Your Mission is Their Mission: Religious Funding

The religious community is one of the biggest risk takers you will encounter in philanthropy. When it comes to supporting a start-up nonprofit organization, an emergency crisis intervention, or a local community service program in a "mission impossible" kind of community, the religious community is there. They, more than any other funding source, understand what it means to believe in possibilities and they are willing to participate in making things happen.

The religious community takes your mission as a nonprofit organization seriously. In fact, your mission becomes their mission. After all, they invented the concept called mission and carry it out by providing funding and volunteers for a variety of causes such as serving the needs of the poor and hungry, housing, social justice, health care, the environment, and empowerment.                 

As long as you have a mission and vision of serving or helping people who are in need in your local, regional, national or global community, then you have found a friend in the religious community.

Increase in Charitable and Religious Giving

According to Giving USA, overall charitable contributions in the United States rose from $174.25 billion in 1998 to $190.16 billion in 1999, showing an increase of 15.8 percent. In the category of religion alone, 1999 contributions totaled $81.78 billion, an increase of 4.3 percent over the previous year. This increase of $4.29 billion over 1998 contributions represented the largest dollar increase of all giving categories.

Religious institutions are ready to share this increase in giving and provide funding opportunities for both faith-based and community service organizations to deliver more services to those in need. For example, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "Faith in Action" initiative will increase its start-up grants and program development assistance to help 2,000 communities over the next seven years. The initiative supports interfaith coalitions and volunteer caregiver projects that work on homebound health care issues. "Religion has sometimes been a divisive force in society," says Harry R. Moody, national program director. "The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported these interfaith coalitions for the past 15 years and will continue to do so in the future."

Religious Hierarchies-How Religious Giving Works

Over the years there has been a reversal in the direction of giving within the hierarchies of the different denominations. Currently, there is more giving for mission or community projects at the local levels than at the regional or national levels. However, there is still money for special projects at the national levels of most denominations.

Congregation Level

This is where giving begins in the religious community and where much of it returns. Current giving patterns in denominations show congregations interested in providing for mission needs in their local community first, and then deciding how much to give to regional and national bodies. Jewish giving is very strong at the synagogue level; this giving pattern changes in varying degrees with those denominations that have a more vertical governing system, such as the Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Methodist structures, where the local congregations tend to have less leeway in determining how to divide up their financial support. Consequently, these denominations are likely to have more money available at the regional and national levels.

Some local congregations run their own community service programs; others are in partnership with another denominational congregation or community organization; and some act as a conduit for local funding to a community organization that is actualizing their congregation's mission. You see examples of these efforts and partnerships in the area of emergency services for the homeless, local Head Start programs, day care programs and community development corporations.

Of course, some local churches have more funds available than others. The Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes is a group of 56 churches with endowments of one million dollars or more from which they can make grants to support organizations in the community.

Regional/Judicatory Level

Roman Catholics and Episcopalians have dioceses; United Methodists have conferences; the United Church of Christ has regions; and the Presbyterians have two levels-the presbytery and synod. Though giving is concentrated more on the local and national levels, these regional bodies are important sources of money and act as review boards for local proposals before they move on the national funding level. Become familiar with the sub-regional and regional bodies. Meet or contact the executive presbyter and the synod staff person in charge of reviewing grants, the Episcopal chairperson for the social action committee of the diocese, the director for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in Philadelphia, and other key people who represent the other denominations.

An instance of how regional giving is done can be seen in the Presbytery of Philadelphia's "Super Cupboard" project. This extensive nutrition program was initiated by the presbytery, which then reached out to other denominations, secular groups and the public schools. Super Cupboard provides nutrition education for low-income women with children and pregnant or parenting teens at 20 sites throughout the Philadelphia area. It involves the Archdiocese of Philadelphia; Lutheran, Baptist and Nazarene churches; the Greater Philadelphia Food Bank, the Pennsylvania State University Expanded Food and Nutrition Project, and countless neighborhood and community groups.

National Level

Most denominational headquarters are located in New York City, with the exception of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., which is located in Louisville, Kentucky. Tim McCallister, the associate for mission program grants for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., says the national giving program "helps people in congregations get out of their pews and involved with people who may be very different than those who sit to the left or right of them.it gives people in the congregation a chance to be of the community, opens the church doors and sends people out into the community."

Also, at the national level, but separate from the hierarchy of a particular denomination, are religious foundations and orders. TheUnitarian Veatch program, based in New York, grants over nine million dollars annually to grassroots social change groups. The Jewish Fund for Justice and the Mazon Fund have average grant ranges of $5,000-$10,000. Religious orders, such as the Franciscans, Marianists, Jesuits and Sisters of Mercy also make sizable contributions to the community either through grants or national volunteer corps.

Trends in Religious Giving

As religious organizations and foundations evolve and change regarding community initiatives their emphasis seems to be more inclusive when funding grassroots organizations. National religious organizations are giving more frequently to local community initiatives that help solve local problems. One interesting example of this is Congregations United for Neighborhood Action, or CUNA, based in Allentown. This ecumenical group of churches is putting pressure on the City of Allentown to clean up the piles of trash and help fight the crime and drugs that plague some of its poorest neighborhoods. CUNA is helped by the Pacific Institute for Community Organizations (PICO), a national network of church-based groups based in Oakland, California, which provides training in community organizing skills to congregations throughout the United States. With national support, pastors from Allentown are receiving training from PICO and working with their congregations to make change happen in their neighborhoods.

Government and Faith Based Initiatives

Another major trend related to the religious community is the growth and acceptance of faith-based work in the secular funding community. There is a little known provision in the 1996 welfare-to-work legislation called the "charitable choice option" that allows, for the very first time, the federal government to use tax-payer dollars to support churches and religious organizations that are providing needed services. Though religious groups still may not actively promote their faith to program participants, they no longer have to maintain a strict separation between the religious and secular aspects of their program to be eligible for federal funds. President Bush has created an office that deals directly the faith based issue and is trying to make it a center piece of his administration.

Relationships

How do you enter this broad community of many faiths and ask for funding as their faith-based and secular counterparts in the community? You enter by building relationships in local congregations through the churches, synagogues and mosques and with the community organizations and institutions with whom they have an existing relationship.

First, determine the appropriate person to contact-whether it is at the mission, social action group, or community outreach committee of the local church, synagogue or mosque. Then, if you are a faith-based organization, approach your pastor, rabbi or imam; if you are a community based organization ask a member of the congregation, a volunteer or a friend to make the introduction. Remember, if you miss cultivating funding relationships your success will be minimal at best. Meet and greet and cultivate the relationship and you will be invited to the funding table, this is blessed assurance in action.

Strategies For Raising Money

• Attend a religious or congregational event, review church bulletins and read local newspapers to understand a congregation's interests and relationships
• Ask friends to introduce you to key persons in their local congregation who are interested in your project
• Meet with the community outreach/social action/mission committees of local congregations
• Recruit clergy or lay volunteers from several denominations to serve on your board
• Invite members of a mission committee or congregation to attend an event or meeting at your project site
• Develop and circulate marketing materials that describe who you are, what you do and who supports you at the local, regional and/or national level
• Ask for a letter of support and introduction to the regional and national staff