By Nicole Maharaj and Derrick Bullock
June 23, 2003

On Saturday June 7, a workshop was held on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives convened by the Taskforce led by Philadelphia Mayor John Street. The workshop was moderated by Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson. Speakers included Miami Mayor Manual A. Diaz, Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory, George R. Burrell, Secretary of External Affairs of Philadelphia, Nick Taliaferro of the Mayor's Office in Philadelphia, Samaki Variety of the Mayor's Office in Miami , Jeremy White, Associate Director for Outreach at White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Richard W. Roper of the Rockefeller Institute, Jay Hein of the Hudson Institute and Reverend Mark V. Scott of the FASTEN Program.

The workshop focused on the leadership roles and effective practices of the mayors in providing faith-based outreach in cities across the nation. This session also focused on the role of the mayoral designated faith-based liaisons in coordinating and facilitating these efforts for the mayors as well as the various partners involved such as the federal government, foundations and the private sector.

Mayoral Speakers

Miami Mayor Manuel A. Diaz discussed the unique challenges in his city, including the city's sixty percent immigrant population which is representative of every race and ethnicity and how he has approached Miami's faith-based outreach. "First thing I said was, well, why don't we develop a database? And so working with groups that we knew were doing things; we convened and put together a list of 700, our list is now approximately 1,200 faith-based community churches and other faith-based organizations and agencies in the city," said Diaz.

"Furthermore, how do we establish an ongoing dialogue? "Obviously, allotting our time was extremely challenging and there was no way for us to visit all 700 organizations in our city," said Diaz. A forum was created and named the Mayor's Pastoral Roundtable. The roundtable is held quarterly over breakfast and all 1200 organizations are invited to join in a discussion workshop. These meetings enable him to retrieve and distribute important information to the faith community and allows room to develop new initiatives.

"Thirdly, we developed an agenda, working plan, and identified issues of common interest. We dealt with issues ranging from how to start a non-profit organization to civil rights restoration for ex-offenders. In this process we established partnerships with several organizations and agencies to administer these services," said Diaz.

Lastly, we discussed identifying funding sources. The funding would allow intensive technical assistance from: accountants, attorneys, grant writers and city staff, to assist in securing future funding and administer programs. "Our City today is better- not just because we now have partners in the struggle to improve quality of life, but, also because by bringing together our diverse religious leadership- More united In my efforts to build, One City with One Future," said Diaz.

Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory focused his remarks around three basic areas in his city that include monitoring the success of faith-based programs, community relations and mentoring.

Charlotte has four very successful after school programs, in which the City of Charlotte gives money directly to faith-based organizations for these programs. "Right now, our budget is over $1 million a year for these faith-based programs. I might say this started about eight years ago with some money which I think had been manipulated, out of the community block grant programs. We learned as you start budgeting, don't use short-term money or one-time money to start and operate a faith-based initiative or, for that fact, any type of government initiative," said McCrory.

Charlotte has also set up a program to help with community relations. "All of us have times when we face a situation where community relations could be very tense, i.e., a police shooting or some type of violence. It could happen in Cincinnati, Charlotte, Boston or Philadelphia at a moment's notice, and all of a sudden you may have a racial or community relations issue at your doorstep. One of the things we did was set up a communications system with our churches and our faith-based organizations where we have a direct fax line to many of our faith-based organizations from the mayor's office. If an incident occurs, we make sure we get the most accurate information about exactly what happened. And I say accurate information so if the Sunday preaching is going to go on that Sunday, we want to make sure it's not based on what Eye Witness News says. The public will get a balanced viewpoint of exactly what happened," asserted McCrory.

The City of Charlotte, puts about $50,000—$100,000 dollars a year into this initiative and the private sector is putting in $250,000 a year. As part of the same initiative, ministers meet and talk about how to deal with issues of race. And it's not just an African-American and Whites, but other races and ethnicities including Hispanics, Asians, and Afghan communities. "We're finding out the churches and the faith-based organizations are the best way to set up these forums for communication," said McCrory.

McCrory also focused on his city's mentoring efforts. The Mayor was asked by his school superintendent to set up and fund a government organization to mentor kids who are in jeopardy of graduating. After realizing there was no money, McCrory brought together 10 organizations with a track record of mentoring. Today, this group of 10 has materialized into 72 organizations, which is called the "Mayor's Mentoring Alliance."

The alliance meets once a month. "We have no budget, by the way, it's an alliance, it's not a program, it's not a project, it's an alliance. Both training and security background checks are shared through the alliance. "We do offer free security background checks for all the mentoring organizations whether faith-based or secular through our police, because nowadays when you get a mentor, you-d better find out who's doing the mentoring," said McCrory. According to McCrory they have graduated into a corporate alliance where we have invited all the corporations to help with the faith-based initiatives and the non-faith-based mentoring programs. "There are synergies out there already, you don't need to reinvent the wheel," concluded McCrory.

Jeremy White — The White House

Jeremy White Associate Director of Outreach for the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives spoke to the mayors about the 15 barriers discovered by his office that prevents faith-based organizations from receiving federal funds. He explained the overall goal of his office is to change the way the federal government does business with the faith-based community.

