Gain an understanding of the increased role religious congregations now play in providing social support to the elderly Religious congregations and faith-based organizations (FBO) from the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions have worked on behalf of older adults for centuries. But the initiation of President Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives has raised many questions from both the traditional secular and sectarian services as well as many nontraditional services found in each community. Faith-Based Initiatives and Aging Services addresses the issues of the separation of church and state, the concerns involved in developing social services in religious congregations, and the larger public policy implications of this office. This unique book offers perspectives from traditional and nontraditional faith-based groups, as well as experts in volunteerism. The enactment by Congress of the Charitable Choice section of the federal welfare reform law combined with the creation of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the United States Department of Health and Human Services to signal a high-level of interest in supporting faith-based organizations. Faith-Based Initiatives and Aging Services focuses on the specific applications of services provided by religious congregations. Editors F. Ellen Netting and James W. Ellor conducted an in-depth interview with Elizabeth Seal-Scott, then Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (an edited transcript of the interview is included in the book) to help promote understanding of the development and implementation of faith-based, grass roots programs. Faith-Based Initiatives and Aging Services examines: the separation of church and state Baptist perspectives on faith-based initiatives and religious liberty managing older volunteers faith organizations and ethnically diverse elders the heritage of religion and spirituality in the field of gerontology faith-related agencies and their implications for aging services the role of religious congregations in the social service system Faith-Based Initiatives and Aging Services is an essential resource for anyone interested in developing programs for older adults in religious congregations, for human services staffs seeking to work with faith-based initiatives, and for government workers in need of a better understanding of faith-based services in their community.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush made faith-based social services one of the centerpieces of his domestic agenda. These "faith-based initiatives," supporters argued, would reduce poverty, ease the strain on an overburdened welfare system, and prove more effective than government programs. Opponents feared rampant proselytizing with government funds. Instead, these practices created a system in which neither the greatest hopes of its supporters, nor the greatest fears of its opponents, have been realized. The product of five years of in-depth research, Rebecca Sager's Faith, Politics, and Power offers a systematic examination of where and how these programs were implemented, arguing that faith-based initiatives strayed from supporters' original aim of helping the poor, and instead were used as tools to gain political power by the Republican Party and the conservative evangelical movement.

This guide concentrates on resources that are useful, in an easy-to-use format to enable architects, designers and engineers to access a wealth of knowledge. Information allows users to find, evaluate and contact the resources that can save time and money in day-to-day practice.

"Documents how recent trends in civic engagement have been shaped by political institutions and public policies and recommends ways to increase the amount, quality, and distribution of civic engagement, focusing on elections, the metropolis, and the nonpr

Putting Faith in Partnerships addresses a major conceptual change in American domestic policy, begun by Reagan and now fully realized by the Bush administration: the shift of responsibility for social services from the federal government to states and communities. In this groundbreaking study of a politically controversial topic---the debut offering in Alan Wolfe's Contemporary Political and Social Issues series---author Stephen Monsma avoids overheated rhetoric in favor of a careful, critical analysis of the hard evidence on whether public-private partnerships really work. The book is based on in-depth studies of social service programs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. By examining public-private partnerships between government offices and nonprofit organizations, Monsma seeks to understand how these partnerships affect the balance between government's efforts to deal with social problems and the rights of individual citizens to control their own lives. Putting Faith in Partnerships answers many previously unanswered questions in what may be the most controversial public policy debate today: about the feasibility and wisdom of government agencies forming partnerships with private organizations to provide essential public social services. Stephen V. Monsma is Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University. He has served as director of the Office of Quality Review in Michigan's Department of Social Services and is a widely recognized expert on the role of faith-based organizations in social service programs.

Provides a multi-disciplinary survey of nonprofit organizations and their role and function in society. This book also examines the nature of philanthropic behaviours and an array of organizations, international issues, social science theories, and insight.

Presents an encyclopedia of religion and politics in America including short biographies of important political and religious figures like Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, and synopses of religious entities like the Branch Davidians and the Episcopal church as well as important court cases of relevancy like Epperson et al. v. Arkansas having to do with evolution.