c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ President Bush on Thursday (March 9) urged large private funders to join government agencies in offering grants to faith-based organizations, adding that corporations and foundations should rewrite their rules if they don’t allow funding of religious charities.

“I believe all of us … ought to allow religious organizations to compete and function on an equal basis, not for the sake of faith but for the sake of results,” he told about 1,200 people gathered for a national conference of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.

He cited research by that office that showed only a small level of grant giving to faith groups by corporations and foundations.

The White House also released new research that showed 10.9 percent of competitive grants from seven federal agencies were received by faith-based organizations in fiscal year 2005. That percentage, which represents more than $2.1 billion in funding, is a slight increase from the previous fiscal year.

Although the president’s focus has generally been on public funding of faith-based organizations, the conference encouraged the private sector to consider religious groups providing social services.

The White House office found that one in five large foundations it researched prohibited funding for faith-based social service programs. It examined 50 such foundations in total.

“I would hope they would revisit their charters,” Bush said.

The White House also found that only 6 percent of grants from 20 large corporate foundations went to religious charities.

“I would urge our corporate foundations to reach beyond the norm and look for those social entrepreneurs who haven’t been recognized heretofore,” the president said.

In a workshop held just before the president’s half-hour of remarks, a standing-room-only crowd gathered in a hotel conference room to learn more about partnerships with corporate and foundation representatives.

“We hope that you’re going to take really good notes on what it is that corporations and foundations are looking for …, and how you can connect your needs with their needs,” said Marilyn Anderson Chase, a senior vice president of United Way of Massachusetts Bay, who moderated the session.

Representatives of faith-based and community organizations did just that _ and asked questions about how to get funding from CVS Corp. and General Mills Foundation, whose officials spoke during the forum.

Ellen Luger, executive director of the Minneapolis-based General Mills Foundation, said General Mills ships food to more than 200 sites that feed the hungry, including soup kitchens and emergency shelters run by faith-based organizations. She said her foundation looks to see how any applicant fits with her foundation’s funding priorities and is interested in faith-based groups that “allow children or folks of any faith to be part of the service you are doing.”

Steve Wing, director of government programs for CVS Corp., reminded officials of faith-based and community organizations that businesses are interested in making money and will want to know how charities can help them. He cited a mutually beneficial situation where he worked with a District of Columbia church leader to hold a job fair that brought in dozens of new CVS employees.

Asked after Bush’s speech about the president’s challenge for more business involvement with faith-based groups, Wing said he expects more will heed that call.

“This gives us a competitive edge,” said Wing, whose office is in Twinsburg, Ohio. “Other companies haven’t quite got there yet.”

Tom Brown, director of Faith in Action, an interfaith initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said it was pragmatic for the foundation to link religious volunteers with elderly and disabled people who needed help getting their groceries or traveling to medical appointments.

“They just looked at where the volunteers are and they’re in congregations,” said Brown, who is based in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Even as it drew attention to private funders, the White House said it has made “steady progress” by increasing access of religious groups to public grants and opening an 11th agency center related to faith-based charities in the Department of Homeland Security.

Despite recent gains, the White House office reported that faith-based organizations substantially trail secular nonprofits in the receipt of government funds. While faith-based organizations received 10.9 percent of available funds from the seven agencies studied, secular nonprofits received 64 percent, or $12.7 billion of $19.7 billion.

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