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Letter From President Bush | Executive Summary | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative in 50 States: A Report to the Nation's Governors

Measurement Matters

Management of Faith-Based and Community Initiative Requires Strong Objectives, Measurement, and Accountability

 

"[G]ood beginnings are not the measure of success. What matters in the end is completion. Performance. Results. Not just making promises, but making good on promises."
--President George W. Bush on the President’s Management Agenda

The Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) operates under a rigorous management agenda with clear objectives, multi-tiered measures of progress, and rigorous accountability systems.

Strategic objectives for all Federal agencies with FBCI Centers are established annually through the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) and evaluated quarterly by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Since FY 2003, the FBCI has collected and analyzed data on Federal grant awards annually through a process that grows more sophisticated every year. The annual data collection seeks to measure delivery of financial resources to front-line allies in addressing human need, gauge whether barriers to the participation of faith-based organizations are falling, and serve as a proxy measurement of government’s effectiveness in addressing human need.

Grant award trends evidence a leveling of the playing field for faith-based organizations and expansion of partnerships with nonprofits of all stripes to address social ills.

Compared against grants in the late 1990’s for Welfare-to-Work, one of the first government programs that sought grant applications by faith-based organizations, the data collection reveals a remarkable leveling of the playing field.

The Faith-Based and Community Initiative Conference on Research, Outcomes, & Evaluation will be held in Washington, D.C., June 26 and 27, 2008. The Conference will explore the full gamut of both qualitative and quantitative research on the FBCI’s history, activities, and outcomes. The Conference and its follow-on materials are being planned to include: