Sadly, there is more to it than what Professor Dilulio outlined in his presentation. Interestingly, much of what he talked about, to someone like me who really knows the ground game of human service delivery and faith-based social services in a complex community system of care, was a bit off even though it sounded authoritative. His claims about the capability of little churches to deliver services to the people with the biggest problems, was backed up by research on welfare to work data which I have carefully and outlined in my book Faith-Based Inefficiency:The Follies of Bush's Initiatives. What Professor Dilulio said was more not nearly as accurate as it sounded --he cherry picked very carefully. This stump speech is merely old wine in new bottles. Chapter four "The Director" in my book chronicles the --Dilulio method since 1997. I interviewed him for the book, and must have been part of the unfavorable of the 30 he mentioned. What he didn't say in the speech is that any federal effort will not work unless it is done with buy in with all the ogres that have "pimped" little congregational efforts according Dilulio. He was clever but he appealed to some colleague instead of showing the data about pimping. I am involved in the next stage of research to understand just how to get the most of congregations who MUST PLAY IN THE TEAM GAME at the community level. Since I have studied that game I would characterize things much differently
The resurrection of a top down government sponsored faith-based initiative sounds appealing and assuredly will enlist the next crop of political elite to the cause. But don't expect anything more than a jumbled mess unless there is "buy in" at the community level in the 325,000 pulpits, thousands of state and local government agencies, civic organizations, foundations, self help groups, for profit providers, and the United Ways:The Pimps.
Dr. Ram Cnaan, also from Penn, a legitimate expert on Church based social services and I, through a grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, and in partnership with the United Way of Delaware, are in the middle of a two-year, four part study. (1) It examines social services provided by Wilmington Delaware's congregations (2). The study catalogs the nature and scope of partnerships that government and United Way providers have with the religious community. (3) The research will provide the Wilmington community data about both the resources in the religious community, and model partnerships that major community-based service providers have with congregations and parishes and there are plenty. (4) It will provide a clearinghouse of data for the community planners to MATCH RESOURCES in the religious community with UNMET NEEDS of community-based organizations and vice versa. Right now the game of matching resources to need is done like a game of pin-the-tail on the donkey.
It is a new day in what we know about religious service provision. If politicians want to go beyond pandering to the religious community with promises of a new or revived Faith-Based Initiative, they might want to start from the ground up with a thoughtful community planning approach. We need a Faith-Based Initiative steeped in evidence on how to proceed community-by-community, not just the anecdotes and blind faith that have guided us thus far and formed much of this speech. If we go the thoughtful way, I will say Amen, and throw in a Hallelujah!
But this speech, sadly, was as much about the resurrection of Dilulio by Dilulio, as it was substantive.