Protecting the Organization's Religious Mission

The government rules that come with government funds can pressure the receiving faith-based organization to hide, minimize, or eliminate its religious activities, its religious character, and its faith-shaped views of how best to help people in need.  It is a major goal of the faith-based initiative to eliminate such secularizing rules and pressures so that faith-based organizations can collaborate with the government without losing their faith.

But note well:  a faith-based organization can easily get off course without any pressure from government at all!  Moreover, it isn’t the responsibility of the government to keep your organization faithful to its religious mission.  Often organizations lose their way all on their own, by not cultivating a living faith, by not connecting practices and policies to the supposed religious mission, by giving in to inappropriate professional or commonly accepted standards that go against fundamental convictions.  

In the case of government (or any other single large source of income), remember that a private organization can hardly be very independent in practice if all or most of its money comes from one single place.  Besides, if the organization’s focus is always on how to get funds from the government (or a corporation or a foundation), it can be easy to lose the close tie to a religious congregation or community that can help the board and staff remember just why they are doing what they are doing.  Don’t get so dependent on government that you become independent of supporters who can help guide the organization to keep its activities in line with its mission.

Your board and staff should consider thinking through potential pitfalls and deciding in advance what to do if an inappropriate requirement comes from an official (or a large donor)—that way you’ll not only be alert to the threat but also ready to keep going if some hoped for funds have to be refused.

There are many sources of support other than government.  Many of them are less restrictive and put less pressure on religious expression and religious practices.  That doesn’t mean that government funds can never be right—it just means you need to know what you are doing and what the alternatives are, and be able to rightly weigh costs and benefits before you seek government support.

For a helpful discussion of the “do’s and don’ts” of government funding, read Ch. 6, “Equal Partners with Government,” in Dave Donaldson's and Stanley Carlson-Thies' book, Revolution of Compassion.