to health care and immigrant services. Many of you have probably already met Stephanie Boddie, our senior fellow here at the Forum, who will be leading our work in this area.<\/p>\n The purpose of this forum is to take stock. We want to look back at the eight years of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under the Bush administration and see what lessons we might glean from that effort. But we also want to look forward and discuss the plans of the Obama administration for its Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the challenges and opportunities that might lie ahead.<\/p>\n We\u2019re delighted to have with us three very distinguished guests to lead us in this discussion. There were copies of their bios on your seats, so I\u2019m going to be very brief with my introductions. Richard Nathan is the co-director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government and the former director of the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy. Dick will present the findings of the Roundtable\u2019s summative report, \u201cTaking Stock: The Bush Faith-Based Initiative and What Lies Ahead.\u201d A copy of that report is available in the Roundtable\u2019s electronic archives<\/a>, which you can now access through the Forum\u2019s website<\/a>. That report was authored by David Wright, who served as project director at the Roundtable.<\/p>\n Next up after Dick will be Stephen Goldsmith. Steve is the former mayor of Indianapolis, Ind., and is presently a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was a key advisor to President Bush on issues related to government partnerships with faith-based organizations. Steve will offer his insights on the lessons learned from the Bush initiative.<\/p>\n And last, but certainly not least \u2013 well, maybe with respect to age \u2013 we\u2019re pleased to have Joshua DuBois, who serves as a special assistant to President Obama and as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Joshua will share the administration\u2019s vision and plans for this policy initiative.<\/p>\n Our format for this event is simple. After each of the guests speaks for about 10 minutes or so, we will open it up for your questions. I should mention that this meeting is on the record and is being recorded. That\u2019s because we want to post the written transcript on our website so many other people have a chance to benefit from this discussion.<\/p>\n Dick, your mission \u2013 should you choose to accept it \u2013 is to summarize this thick report in 10 minutes or less. So go for it.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n RICHARD NATHAN, NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENT<\/span>:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m pleased to be here with Professor Steve Goldsmith and to meet Joshua DuBois, whom we are all anxious to hear from. I envy him, in part, because he\u2019s 26 years old. I\u2019ve heard a lot of things about Joshua. He\u2019s clearly a person of deep and abiding faith. He was politically baptized in the 2008 campaign, and now he is to undergo a conversion \u2013 a conversion to being a bureaucrat \u2013 to running a system that he is inheriting and that, from everything I know, is continuing. And I wish him well.<\/p>\n I am excited and pleased to be here to talk about our work. The Roundtable was formed \u2013 as Luis said, he and Julie went to Philadelphia \u2013 I\u2019ll never forget the day \u2013 and we talked about, why don\u2019t you do this, Dick, and why doesn\u2019t the Rockefeller Institute do this? I\u2019m proud that we have. With Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle and lots of other people participating in the work, we\u2019ve issued as many as 50 reports. Our goal at the Roundtable was not to take a position but to provide a knowledge base and an information network for informed public debate and understanding in this policy area.<\/p>\n David\u2019s report \u2013 I\u2019ll hold up a copy. Some of you are pictured here. You are, Joshua; Steve, you are, on the cover. It\u2019s 91 pages and what we aspire to is to have this report be a lasting, helpful document as a basic source that distills the most important parts of what the Bush administration did, the lessons of that experience, and the lessons for the future.<\/p>\n Now, as people here know, there\u2019s been a long history of faith-based social services in America. This wasn\u2019t, and isn\u2019t, something new. In the last two decades, however, the laws have eased the way for an increase in contracting with faith-based groups to receive public funds for social services, and particularly to reach out to smaller, grassroots faith-based organizations, encouraging and helping them compete for social service grants.<\/p>\n The most significant legislative change affecting government partnerships for faith-based organizations, to give you a little history, came in 1996. The welfare reform law, called The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which those of us who know and love it call PRWORA, fundamentally reformed welfare programs in the country. And it contained a provision called the Charitable Choice provision.<\/p>\n Under that provision:<\/p>\n Now that last sentence I just read is a very important sentence because, while it was in the Charitable Choice provision, it is in some laws and not others. It is the central issue that Joshua and his satellite offices will wrestle with and are wrestling with.<\/p>\n The Charitable Choice provision also said that providers may not discriminate on the basis of religion and that recipients must not be forced to receive services through a faith-based provider but must have the choice of a secular provider. The law said that no funds provided to institutions shall be expended for sectarian worship, instruction or proselytizing. A lot of that is in this report.<\/p>\n That Charitable Choice provision applied to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families \u2013 TANF \u2013 the law that replaced AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]. It applied to Medicaid, which is the 800-pound gorilla in state and local finance \u2013 particularly state \u2013 and to Food Stamps and Supplemental Security Income programs, which aid the aged and are very important for the disabled. Congress added Charitable Choice provisions to other laws \u2013 to the Welfare-to-Work law in 1997, to the Community Services Block Grant in 1998, and to the substance abuse law in 2000.<\/p>\n Building on his efforts in Texas, President George W. Bush came to office with this as something he talked about and cared about. He had high hopes to build on the foundation of what he had done in Texas \u2013 to expand opportunities for social action by faith-based groups. At first, they tried legislatively: a comprehensive bill that would have changed the laws, provided incentives and accomplished a multitude of purposes. But they were stymied on the legislation. Many of you were there and saw that happen.<\/p>\n So the strategy changed, and this is one of the most interesting things we observed and wrote about. We called it \u201cthe administrative presidency strategy,\u201d where they set up a high-profile White House office with 11 satellite offices to penetrate the bureaucracy in 11 government agencies, to train and work with people, and to learn about and disseminate information about faith-based groups and social services. That was something special. Very interesting. We studied it.<\/p>\n The new administration is picking up on that apparatus but doing different things, and they\u2019ve appointed quite a few people \u2013 more than half already \u2013 working with Joshua DuBois to head up those offices. So this is something in government, to use administrative powers to penetrate the bureaucracy and to reach out in the country. We studied the legislative side of the initiative. Bob [Tuttle] and Chip [Lupu] issued annual reports, which we usually presented down here at the National Press Club, on the state of the law, which changed, as I said at the beginning of my remarks. I also said that hiring was the key to a lot of what\u2019s been debated most.<\/p>\n The administration set up a so-called Compassion Capital Fund. Maybe Steve will speak about that. The legacy of the Bush initiative is federal rules, training and assistance. Thirty-six states and 100 cities have copycat faith-based agencies \u2013 bureaucracies, Joshua. $300 million was expended to help small groups \u2013 and at a time when budgets were tight. There are plenty of things you could say about whether the money followed the enthusiasm \u2013 there was controversy. As this became more prominent in Washington and in the country, groups that wanted to go to court became stronger and bigger and had more people and more financing. So there was action administratively \u2013 not so much legislatively \u2013 and certainly judicially.<\/p>\n Now the new president has outlined his plan, which sounds like a continuation in many ways, but not all ways, of what came before. There are lessons and shared values that, as in many ways in government, carry over. The new office is called the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and it has purposes that are similar to what I mentioned. There\u2019s a 25-member advisory council. Several members are here today \u2013 distinguished people working in this new structure. And that is different.<\/p>\n President Obama has emphasized more of a policy role. Right away, he got legislation enacted for community services \u2013 voluntary programs \u2013 to reauthorize the provisions that apply. In the $787 billion \u2013 that is a very big number \u2013 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that is now playing out in the country, there are many ways in which faith-based groups can be, and I\u2019m sure are, involved in programs and activities, particularly, as we study all the time, at the state and local level.<\/p>\n Several laws come up for reauthorization soon. The Charitable Choice provisions will be debated, including the hiring rights issue on TANF and other legislation that is soon to expire and is going to be discussed on the Hill. One of the other things I want to mention is that there\u2019s a lot of hard thinking to do and important research to do, I think, to answer the question, does it make a difference if a faith organization provides services to meet social needs? We\u2019re talking about families and people who have a lot of things they need to deal with as challenges in their community.<\/p>\n In our research \u2013 and this is ongoing \u2013 we are finding that there are some people who definitely respond to and have a special need, where religious organizations can really resonate with them. Now that\u2019s a research question, and it\u2019s a hard question to answer, and we are working on that currently. So I think that I have covered most of what I should say. We did issue one report recently that shows that many small churches have offered faith-based services but not so many of them receive or even know about federal grants. It\u2019s mentioned in David Wright\u2019s report.<\/p>\n The announcement of the new office means that the faith-based challenge will live on. We hope that the work of the Roundtable and the report we are presenting today and the material that, as Luis said, is now on the Forum\u2019s website will make a contribution and help people understand the hard challenges and benefit from lessons of experience. All through the country \u2013 not just in Washington \u2013 but all through the country. Thank you very much, Luis.<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>Thank you, Dick. Steve?<\/p>\n <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n STEPHEN GOLDSMITH, HARVARD<\/span> UNIVERSITY<\/span>:<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m less than flattered by the fact that I\u2019m here as the \u201cpast\u201d and the director is here as the \u201cfuture.\u201d (Laughter.) I haven\u2019t been invited in such a capacity before. I\u2019ll keep my remarks brief since I think the future may be more important than the past. I\u2019m going to try to do in five minutes the 20 years I\u2019ve been involved in this issue because I don\u2019t want to start just with the Bush administration. I\u2019d like to go back to Indianapolis because it has some relevance to how the initiative got started.<\/p>\n So a brief anecdote. The first week I got elected mayor, I went to an inner-city African-American church on Sunday. I\u2019m so old that I\u2019d worked in the Model Cities Program and had developed a relationship with a great guy, and he invited me to his church. He was 6\u20197\u2019\u2019; he looked like he played basketball for some important group, and he said, at about the middle of the service, I want everybody to stand up and we\u2019re going to hold hands and we\u2019re going to pray until the mayor agrees to fix the sidewalks in front of the church. So I saw the power of faith and agreed, and that was the beginning of the initiative right there.