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Charitable Choice:
Charitable Choice is the nickname for a provision in the 1996 federal welfare reform law. [To be specific, it is Section 104 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.] This provision gives faith-based organizations equal access to government funds that pay for
certain social services. At the present time, Charitable Choice rules only apply to TANF, Welfare-to-Work, Community Services Block Grants
and some other federal funds.
Cooperation between government and religious organizations to serve the needy is not new. But previous federal rules for such cooperation were often so restrictive, uncertain, or arbitrary that many
ministry groups rejected federal dollars for fear of losing their spiritual mission. The Charitable Choice rules for federal welfare funds are designated specifically to address this fear by protecting the religious character of participating faith-based organizations.
Charitable Choice is built on four principles.
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A Level Playing Field. Faith-based
providers are eligible to compete for procurement funds on
the same basis as other providers, neither excluded nor
included because they are religious, too religious, or of
the wrong religion.
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Respect for Allies. The religious
character of faith-based providers is protected by allowing
them to maintain a religious environment and to hire only
employees committed to the organization's faith-based way of
providing the services government specifies.
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Protecting Clients. Providers must
serve all without religious discrimination, and government
must ensure a secular alternative for clients.
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Church-State Separation. All
government funds must be used to fulfill the public
social-service goals, and no direct government funding can
be diverted to inherently religious activities, such as
worship, sectarian instruction, and proselytization.
The Charitable Choice provision is a set of conditions on how the federal welfare block grant that each state receives can be used, not a separate fund designated for
religious groups. It gives faith-based organizations who provide needed social services equal access to government funds, protects the religious nature of the organizations, and protects the rights of the beneficiaries who receive government-funded services.
Faith-based organizations can offer a wide range of assistance through formal and informal arrangements with a government agency. Depending on several factors, the activities may or may not be funded with government money. Some faith-based organizations prefer to create separate 501(c)3 corporations to administer government funded programs. Such strategy removes much of the concern about potential government invasion into the privacy of the primary religious organization.
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