Federal Initiatives Involving
Community-based, Faith-based,
and Nonprofit Organizations

In an effort to meet the needs of community-based, faith-based, and nonprofit organizations, President George W. Bush signed several Executive Orders dealing with the Charitable Choice provisions of Public Law 104-193. Executive Order 13199 of January 29, 2001, established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI), which seeks to coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based (FBO) and community-based (CBO) organizations and to strengthen their capacity to meet the social service needs within American communities.

To better coordinate Federal agencies' efforts and increase the participation of faith-based and community-based organizations in providing social services, Executive Order 13198 of January 29, 2001, directed five Cabinet-level departments - Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development - to establish Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In 2002, two more agencies were required to establish Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: the Department of Agriculture and the Agency for International Development (Executive Order 13280 of December 12, 2002). In addition, President Bush signed Executive Order 13279 that provides for "equal protection of the laws for faith-based and community organizations."

In August 2001, the White House OFBCI released a report Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs that identified a number of obstacles that FBOs and CBOs faced in attempting to compete for Federal funding. The report emphasized that many FBOs and CBOs had limited access to Federal grants information, and the grants application and agreements processes were overly complex. While tremendous progress was made toward overcoming these obstacles, the need for equal access to the Federal funding streams persists.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) fully supports the President's goal to "level the playing field" by focusing this task order on providing training and technical assistance on the Federal grants process to community-based, faith-based, and nonprofit organizations. DOJ initiated innovative efforts through faith-based and community organizations, including creating Community Correction Centers, which provide Federal prisoners a transitional phase between incarceration and release.

In addition, DOJ and its Federal partners support prisoner reentry demonstrations under the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. The Reentry Initiative is an unparalleled collaboration among Federal agencies with 69 demonstration sites that have been awarded $100 million in grant funds. Caliber Associates, through NTTAC, provides technical assistance services to this effort. While the aforementioned public/private ventures are promising, the need to build on the promise of community-based, faith-based, and nonprofit organizations is evident.

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