<\/p>\n Then, step two. We did a number of things to revitalize urban communities in Indianapolis, Ind., and modeled some of them on what a friend of mine, Kirk Schmoke, had done in Baltimore. After a couple of years, we\u2019d spent enormous amounts of public dollars on a lot of interesting community empowerment issues. Some were working and most weren\u2019t, and we said, what\u2019s missing here? Then we did this asset inventory of what were the most important assets in those urban communities. We did door-to-door in a rigorous way, and as you would assume, the more frequent asset in those communities was the faith-based institution. In our city, mostly the church \u2013 and these are not mega-churches. These are churches with an average congregation of less than 400. A part-time pastor pulled them together \u2013 a very tough neighborhood with a lot of work on the part of the pastor.<\/p>\n We began then to figure out what the city government could do to relate to those faith organizations in order for them to extend their reach. The goal here, for those of you who follow my colleague at Harvard, Bob Putnam, was not just how to do a public service but how to do a public service in a way that leveraged social capital.<\/p>\n We disregarded both of the extremes that were popular at the time. One, on the part of some in my party, was if government would just go away, the urban neighborhoods would get better. The view of some on the other side was, government can do everything. Neither one of those was accurate. It was the relationship of the two that we thought would lead to resurgence or revitalization in those communities. We ended up with something called the Front Porch Alliance, which has been written about, and many of you have read about.<\/p>\n Next issue. So then the president announces his campaign in Indianapolis at a church in 2000 and gives, what I think, is the excellent \u201cArmies of Compassion\u201d speech and talks a little bit about the faith-based initiative. So what happened was that the Indianapolis effort, the asset inventory and the Front Porch Alliance then became essentially the precursor for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Not exactly, obviously, because this is a big country and I\u2019m a little city, but nevertheless the concept was the same. So, to me, all along the issue was how to provide higher-quality services to individuals who needed them. It wasn\u2019t a choice between government and faith. It wasn\u2019t obviously an issue about how they would relate.<\/p>\n When we began the effort, a couple things \u2013 and Dick actually referenced these \u2013 stuck in my mind. One was that it was a really big deal when President Clinton did the Charitable Choice law as part of the TANF legislation \u2013 a really big deal. But it was not universal across government.<\/p>\n I got cited by the Department of Labor IG [Inspector General] for allowing summer job-training kids to say a voluntary prayer at lunch because they were doing job programs in church organizations but that violated the Department of Labor laws that weren\u2019t included in the Charitable Choice language. When I was trying to do homeless work with the Salvation Army with CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] dollars from HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development], we got cited because crosses were still up on the sides of the Salvation Army. All of these things led to an expansion of the Charitable Choice language across several other departments.<\/p>\n I would say, as we look at it today, the goal was to create an even playing field that leveraged good results in urban communities. Picking up on what Dick said is that there is a culture of respect for the part that faith-based organizations play in community and personal renewal. And it\u2019s no longer all that controversial. There are aspects of it on the extreme that you could make controversial if you want to create a fight. But generally, if you are a mayor or a governor \u2013 maybe not a congressman, but a mayor or a governor \u2013 it\u2019s an issue of how to give the quality services that you need.<\/p>\n As I look at this when we started, the reason I recommended to the president that we have the Cabinet offices was because I actually thought it probably didn\u2019t make any difference what the laws said if the bureaucrats didn\u2019t care. If we didn\u2019t have an official in a Cabinet office who reported to Joshua or John DiIulio, who would every day look at those grant RFPs and every day watch the peer-review process, I was totally sure that nothing would change. In fact, the Cabinet offices that had the most powerful faith-based assistance are the ones that did the most good.<\/p>\n So we did see very substantial changes, and I think the culture change then, starting with President Clinton going through President Bush, that built up is a very significant one. The level playing field report that my friend John DiIulio was responsible for is terrific. The goal was to level the playing field, and I think a lot of that\u2019s been accomplished. If you look at those two together \u2013<\/p>\n I see faces in the audience. David Caprara is back there about four rows. I was chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the parent of AmeriCorps and VISTA. So I\u2019m a chairman of an organization, I helped start the faith-based office, and the faith-based efforts in my organization were de minimis. It wasn\u2019t until David came over and helped straighten out the VISTA program by saying, here\u2019s what level playing field means, that we were able to actually leverage the efforts for faith across the programs in the Corporation for National and Community Service . So I think the culture is there.<\/p>\n Also, as Dick mentioned, I never thought it was very difficult to create faith-based alliances with really big faith-based organizations. Catholic Social Services, Jewish Family Services and Lutheran Family Services really did not need the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. They had their own bureaucracies, not necessarily in a pejorative way. They can deal with government.