The houses of faith got the work

The State Department this month put a number on a very old idea: let the churches do the work they already know how to do.

Washington announced nearly $2 billion in partnerships with faith-based and community organizations for global health and humanitarian aid, calling it the largest allocation of global-health foreign assistance to faith-based groups in more than two decades. Christianity Today, filing 10 August, and Devex both filed the announcement. Among the named American partners are World Vision and Compassion International, Christian houses that already run clinics, child sponsorship, food, and disaster teams through local churches.

The pots are not one cheque. Christianity Today reported the architecture in pieces, from State Department figures. Of the nearly $2 billion, $1.4 billion is for health care, mostly in Africa, through faith and community-based hospitals and clinics in more than 20 countries. An $850 million pot over five years can go to a World Vision–led consortium, the Faith and Community Initiative, awarded a year at a time; the first year is $250 million, pending funds. Another $570 million is aimed at local faith-based hospitals and clinics through countries’ own systems. A further disaster-response pot of $538 million is for Christian groups leading mostly disaster work, and also food and clean water in crisis. Of that, a consortium that World Vision and Compassion International co-lead, with the Accord Network, is down for $238 million for one year.

Pending funds is not a footnote. The State Department, as Christianity Today recorded it, will award the Faith and Community Initiative one year at a time, pending availability of funds. The $850 million over five years is a ceiling, not a deposit. Year one is $250 million. The rest waits on appropriations. That is a real constraint. A clinic cannot staff a five-year ward on a one-year award. World Vision, as prime, holds the first year and will have to come back.

The $570 million is a different object. Christianity Today said it will move through memorandums of understanding that the United States has been working on with local governments — money to a country’s own system, then to faith-based hospitals and clinics already standing in that system. Kenya signed a $2.5 billion MOU with the United States late last year, the magazine reported. The point of that architecture is that the clinic is already there: a faith-run hospital, a parish dispensary, a community hub with a fridge and a roster. The new work is to fund it through the host government rather than through a parallel charity contract.

The clinics are the objects. Coverage of the 6 August State Department announcement — DevelopmentAid reprinting the department’s release, Bloomberg Law on 7 August — said the Faith and Community Initiative is meant to strengthen more than 2,500 faith-based hospitals, clinics and community hubs across 17 countries, and to train, pay and equip more than 30,000 community health workers. Those are buildings and people. A clinic is a cold chain, a delivery room, a pharmacy shelf, a community health worker with a bag. World Vision’s own language for the work is still church language: pastors, congregations, sustained spiritual and physical care. Compassion International’s is the same register: children met through the local church. Child sponsorship, food, disaster teams, all through congregations that already have an address.

Christianity Today named the rest of the Faith and Community Initiative house: World Relief, ADRA International, Catholic Relief Services, HOPE worldwide, International Care Ministries, and LifeNet International. Compassion International, the magazine said, will work in both the health and the disaster-relief groups. The State Department had separately announced $240 million for Catholic Relief Services earlier this summer. Devex, in its file, called the partnerships historic and listed World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse as the named American houses in the extensive network. The houses are not start-ups. They are the agencies that already know which hall can take a shipment and which pastor can open a clinic after dark.

Samaritan’s Purse sat on a separate $300 million award over two years for natural-disaster response and protracted emergencies, a State Department spokesperson told Christianity Today on 10 August. That $300 million, with the $238 million for World Vision and Compassion, made up the $538 million disaster pot. On 28 August, Christianity Today reported that Samaritan’s Purse had withdrawn from the $300 million. CEO Franklin Graham said the house had been invited into a macro grant of $300 million over two years, was honoured, and after prayer and discussion had withdrawn, preferring to rely on donors rather than on that program. The withdrawal is a named fact on the tape. It does not cancel the $238 million down for World Vision and Compassion for one year, or the health pots. It does show that a year-at-a-time award, and a house’s own funding rule, are real constraints, not press-release weather.

Margaret Schuler, World Vision’s chief impact officer, told Christianity Today the consortium idea had been a year in the making with the administration. “Our number one interest from the beginning was to get resources flowing back out to communities that need it,” she said. She also said the grant aims to work with any partner in any location, Christian or Muslim, and to serve all people regardless of faith. The houses of faith got the work. The patients are not a test of denomination.

More than two decades is the comparison the State Department chose. The department said the announcement “represents the largest announcement of global health foreign assistance to faith-based organizations in over 20 years.” Devex repeated historic and over two decades. The comparison is not to last year’s USAID ledger. It is to the last time Washington put a global-health foreign-assistance allocation of this size specifically to faith-based groups. Christianity Today noted that a large portion of the new money is spread over five years, so the annual figure is a different object from the headline nearly $2 billion. The headline is still the allocation. The constraint is still the year-at-a-time award and the pending funds.

World Vision and Compassion International are not new to clinics, sponsorship, food, or disaster teams. They are the American houses named first because they already work through local churches. A pastor knows the widow. A congregation knows which child is not at school. A disaster team that lands in a church hall does not first have to rent a warehouse and invent a volunteer list. That is the old idea the State Department put a number on this month: nearly $2 billion, faith-based and community organizations, global health and humanitarian aid, the largest such global-health allocation in more than twenty years.

The first-year $250 million for the Faith and Community Initiative is the money that can move if funds are available. The $570 million through countries’ own systems is the money that has to pass a government desk before it reaches a faith-run ward. The $238 million disaster consortium is one year of food, water, and response, co-led by World Vision and Compassion International. Those are the pots. The houses are the churches and the Christian agencies that already run the clinics. The work is visits, not slogans.

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble,” James 1:27, NKJV. The money is a tool. The houses of faith already had the address.