"Realizing quite often that faith-based and community organizations have the trust of the communities, they have the ability in many cases, and the initial capacity to make a large difference in their communities — the interpersonal touch that government lacks when you-re talking about returning ex-offenders to society and making sure that they don't go right back. We-ve got 2 million offenders in federal prisons that are currently there; we-ve got 600,000 of them that are coming out this year. So changing how the federal government deals with these issues are critically important," said White.

Currently seven federal agencies have a faith-based offices." Last year, there was $50 billion that was given out to faith-based and community organizations in the states and localities, primarily through two programs, which was $30 million primarily to intermediary organizations through the Compassion Capital Fund.

"We talk about doing more with less, there really is no limit to what faith-based and community organization can do or are seeking to do," White assured the mayors the President is committed to working with them in helping to facilitate and coordinate faith-based outreach in their respective cities.

FASTEN Presenters

Julie Sulc from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Jay Hein of the Hudson Institute, Reverand Mark V. Scott of the Center for Faith and Service, a division of the National Crime Prevention Council, and Richard Roper of the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York spoke about their organization's role in the FASTEN initiative. The FASTEN Initiative (Faith and Service Technical Education Network) was created by the Pew Charitable Trusts to increase the knowledge of faith-based organizations, public administrators and private funders on effective practices of faith-based social service delivery.

Case Model Presentations

Four case studies were presented during the workshop by Conference staff and MTEC and consulting firm working who developed the case models for USCM. The case studies focused on the faith-based outreach and the executive actions taken by mayors in the following cities. Below is an abstract description of the case study models including:

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley — "BALTIMORE RISING"

Fourteen months after taking office as the nation's youngest big city mayor, Mayor Martin O'Malley formally announced the creation of "Baltimore Rising" on February 13, 2001. Baltimore Rising was launched as a large scale, faith-based and grassroots youth violence reduction program. This comprehensive program is comprised of both a mentoring and monitoring component. Members of the faith community volunteer as mentors to at-risk city youth with violent behavior. This collaboration of local, city and state organizations assists in tracking the progress of mentored youth in their communities. Staff from the Mayor's Office for Children, Youth and Families function as the chief administrators for the program while participating faith institutions are organized in formal networks to deliver services. The faith-institutions participating in Baltimore Rising operate under a contractual arrangement with the city to ensure they provide the highest quality of service to the community. In 2001, the first year of the program, nearly 350 youth were individually mentored weekly by volunteers from Baltimore's faith community. In 2002, over 500 youth were mentored and several social and education neighborhood functions were organized.

Philadelphia Mayor John Street — "THE MAYOR's OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES (MOFI)"

Mayor Street formed a Faith-Based Transition Committee that studied both the practicality of faith-based government partnerships and offered recommendations for implementation of services. A recommendation was offered to create an official office under the purview of the mayor to establish and oversee faith-based outreach and programs. The Mayor's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (MOFI) was established for this purpose. MOFI is linked to the city's social services for resources and affiliation and reports to the Secretary of External Affairs. MOFI often forms working partnerships with various agencies of city government to assist in the coordination of these efforts which includes engaging a diverse faith community. Although not a "line item" within the City budget, MOFI has been able to appropriate funding for particular programs and events through other city agencies. MOFI has assisted in the creation of programs that positively address school attendance, and has initiated an innovative program that links ex-offenders to a state-run job search apparatus through the involvement of worshiping communities. MOFI has also worked to provide information that assists FBO's in better understanding how "Faith-Based Initiatives", as a political reality, might benefit them.

Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner — "FAITH COMMUNITY STOP & SHOP SUPERMARKET"

Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner has endeavored to rebuild the village's once-bustling commercial center. In response to this situation, Mayor Garner developed a ten-year master plan designed to bring business and jobs back to Hempstead. One of his goals was to attract a major supermarket back into the village. That goal was achieved in the fall of 2001 when the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, one of the largest retail food chains in the United States, opened a 67,000 square foot store in the heart of the village. The attraction of such a prestigious supermarket to Hempstead, a major lynchpin in the Hempstead Master Plan, was done in close consultation with the clergy of the village. Mayor Garner has always believed the clergy in a community such as Hempstead has the most accurate "pulse" of the people and serves as an excellent conduit for potential employees for local businesses. Today, the new Stop & Shop is a great success. Hundreds of Hempstead residents have new, meaningful jobs and citizens from Hempstead and the entire region enjoy shopping at the new facility. The partnership established between the Mayor and the clergy in the village played a major role in the success of this effort

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb —"FAITH-BASED WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS"

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb thoroughly understands a well-trained and diverse local workforce is the backbone of any healthy economy. Also, the ability for employers to readily connect with potential employees is key in maintaining sound regional commerce. With this awareness, Mayor Webb created the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development (MOWD) and has partnered with several community-based organizations to most effectively interact with Denver residents. According to the MOWD, time has shown local faith-based organizations possess a particular and unique ability to connect with communities, serve as job'skill trainers, and liaison between residents and employers. Because of these characteristics, the MOWD aims to include local faith-based organizations as workforce development partners. The MOWD currently contracts with four different faith-based groups, Genesis, Inner City Parish, Metro Denver Black Church Initiative and SHALOM to achieve its workforce development objectives.