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the little guy who found government either bewildering \u2013 certainly not helpful \u2013 and often quite harmful. I think as we\u2019ve moved out here to create a little bit of space for small guys to participate, that\u2019s important. I think also remarkably important is the fact, as Dick mentioned, that a large number of cities in 36 states have their own offices. Some of them have creatively said, okay, we\u2019re going to set aside 1 percent of our TANF money, and we\u2019re going to use that to stimulate the faith-based side and the like.<\/p>\n I guess the last point in terms of accomplishments that might serve as a foundation for President Obama is that when the president went to start or support really big important programs like Pastor Goode\u2019s Amachi program, the faith-based initiative was the path to supporting a big program, or the AIDS program or Access to Recovery and the like.<\/p>\n If we think about the faith world as a world of wonderful volunteers who want to help other folks and when they\u2019re connected to important government missions can create transformative change quickly, I think that\u2019s a lesson we learned. I think looking at Mayor Goode over here, Pastor Goode, and what he\u2019s done with children of prisoners in Amachi is probably the best example of that.<\/p>\n Last couple points in terms of things to think about as we go forward because we\u2019re about through with the past here in about 30 seconds. One is \u2013 I don\u2019t want this to come out wrong like I\u2019m criticizing what we did \u2013 but I don\u2019t think that measuring how much money we spent on faith-based groups is really the standard that we want. It became the scorekeeping device and I understand why \u2013 because you can count it. But isn\u2019t a better issue here how many lives and neighborhoods have been transformed or revitalized, how many kids who would not have had opportunity otherwise have opportunity, how many women who would otherwise have been beat up have support through domestic shelters, etc.?<\/p>\n We need to find a better way than money. I\u2019m encouraged and hopeful that what the director will be able to do with the Promise Communities and the Social Enterprise Fund and the other initiatives of the president is to think about the roles that the faith community can play that create transformative changes in the lives of the people they touch, and not just do government work the same way but diverting government money.<\/p>\n It always felt to me even when I was in Indianapolis that what my contract managers were trying to do to save the faith-based groups was: You won\u2019t get in trouble if you follow all these rules, and if you follow all these rules, you\u2019ll act just like we did when we were delivering the services.<\/p>\n The goal is to create an accountability regime that makes those organizations responsible to the government for the dollars they spend but provides flexibility in how they do it. So how effective the director is in getting the faith organizations incorporated in the Promise Communities and the Race to the Top and the Social Enterprise Fund in ways that can change lives and neighborhoods I think is particularly important.<\/p>\n So as we look forward, I think some very substantial steps have been made, not the least of which is incorporation of the culture of fairness and even playing field, lots of offices in cities and states, and pretty good (inaudible) for President Obama and the director.<\/p>\n LUGO: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Thank you, Steve. We are staying on time, and we\u2019ll continue to stay on time if Joshua remembers that we invited him to be a speaker as a government official rather than a Pentecostal preacher.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n JOSHUA DUBOIS, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED AND NEIGHBOORHOOD PARTNERSHIPS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I will be brief, and I know we want to get to the Q&A as well. Thank you, Luis, for having me and, Stephen and Richard, it\u2019s great to be up here with you. Again, my name is Joshua Dubois, and I\u2019m the director of President Obama\u2019s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about why the president even has this office, and then we\u2019ll talk about how we function on a day-to-day basis and what some of our long-term goals are.<\/p>\n The reason President Obama retained this office and changed it\u2019s name and mission just a bit is because he knows something that many of the organizations \u2013 I see Catholic Charities and others \u2013 represented in this room know well, which is that we\u2019ve got some big challenges as a country. We\u2019ve got too many kids who aren\u2019t getting the education they need; we have a health care system that\u2019s broken; we have challenges with housing, with our economic recovery, and so on and so forth. If we\u2019re going to address those things, we can\u2019t do it here in Washington alone \u2013 either at the White House or on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n Instead, what we have to do is to connect with individuals and families in communities all across the country, where ideas are bubbling up and where real change is made. That includes faith-based and community-based organizations. That\u2019s really at the core of the role of my office, to serve as that connection point, that link, between the federal government and local community groups. To serve individuals and families and communities \u2013 that\u2019s our core mission.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a bit tweaked from the mission of the previous office, which I think was a critically important mission. I sat down with the president; we were talking about how this office would move forward. We were thinking through the concept of a level and an even playing field, which is critically important and which I think was necessary. Because of the work that they were able to do to level the playing field, now we\u2019re at a place where we can think about what the specific goals are that we want to achieve through this office.<\/p>\n What are we doing on<\/em> the playing field? What do we want to get out of our partnerships with faith-based and with neighborhood-based organizations? That\u2019s a shift just a bit from the previous lens. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a matter of being better or worse, but I think it enables us to take the next step in the progression of this office.