The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, [1] formerly the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) is an office within the White House Office that is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
OFBCI was established by President George W. Bush through an executive order [2] on January 29, 2001, representing one of the key domestic policies of Bush's campaign promise of "compassionate conservatism." The initiative sought to strengthen faith-based and community organizations and expand their capacity to provide federally funded social services, positing that these groups were well-situated to meet the needs of local individuals. As Texas governor, Bush had used the "Charitable Choice" provisions of the 1996 welfare reform (which allowed "faith-based" entities to compete for government contracts to deliver social services) to support the work of faith-based groups in Texas. Established religions offer a critical financial contribution to the overall effort and effect of social services (e.g., community services with health care financing) in the US.
The office was briefly led by Don Willett, an aide from Bush's tenure as governor of Texas who was later appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. The first person named as director of the OFBCI was John DiIulio, a University of Pennsylvania political science professor. DiIulio later left the office and became a critic of the Bush administration.
Critics of the OFBCI, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, assert that it violated the Establishment Clause by using tax money to fund religion. They also argued that faith-based initiatives were used as part of electoral strategies to yield more votes for Bush and the GOP.
For fiscal year 2005, more than $2.2 billion in competitive social service grants were awarded to faith-based organizations. Between fiscal years 2003 and 2005, the total dollar amount of all grants awarded to FBOs increased by 21 percent (GAO 2006:43 [3] ). The majority of these grants were distributed through state agencies to local organizations in the form of formula grants (GAO 2006:17 [3] ).
Faith-based organizations are eligible to participate in federally administered social service programs to the same degree as any other group, although certain restrictions on FBOs that accept government funding have been created by the White House to avoid violations of the Establishment Clause.
President Barack Obama renamed the office [4] and appointed Joshua DuBois as its head. He also established an advisory council, composed of religious and secular leaders and scholars from different backgrounds. Each member of the council was appointed to a one-year term.
According to ABC News, the office would seek "to expand the role of this office as it relates to policy issues where religious and local leaders can be effective. DuBois would coordinate with faith-based and community organizations on social service outreach and work to utilize these organizations' efforts to advance the administration's policies, with a primary focus on poverty." [5] Joshua DuBois resigned as director in February 2013 and was succeeded by Melissa Rogers in March. [6]
Following the election of President Donald Trump, the office remained without a director; the website was no longer available. [7] [8] In May 2018, Trump started the Faith and Opportunity Initiative, a new White House office to help faith-based organizations get equal access to government funding. [9]
On February 14, 2021, President Joe Biden reestablished the Office with Melissa Rogers again serving as executive director. [10]
I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor! Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it. [17]
Religious activities generally need some infrastructure to be conducted. For this reason, there generally exist religion-supporting organizations, which are some form of organization that manages:
USA Freedom Corps was a White House office and fifth policy council within the Executive Office of the President of the United States under George W. Bush, who as President served as its chair. Bush announced its creation during his 2002 State of the Union Address, and the Corps was officially established the next day, describing itself as a "Coordinating Council... working to strengthen our culture of service and help find opportunities for every American to start volunteering."
Charitable choice refers to direct United States government funding of religious organizations to provide social services.
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is an initiative that attempts to "galvanize international action against extremism" through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.
John J. Dilulio Jr. is an American political scientist. He currently serves as the Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion, and Civil Society and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jay F. Hein is a former Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), and Deputy Assistant to U.S President George W. Bush. As director of the OFBCI, he was charged with the mission of expanding and strengthening the influence of faith based organizations in providing social welfare services. Hein resigned from the post in September 2008 to take a position with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, and to return to his former job as president of the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, a non-profit Indianapolis, Indiana based think tank.
Kirbyjon H. Caldwell is the former senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, a 14,000-member megachurch at Windsor Village in Houston, Texas. He was a spiritual advisor to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Sojourners is a progressive monthly magazine and daily online publication of the American Christian social justice organization Sojourners, which arose out of the Sojourners Community. It was first published in 1971 under the original title of The Post-American. The magazine and online publication feature reporting, commentary, and analysis on Christianity and politics, the church and social issues, social justice, and Christian living. Articles frequently feature coverage of fair trade, interfaith dialogue, peacemaking, and work to alleviate poverty. The offices of the magazine are in Washington, D.C.
Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, 551 U.S. 587 (2007), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which ruled that taxpayers do not have the right to challenge the constitutionality of expenditures by the executive branch of the government. The issue was whether taxpayers have the right to challenge the existence of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The case centered on three Supreme Court precedents: Flast v. Cohen, Bowen v. Kendrick, and Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State.
Joshua DuBois is an executive and former government official who served as the head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Executive Office of the President of the United States from 2009 to 2013. In February 2013 he stepped down to write a book of devotionals based on the ones he sends Obama, start a consulting firm, and become the weekly religion and community solutions columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. DuBois has been included among "The Root 100" and Ebony Magazine's "Power 150" lists of the most influential African Americans in the country. He also appeared on the cover of Christianity Today magazine as one of the 33 most influential Christian leaders under 33. In September 2017 it was announced that DuBois would become a CNN Contributor.
Wright Mahdi Bray, is a Muslim American civil and human rights activist and currently the National Director of the American Muslim Alliance and formerly served as executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation based in Washington, DC. The foundation supported Muslim activists and religious leaders who have been arrested.
Alexia Kelley is the president and CEO of FADICA. Prior to that appointment, she was deputy director and senior advisor in the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, as well as former director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She was the principal founder and executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
The Center for Public Justice is an American Christian think tank which undertakes to bring a Christian worldview to bear on policy issues.
The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation was an office new to the Obama Administration, created within the White House, to catalyze new and innovative ways of encouraging government to do business differently. Its first director was the economist Sonal Shah. The final director was David Wilkinson.
Anju Bhargava is a management consultant who was a member of President Barack Obama's inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership.
The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) is a United States governmental office that coordinates an ambitious whole-of-government approach to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The Initiative collaborates with the Deputy Assistant to the President and AA and NHPI Senior Liaison, White House Office of Public Engagement and designated federal departments and agencies to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for AA and NHPIs in the areas of economic development, education, health and human services, housing, environment, arts, agriculture, labor and employment, transportation, justice, veterans affairs, and community development.
Executive Order 13672, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama on July 21, 2014, amended two earlier executive orders to extend protection against discrimination in hiring and employment to additional classes. It prohibited discrimination in the civilian federal workforce on the basis of gender identity and in hiring by federal contractors on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.
Melissa Rogers is an American church-state lawyer and non-resident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. On February 14, 2021, President Joe Biden designated Rogers as executive director of the reestablished Office under his administration.
Harry James Towey II is an American former government official and academic administrator. Towey was appointed secretary of the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services by Governor Lawton Chiles in 1993, and ousted by the Florida Senate in 1995. He founded Aging with Dignity, a nonprofit advocacy organization for senior citizens, in 1996 and coauthored the end-of-life planning document Five Wishes. He was Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) from February 2002 to May 2006. Towey was President of Saint Vincent College from 2006 to 2010 and President and CEO of Ave Maria University from 2011 to 2019.
Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners, a Christian nonprofit organization focused on the biblical call to social justice. He is also the author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community and Mobilizing Hope: Faith-Inspired Activism for a Post Civil Rights Generation. Taylor is ordained in the American Baptist Church and Progressive National Baptist Convention.
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