In the debate over faith-based organizations getting government money, the question of whether they are more effective than secular groups has prompted far more rhetoric than research.
Two studies discussed by scholars this fall give two different answers, showing that research on the issue has just begun.
An evaluation of data from 5,683 job-training clients in two Indiana counties found that those trained through faith-based programs were just as likely to get employment as those trained through secular programs.
But clients of faith-based groups were less likely to have health insurance and less likely to have full-time jobs.
Overall, 31 percent of clients who were placed into jobs after faith-based programs got full-time employment, compared with 53 percent of clients in secular programs.
“It seems to me that the proponents have been arguing that faith-based providers are better,” said Partha Deb, an associate professor of economics at Hunter College. “This evidence suggests that is not the case.”
Deb worked with other scholars on the Charitable Choice Research Project at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, one of the first to compare the effectiveness of secular and faith-based providers of social services.
Despite the sizable number of people studied, Deb said the findings should be viewed cautiously because they reveal the situation in only two counties and focus on only one aspect of social service.
A study by Pepperdine University professors on welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles offered more mixed results.
The researchers looked at 17 programs in five categories: government-run, for-profit, secular non-profit, and faith-based groups that either implicitly or explicitly included religious elements in their programs.
The study found that faith-based groups that explicitly integrated religious elements into their programs were most successful in helping boost clients’ optimism. They also were most likely to keep in touch with clients after the programs ended. Employed participants in such programs also were most likely to have a job six months later, the study reported.
But the study also found that such faith-based providers were least successful at moving clients off welfare.
“Those who … view religious organizations as a panacea are naive, but on the other hand, those who view religious agencies as absolutely inadequate are also wrong,” said Chris Soper, the study’s co-author with fellow political science professor Stephen Monsma.
Their findings were based on questionnaires completed by 436 people and interviews of 75 percent of them six months later. Eighty-one percent of those interviewed were interviewed again at the 12-month point.
Steven Rathgeb Smith, editor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, said one of the difficulties in determining the effectiveness of programs is the wide range of services provided in both the secular and religious realms.
“There’s a lot of interesting case studies out there or anecdotal stories about what works and what doesn’t work,” Smith said. “We’re only just beginning to have the research out there that would help us understand this very complicated area.”