<\/p>\n The way that we function, the way that we address our core goals, which I\u2019ll get to in a moment, is through 11, or basically 11-and-a-half with our quasi-center at the Corporation for National and Community Service, centers for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Some of them are actually still centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; we\u2019re working to change the name on a center-by-center basis.<\/p>\n What those little, mini-offices do is connect their agency with local faith-based and neighborhood-based organizations to fulfill the mission of that agency and to serve people in need. So our center at the Department of Labor, for example, will form connections between that agency and local community-based groups to provide job-training services.<\/p>\n The center at the Department of Justice \u2013 and I see our VA acting director in the back \u2013 will work to connect their agencies with local organizations to fulfill their particular mission. So that\u2019s really how we function on a day-to-day basis. And, quite frankly, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to do that if it wasn\u2019t for Stephen\u2019s idea to create this network in the first place.<\/p>\n A few other things are a bit different though. Based on this idea that we\u2019re able to talk about what we\u2019re doing on the playing field instead of still having to do the work to level the playing field, we have four overall goals, four things that we\u2019d like to achieve at the end of the day through this office. I\u2019d like to talk a bit about them, and then we\u2019ll talk about a few other small differences as well.<\/p>\n The four goals are as follows: The first one is connecting community-based and faith-based groups to the economic recovery. As we\u2019re getting our economy back on track, as we\u2019re trying to create new jobs, how are we incorporating faith-based organizations and local neighborhood organizations? Often they\u2019re the ones that are providing job-training services or financial literacy counseling. The job of my office is to be a watchdog and to make sure that the federal agencies are working with them and learning from them as we try to get our economy back on track.<\/p>\n The second goal is responsible fatherhood and healthy families, and this is something that the president cares a lot about, both based on his own personal story and also his perception of a crisis of father absence in many communities. He wants my office to serve as a convening point to pull together federal agencies and intermediaries and local organizations to think about how we can support models that work to address these challenges, and, quite frankly, how he can use the bully pulpit of the presidency to talk about what it means to have a healthy family and to strengthen healthy families that are out there. That\u2019s a critical topic of our office, especially as we lead into Father\u2019s Day coming up in just a few days.<\/p>\n The third priority \u2013 and this is done in conjunction with the interagency Council on Women and Girls \u2013 probably the most politically contentious priority, but one that\u2019s important nonetheless, is how can we find common ground on the issue of reducing unintended pregnancies, supporting maternal and child health, strengthening adoption, and reducing the need for abortion? Now obviously on this difficult issue there are clear perspectives on both sides, and our goal is not to navigate those polar ends, to re-litigate Roe v. Wade<\/em>, but instead, what are the areas in the middle? How can we identify policies that will support adoption, that will come alongside pregnant women who choose to carry their pregnancy to term and support them? So we\u2019re working and meeting with groups on both sides of this important issue to formulate policies in this area.<\/p>\n Then the last goal is how can we serve as a convening point, as a catalyst, to promote interfaith dialogue and cooperation? And that cooperation word is key. The president thinks we can do a better job of bringing people from different religious backgrounds together through both our foreign policy but also here at home. But it\u2019s not enough just to bring them together; we want to talk about what we\u2019re doing together across religious lines, whether it\u2019s combating malaria abroad or interfaith service projects here at home through the Corporation for National Service. How are we bringing people from different religious backgrounds together to serve particular needs?<\/p>\n So, taking a step back \u2013 we\u2019re still working on the metrics and identifying how we measure success in these areas, but we\u2019re going to measure our success based not just narrowly on how many groups have received federal funds and the total dollar value of those funds, as Stephen mentioned, but instead how we are achieving these specific goals.<\/p>\n A few other things that are a little different \u2013 again, this is just an evolution of this office, not better or worse \u2013 is that we have a renewed focus on engagement broadly. We\u2019ve had hundreds of meetings with both religious organizations and also non-sectarian organizations about the work that they\u2019re doing, and we have a steady flow of groups into the office so that we can learn from them.<\/p>\n Another key point of engagement is the president\u2019s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This is a 25-member council, individuals serving one-year terms who are going to provide advice about how this office is going and how we\u2019re working to achieve these goals. These are both religious and secular community leaders, and I think a very important feedback mechanism for us. So that focus on engagement is certainly renewed.<\/p>\n Two additional ways that I think we\u2019re changing course just a bit is one, a focus on what we\u2019re calling civic partnerships, nonfinancial partnerships. What are the ways that we can support organizations outside of just the federal grant-making process? The bare facts are that there are far more faith-based and neighborhood organizations than there are federal grants. So we\u2019ve got to find some other ways to come alongside these groups and share best practices with them and connect them with one another so that they can learn from each other. This focus on civic partnerships is, I think, something that will be at the forefront in the years ahead.<\/p>\n Then the last way is, how can we strengthen the legal and constitutional footing of this office? The president definitely believes based on his personal history and his work with faith-based groups that there is a role for responsible partnership between the federal government and these organizations.