Recently I have taken on a contract to raise funds for a
faith based charity who want to start up an independent school. I am well
equipped, at least on paper to do this. I am of the Jewish faith and this is a
Jewish organisation. I have also spent years in the voluntary sector
developing the business side of several organisations so that they can be
compliant with legislation enabling them to gain
funding from both statutory and non-statutory bodies.
So far so good, and also so far so bad. Anyone who has and
contact with idealistic people religious or otherwise will know that faith
comes first. Faith in ones belief and that their goals are achievable. That their
cause is right. That their intentions
are for the common good.
As I said some of these elements are not specific to
religious groups. But secular groups do not labour under the same exclusion
criteria that faith based organisations do, which means that they have a
discriminatory advantage over their faith based colleagues.
The exclusion criteria that I am eluding to specified by
funding bodies large and small, well known and obscure are “the promotion of
religion”.
I have tried to define this terminology to myself. Jews as a
whole do not promote their religion. In fact we are very cautious when it comes to converts and to
ensure that those who wish to become Jewish are sincere we insist on a lengthy
and difficult conversion process. It is anti-promotion in that sense.
However with some funders I have approached as soon as I use
the “faith-based” I get the blanket reply, “We don’t support…etc, etc”. Until I explain that the organisation is not
promoting anything but providing a service to people of a specific faith
community. I get varied answers.
One and the most frequent is that they would only fund a
faith organisation if it “benefits the wider community”. In short people of
other faiths or none.
By virtue of any faith wishing to set up a faith based
independent school; this by definition means “exclusion” of other faiths.
However it does not exclude the benefit of the wider community, according to
more helpful and ingenious responders if the wider community as such were
members of the same faith!! So we find that we are slipping into the world of
definitions which are loose and prone to manipulability.
Second, some helpful advisers are able to further bend the
rules or find a loop hole by adding another acceptable criterion. So if a
funder does exclude promoters of religion, but includes educational projects, I
can apply for my organisation as an educational charity.
“But its faith based!”
“Yes, but its educational”.
Great so I can apply under that basis, by underplaying the
“F” word.
A few years ago I
attended a discussion lead by a government agency official and expert on interfaith
issues who out of respect for him I will keep anonymous. Addressing his
comments to a largely secular group of professionals when “faith as social
capital” was still in vogue, the speaker departed slightly from the script when
he complained about the “religious illiteracy” of personnel in local
governmental departments which hampered co-operation and meaningful engagement
on a local level. Religious groups became a box to tick but were still
marginal. This was in 2008 when the then Labour Government articulated its
support for the “Faith Sector” acknowledging its role in alleviating stress and
poverty and maintaining social cohesion.
The current irony now is that under the present funding
regime where local government itself has been marginalised as funders of the
Third Sector, there are less controls on who should be funded. The
self-definition of Charitable Trusts who hold resources include governing
bodies which are hostile to religion. Funding for faith based charities
therefore has been disadvantaged by the smaller role being placed on the local
state and the bigger role be handed to non-elected self-governing bodies (who
are elected by members only) include “promoting of faith”
or religious activities, as an exclusion, leaving people like myself arguing
semantic loopholes.
Obviously the “Big Society” is not quite big enough when it
comes to faith and to paraphrase the speaker , leaving the religiously illiterate to define the “deserving” for funding.
For informed quantative research on the importance of the
Faith communities with specific reference to the North West of England, see the
North West Development Agency report: http://www.faithnorthwest.org.uk/faith-in-englands-north-west-publications-nwda.html.
Those of you he would like to develop your faith based
charity, or not for profit organisation could do worse by visiting the
following sites for ideas and support http://www.timetotoc.org/index.html
and http://www.faithregenuk.org/index.html.
