The Effectiveness and Trustworthiness of Faith‐Based and Other Service Organizations: A Study of Recipients' Perceptions

Drawing on a new community study of more than 2,000 residents of low-income neighborhoods, we examine information about the kinds of service organizations respondents have contacted for assistance and the perceptions of these respondents about the effectiveness and trustworthiness of those organizations. We compare contact with and perceptions of faith-based organizations, nonsectarian organizations, government agencies, hospitals, and churches and employ a method that takes account of respondents’ varying portfolios of service providers. The results indicate that the recipients of faith-based organizations resemble those of the public welfare department in the extent of financial need and scope of family problems, and differ significantly from recipients of help from congregations. The results also indicate that recipients’ evaluations of the effectiveness and trustworthiness of their portfolio of service organizations are lower when they have sought assistance from public welfare agencies and higher when they have sought assistance from congregations, but are not significantly affected by having contacted faith-based or nonsectarian organizations. Considerable interest in faith-based organizations (FBOs) that provide social services to the needy in their communities has been generated since passage of the charitable choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation and in conjunction with the formation of the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under the Bush Administration (Cnaan 1999; Diulio 2002; Pipes and Ebaugh 2002; Chaves 1999). Proponents of government funding for FBOs argue that these organizations play a special role in the provision of community services and should therefore be encouraged. As President Bush observed: “Charities and faithbased groups fill needs that no welfare system, no matter how well designed, can possibly fill ... In times of personal crisis, people do not need the rules of a bureaucracy; they need the help of a neighbor” (2002). Yet, in view of tax dollars being devoted to government programs that in turn provide support to FBOs, questions have been raised about the relative effectiveness of FBOs compared with public or nonsectarian organizations (NSOs). A major foundation-funded effort has been initiated to monitor research on these and related questions. However, relatively little research thus far has sought to examine the effectiveness of FBOs. The few attempts that have been made to assess the effectiveness of FBOs have focused either on specific organizations already presumed to be particularly effective or on specific outcomes that are easily measurable, such as recidivism or responses to drug treatment. For instance, Berrien, McRoberts, and Winship (2000) examined the Ten Point Coalition in Boston during a period when crime statistics fell and argued that there were features of the coalition of clergy and police that made it a likely contributor to the decline (see also Orr et al. 1994; Winship forthcoming). A more quantitative approach is illustrated by Desmond and Maddux (1981), who studied heroin