<\/p>\n But that word \u201cresponsible\u201d is key \u2013 how are we making sure that federal funds aren\u2019t being used for sectarian purposes? How are we encouraging organizations to form 501(c)(3)s so that it helps them come into clearer legal lines and parameters. We are sort of doing an agency-by-agency review of that process, working with our council and others to think about how we strengthen the legal footing of this office.<\/p>\n I think if we do all of that, if we focus on our goals, if we can engage and learn from folks who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have, quite frankly, through our outreach and through our council and others, and if we can strengthen the legal and constitutional footing of this office, then we can bring the federal government into robust and wonderful partnerships with local organizations that, at the end of the day, will help serve individuals and families and communities who are in need.<\/p>\n So I look forward to working with many of you all in the process, and I think it\u2019s time for Q&A.<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Thank you, Joshua. Thank you to all three of you. Just as an explanation, we have regular luncheons here for journalists, invite 24 or so around a table and bring in speakers. We thought for this one we would expand and invite a few other folks \u2013 and, again, thank you for coming. In keeping with the spirit of these luncheons, I\u2019m going to give journalists the first shot at asking questions here. That series, incidentally, we co-host with E.J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution and Mike Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and they\u2019re tremendous partners with us in that.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s begin with some of the journalists.<\/p>\n <\/a>SALLY QUINN, THE WASHINGTON POST<\/em>‘S “ON FAITH”:<\/strong> Joshua, I think after listening to what everyone has to say, it seems to me that the whole issue really comes down to the legality of the hiring and how do you deal with that. That really is the crunch. That\u2019s the question. What are the legal aspects of hiring people who are not of a certain faith working for one faith or not allowing people of a certain faith to be hired? Without the legal aspects being cleared up, how do you do anything?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Well, two points. One, I\u2019ll address the question directly, but two, I just want to go back to something Stephen said earlier: the range of issues that this office is confronting and the dire need to connect with organizations on the ground that are serving people in need.<\/p>\n The hiring issue, which I will address in just a moment, is important. It\u2019s something that is an important part of the public dialogue and that a lot of people on both sides care deeply about. What\u2019s also important, though, is the fact that we have too many folks who need job training and aren\u2019t getting it. We have too many folks who are struggling to find affordable housing and could use responsible partnerships between the federal government and local organizations to get that housing.<\/p>\n There are a range of issues that we\u2019re working on on a day-to-day basis that, quite frankly, aren\u2019t as titillating as some of these more controversial issues that are discussed in the press but that at the end of the day impact people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s where we spend the vast majority of our time, thinking about those and working on them. So I will say that I know that it\u2019s an important topic in the press and with some key groups, but there are a range of other issues that this office is addressing that I think are equally important as well.<\/p>\n On the hiring issue, this is a difficult issue and there are clear perspectives on both sides. What the president has decided to do and what we believe is the best approach to this is to fully understand this issue. As issues arise out in agencies, whether it\u2019s on co-religion in hiring, hiring discrimination or any other difficult legal issue, we will consider them. We will work with the White House counsel and with the Department of Justice, the attorney general, to fully explore that individual case and make a recommendation to the president. At the end of the day, he will determine what he thinks the best path forward is.<\/p>\n Now I know that\u2019s certainly not satisfying to individuals on both sides \u2013 many of our friends in conservative communities are in some ways not happy that a new mechanism has been created to really look at this issue. And many of our friends in progressive communities have expressed that they wished for more sweeping action at the outset of this office. So we recognize that there is some disagreement there, but the president really thinks that before we take any action on this or other challenging legal issues, we need to fully understand, get the lawyers involved and address it as fully as we can.<\/p>\n QUINN:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Are you saying that you will do it on a case-by-case basis?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>On a case-by-case basis, that\u2019s correct. Thanks, Sally.<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Before we go to the next question, Stephen, could you comment? I\u2019m just curious, to what extent was this particular issue, the legal one and particularly the hiring issue, a practical obstacle to you at the local level in seeking to implement these initiatives?<\/p>\n GOLDSMITH:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Well, until you called on me, I saw no reason to get in the middle of this conversation.<\/p>\n (Laughter.)<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Come on in, the water\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I saw you ducking the question.<\/p>\n GOLDSMITH: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>That\u2019s totally Joshua\u2019s problem. I didn\u2019t want to get into it at all. (Laughter.) First of all, I appreciate his answer. This was a big issue when President Bush introduced the legislation, as your question reflects. It\u2019s what killed the legislation and what kind of drove many of us crazy.