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Welcome to "Ask the White House" -- an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to Administration officials and friends of the White House. Visit the "Ask the White House" archives to read other discussions with White House officials.
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January 19, 2007
Jay Hein
Good afternoon. It's an honor for me to participate in Ask the White House today and to interact with you about the President's compassion agenda. President Bush is known as a compassionate conservative because he wants to respond to human need but he wants to do so in a manner that accomplishes results. This week, we launched a series of events called Compassion in Action to profile this work. I welcome your questions about these events as well as our related policies and programs. Anne, from Tennessee writes: Jay Hein Did you know that one million children die every year from malaria in Africa? This is so horrible because our country learned that malaria is a treatable and preventable disease many years ago. And on the prisoners topic, did you know that over one half million prisoners return to 65 major metropolitan areas every year? Due to discrimination and often a lack of skills to make it in the mainstream, many of those men and women wind up back in prison.
Our next two roundtables will help define the nature of the malaria and prisoner re-entry problems and we'll demonstrate the innovative solutions that faith and community organizations have put into practice. We also consider how to design new federal policies and promote private financial support to expand those same solutions. China, from KCMO writes: Jay Hein But it is also just simply a good idea for the OFBCI to exist because the best way to solve problems in communities is through collaboration between government, the private sector and the nonprofit sector. Our office identifies and promotes these type of multi-sector solutions which youll see featured in our Compassion in Action events. To your question of how we define faith, it is important to note that our initiative supports groups of all faith persuasions as well as those groups claiming no faith at all. We are interested in supporting any group that wishes to serve their communities better and we use the tests such as innovation and effectiveness to guide our partnerships.
It is worth also noting that our office does attempt to promote interfaith understanding. In this increasingly complex and interrelated world that we live in, it is imperative that government officials, business leaders and all citizens understand and respect the full spectrum of religious thought. john, from Texas writes: Jay Hein
There are some who think that the bar needs to be set even higher for faith-based groups than for secular ones. While we need to be vigilant about respecting the line separating religious and service activities that I referenced below, I think that the cost efficiency and program effectiveness standards should otherwise be the same for any group receiving government funding. And I share the sentiment behind your question that the federal government should be very committed to these type of "return on investment" considerations. James, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota
writes: Jay Hein Sam, from Fairfax, VA
writes: Jay Hein Representative examples of our training sessions included: Legal Guidance on Partnering with the Federal Government Accessing Private Resources Promoting Volunteerism Outcomes-Focused Planning and Evaluation Grant Writing Tutorials for Five Federal Programs
In addition to these White House sponsored events, the federal agencies provide similar training for state and local officials and nonprofit leaders. The agencies have trained over 50,000 leaders to date. We look forward to reaching even more people through our website and other materials to increase understanding and help build the capacity of both faith-based and secular nonprofit organizations.
Cathy, from Alexandria, VA
writes: Jay Hein My office is in regular communication with the state and local representatives that work on this initiative. We supply information and insight to help them do their jobs better and we help the states communicate with each other to share ideas and best practices. We also learn a lot from the state and local leaders. They are terrific innovators and we have the privilege of witnessing their groundbreaking work and seeking to transfer it to other places. There seems to be a movement of bottom-up reforms taking place. One of the best types of innovations we see taking shape in communities often are a result of the public-private partnerships that you also asked about. For example, our recent Compassion in Action roundtable event featured a grassroots strategy called Violence Free Zones. This program recruits former gang members who have turned their lives around to work at schools where youth violence is a problem. These formerly troubled youth now serve as youth advisors to the kids at the schools. They use the knowledge gained from their old lifestyles to detect problems between rivals and they use their credibility to intervene before the problems turn into tragedies. One Dallas high school had 113 violent incidents several years ago compared to zero following the involvement of the youth advisor! The US Department of Justice invested funds to help launch the Violence Free Zones project and now private philanthropists and local school officials are investing millions of dollars to expand the model to new cities. It is a wonderful example of grassroots initiative and public-private partnership.
Jay Hein |
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