Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries from Friday, March 30, 2007

Faith-Based Organizations Measure Success

Friday, March 30, 2007

Here’s a recommended read for anyone interested in measuring the effectiveness of a faith-based charity. The Heritage Foundation has published a special report titled, “Outcome-Based Evaluation: Faith-Based Social Service Organizations and Stewardship” by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D., Claudia Horn, Calvin W. Edwards, Collette Caprara, and Karen M. Woods -- Acton’s former Director of Effective Compassion.

Summary:

Outcome-based evaluation has the potential to engender a revolution of increased effectiveness in the faith community and to debunk skeptics’ claim that faith-based programs are only about “feel good” results rather than producing solid and measurable impacts. When administered properly, OBE can help both to clarify and to fulfill an organization’s founding mission and goals, as well as to ensure that the needy are served effectively and that funds are used responsibly.

Highlight:

Faith-based organizations in particular can benefit from using outcome-based evaluation to substantiate their success. Many of the innovative outreach programs of churches and faith groups are comparatively small when compared to the scale of conventional secular service projects. Yet, with the personal heartfelt commitment that is typical of faith-inspired service providers as well as their responsiveness to the individual needs and potential of recipients, faith-based initiatives often soar beyond conventional services in their impact on recipients’ lives. In fact, their very missions are often worded in qualitative terms of life transformation.

In street-smart language, Bob Cote, founder of Step 13—a Denver-based program that works with the largest and most complicated segment of the homeless: addicted street people—says the goal of his program is to “fix people, not just warehouse them.” “Our mission is to help these folks become responsible, productive community assets,” he explains. “We don’t want to just fill their stomachs. We want to fill their needs for employment, self-suf૟iciency, and self esteem.”

Posted by John Couretas in Effective Compassion at 15:39 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Acton Media Roundup

Friday, March 30, 2007

A couple of media appearances by Acton staff over the last week to let you know about:

Jay Richards joined host Hank Hanegraaff on the Bible Answer Man show to discuss the issue of a proper, well-reasoned Christian response to the issue of Global Warming. Click here to listen to the interview (3.7 mb MP3 file).
The director of Acton’s Rome office, Kishore Jayalaban, joined host Al Kresta on Kresta in the Afternoon on the Ave Maria Radio Network to discuss the declining birthrates and general decline in religious commitment in European nations. To hear Kishore’s perspective on the issue, click here (2.4 mb MP3 file).

Posted by Marc Vander Maas in News and Events at 15:04 | Comment (1) | Trackback

A one-size-fits-all approach to charity regulation?

Friday, March 30, 2007

Anyone concerned with good governance in the nonprofit sector -- and it’s independence -- should read the updated draft report on “principles of effective practice” issued by Independent Sector. The group has been working closely with the Senate Finance Committee, which for the past two years has been investigating abuses in the world of charities and nonprofits. The abuses, which usually involve excessive executive compensation and lavish perks, pop up with dreary regularity. A good example of this is what’s been revealed at the Smithsonian, the nation’s museum in Washington, where the former CEO was hauling in a $900,000 salary and more than $2 million in “office and home expenses.”

Still, many in the nonprofit world have been following this ongoing Senate investigation with more than a little worry. That’s because any new regulations of the charitable sector have the potential to impose not only burdensome new regulations but also erode the traditional independence of nonprofits from government control.

The new draft report from Independent Sector has confirmed that those fears were not unfounded. It talks about encouraging “self regulation” in the nonprofit world, but is vague about how voluntary these are really likely to be. Adam Meyerson, president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, said earlier this month that he had “two levels of concern” with the draft report.

First, we have concerns about specific proposals. In particular, we fear that some of the draft principles take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to setting rules for a very diverse sector, are an invitation to arbitrary enforcement, or would require private organizations to reveal publicly their internal decision making processes.

Second, we are concerned about how the proposed principles would be administered and enforced. Independent Sector doesn’t explain what it means by “self-regulation.” And there are some forms of self-regulation that would be seriously harmful to the foundation world and to charitable giving.

He cites a specific proposal, known as Draft Principle #6: “A charitable organization must make information about its operations, including its governance, finances, programs, and activities widely available to the public. Charitable organizations should also make information available on the methods they use to evaluate the outcomes of their work and are encouraged to share the results of those evaluations.”

Meyerson points out that there is already a great deal of mandated disclosure. What’s more, this draft principle intrudes on the privacy necessary to effectively manage charities.

Grant-making strategy and evaluation properly falls in this zone of privacy. So long as a foundation is making grants to legitimate public charities, there is no reason tax authorities or watchdog groups need to know why it is choosing some grantees over others. Quite the contrary, maintaining privacy enables foundations to exercise their honest judgment on this most sensitive of judgment calls. Maintaining privacy also protects the grant applicants not chosen and allows foundations to provide them with confidential advice.

How a foundation determines its philanthropic strategy-how it makes decisions about which grants to make, and how it evaluates performance by grant recipients-is an inherently private decision by a private organization. Foundations should feel free to reveal their grant-making strategy if they wish, and many find it in their interest to do so, but it is an unnecessary breach of privacy to compel them to do so.

Read more about this issue on the “Uncharitable Regulations” resource page at the Philanthropy Roundtable site.

Posted by John Couretas in News and Events at 14:08 | Leave a comment | Trackback

.xxx Domain Proposal Fails, x3

Friday, March 30, 2007

The effort to create a top-level domain suffix for adult Web sites has failed, for the third time (HT: X3). ICANN voted 9-5 to defeat the proposal, which was roundly opposed by an unlikely alliance of religious groups and the adult entertainment industry.

The proposal would have created a new “.xxx” suffix that would have allowed voluntary participation of adult content providers. Many in that line of work are concerned that such a voluntary program could become mandatory, “pushing them into a so-called online ghetto.”

Religious groups are concerned that such a voluntary program would simply legitimate pornographic content on the Web without effectively segmenting objectionable content from the rest of the Internet.

We’ve talked before about options for self-regulation that could function well in place of a dedicated domain suffix, such as an NSFW (not safe for work) HTML attribute.

But as long as the “.xxx” domain proposal includes a voluntary “opt-in” for adult sites, don’t expect the unlikely alliance of religious activists and pornographers to dissolve.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Technology & Regulation at 09:17 | Leave a comment | Trackback