<\/p>\n Of all of the mayors I know who had faith-based organizations, it never was an issue. I know there have been lawsuits, and you can come up with examples. I kind of agree with the way Joshua put it; it\u2019s important to some folks. But as a practical matter, it wasn\u2019t. I appreciate the First Amendment consequences and all the like, but if the guy is homeless and needs help, that really was a more essential focus. I don\u2019t want to demean the question; the question is an important question. But as a practical matter, never.<\/p>\n I come from this kind of idea that if you\u2019re trying to do the right thing, you can always reach consensus, and I couldn\u2019t figure out why I couldn\u2019t reach consensus on the legislation the president had suggested on this issue. I realized that people really didn\u2019t want consensus; they really wanted to argue about the issue. But at the local level, it never was an issue for any of the Democratic mayors or the Republican mayors.<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Interesting. Dick, did you want to say anything?<\/p>\n NATHAN: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>First off, picking up on what Joshua said, when it comes to outreach \u2013 getting the government to penetrate the bureaucracies to encourage alliances, cooperation, new groups coming in and working together \u2013 that\u2019s an important effort and there\u2019s momentum, and I think the way he said it is very good. At the same time, when it comes to a grant and an organization has to decide, should I apply, and what do I say in my application, and what\u2019s going to happen to my application \u2013<\/p>\n So my less cautious commentary, Steve, than yours to Joshua is, that\u2019s absolutely right what you said, that this is delicate and difficult, legally very complicated. You should take some time to get your legal experts \u2013 and there are two in this room who are very smart and special \u2013 to look at what you\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think you can have that as an operating premise on a long-term basis because there would be too much uncertainty in the system. So my suggestion to you, in as constructive a way as I can advance it, is that at the same time you bring the legal experts in and get deeply into this question and see what it really is in your world, you look toward an end-game that gives clarity to the many groups out there that you want to work with because it will need that, I think.<\/p>\n Not for alliance-building and not for the sort of bully pulpit function of all of this, in past and future, but for the money, grant-making side. I\u2019m fascinated that that was the first question and the crunch word that you used \u2013 you\u2019re going to have it. I would urge you to think about the fact that at some point you may have to come to grips with it more than you may want to.<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I definitely appreciate that.<\/p>\n NATHAN:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Is that okay, Chip?<\/p>\n LUGO:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Just like there are continuities between administrations on this, there are also continuities between the Roundtable and the Pew Forum on this issue because we are retaining the A-team of Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle, who have worked with the Roundtable on this, to help us in the Forum continue to provide you with good, legal analysis on this issue. So stay tuned on that score.<\/p>\n NATHAN: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>And they are terrific.<\/p>\n ROBERT MARUS, ASSOCIATED BAPTIST PRESS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>As Joshua and the rest of the panel knows, hiring is not the only legal issue that remains controversial. The president taught constitutional law, and the people who supported him might have a higher sensitivity to Establishment Clause violations, and the lawsuits still come up all the time with these programs.<\/p>\n Has the president, Joshua, given you and your office any kind of instruction on how to deal with these kinds of cases in the future and how to investigate your programs, your agencies, to make sure that they are abiding by the First Amendment\u2019s religion clauses, both of them?<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I think what he\u2019s done is appointed some great folks in the Justice Department, who will fully explore these issues as they arise and who have both a clear understanding and respect for the Constitution but also are sensitive to the need for responsible faith-based partnerships. So beyond that, I think he\u2019s put some good folks in place who can address these issues, and I think that\u2019s probably the best way forward.<\/p>\n <\/a>KIM LAWTON, RELIGION AND ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Joshua, I keep hearing about people who are on the council, people who are on task forces, people who are on both, people who are on task forces and not on the council \u2013 can you give me a sense of how many task forces there are under your office?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Sure, the overall structure of this whole thing. Let\u2019s do that.<\/p>\n LAWTON: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Yeah, how they\u2019re meeting and what they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n DUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>The overall structure is an Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. That\u2019s sort of the umbrella for everything \u2013 not everything, but everything in my little world. We unfortunately don\u2019t have the Department of Energy underneath us. (Laughter.)<\/p>\n So that\u2019s the overall umbrella. We then coordinate 11 centers for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, plus a strategic advisor at the Corporation for National Service, and they work on a day-to-day basis to connect those agencies with local organizations. We also have this advisory council that you\u2019re referring to, the president\u2019s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.<\/p>\n These are 25 people who are serving one-year terms, and they\u2019re focused on six separate issues. And really, there\u2019s been a lot of misreporting about the goals and the mandate of that council. It\u2019s not to provide grants or weigh in on grant funding or the management of this office, but instead it\u2019s to think about how the federal government can come into more effective and responsible and legal partnership with local community organizations, both faith-based and secular, to fulfill some specific goals.<\/p>\n The six things they are looking at are:<\/p>\n Those are the six task forces of the council. On the task force level, which is below the overall council level, we can add in other experts, and that\u2019s what you\u2019re referring to, that other people can weigh in on these issues. We have a range of players and actors who are providing their advice in that regard.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s an overall office. There are 12 centers. There\u2019s an advisory council that has some task forces. It actually functions well even though that\u2019s a lot of words there.<\/p>\n LAWTON:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>There are six task forces specifically on this issue?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>That\u2019s right. Thanks, Kim.<\/p>\n LYNN SWEET, CHICAGO<\/em> SUN-TIMES<\/em>: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Josh, how many people do you have on your payroll? Is it the same as in the Bush White House? And how do you overlap, if at all, with the newly renamed Obama Office of Public Engagement?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s a great question. We will be at about the same number, between five and seven folks in the White House office, and then the centers will be between three and five people in each of those offices as well. We\u2019re still staffing up. That will go well into the summer and fall.<\/p>\n The way we relate to OPE, the Office of Public Engagement has a faith-outreach liaison within its office, whom we engage with multiple times per day so that we can make sure we\u2019re closely coordinating.<\/p>\n ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Do you actually have a budget to make grants, and what is it? Are you doing any oversight of grants that were made during the Bush era, and have you drawn any conclusions about those?<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I am thankful for that question. I love answering this. Thankfully we have no money in the White House office to disperse to any faith-based organizations. This is one thing that \u2013 I don\u2019t think it was at all intentional \u2013 but for some reason there was a perception in the previous administration that there was this big pot of money in the White House that could be dispersed out to faith-based organizations. That didn\u2019t exist and doesn\u2019t exist now.<\/p>\n CLIFT: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>That is the urban myth, if you will.<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It is.<\/p>\n CLIFT:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s usually the way to give money to groups that \u2013<\/p>\n DUBOIS:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u2013 you\u2019re friendly with and so forth. Now there are competitive grants all across the federal government, and our job is to make sure that faith-based and local neighborhood organizations are aware of those opportunities and can apply for them. We continue to do that. But there\u2019s no set of faith-based funds, although that perception is certainly out there.<\/p>\n One of the things we\u2019re trying to do as we focus more on civic partnerships is to disabuse folks of the notion that the only way we can and should partner with local organizations is through grants because, quite frankly, there aren\u2019t enough grants out there, and then some organizations aren\u2019t ready to come into partnership with the federal government.<\/p>\n ADRIEL BETTELHEIM, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>You\u2019ve talked about the importance of reducing unintended pregnancies and reducing abortion. I\u2019m wondering if you could point to any programs around the country that you\u2019re holding up as models for other similar activity?<\/p>\n DUBOIS: \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>The answer is not yet, quite frankly, because we are in a process where we\u2019re reaching out to a range of organizations and just listening to what they\u2019re doing, what\u2019s working on the ground in each of those areas. We\u2019re compiling all of that data, that information, both about programs that work, about policies, potential legislative approaches, and then we\u2019ll put together recommendations for the president, who will then sign off and announce the way forward on that issue. There are a lot of great organizations out there. I wouldn\u2019t want to preempt the president by highlighting them just yet, though.<\/p>\n LUGO: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Stephen, could I ask you whether there was any thought given during the Bush administration to expanding the scope of the faith-based office because it seems to me like they\u2019re taking on a lot more policy domains than was ever anticipated in the Bush White House. Any discussions along these lines?<\/p>\n GOLDSMITH:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m not sure whether they are or not. I don\u2019t mean that in a critical way. I mean, in the Bush White House there were multiple points of entry into domestic policy, and the faith-based office was one voice. Depending on who was there and who was elsewhere at the time, sometimes a more forceful voice and sometimes not.<\/p>\n If you just think about urban policy in the Obama administration, there are multiple places for that voice. You can think about this a couple of ways. One is the policy influence of the faith-based office, so the extent to which the faith-based office is a powerful voice with the Domestic Policy Council, that\u2019s really important. That was an issue in the Bush White House, where that voice came from. Some people in the room have actually written about John DiIulio\u2019s relationship and how all that happened.<\/p>\n I think rather than answer your question directly, I would say the extent to which the director is effective, not just with the bureaucrats but with senior policy officials because of his strength and his position, he can make a difference. Sometimes that ebbed and sometimes it flowed in the Bush White House.<\/p>\n <\/a>ADELLE BANKS, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Question for Joshua as well. I\u2019m wondering about the advisors on the advisory council and how you view them. Do you see them more as sounding boards whom you call up perhaps every day, every week, depending on the issue, or do you expect them to come up with recommendations that will actually turn into policy that the president will work for?<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n