Support Mechanisms for Faith Based Social Action

There is a range of support mechanisms for faith based social action operating at national and regional levels. It is also certain that there is a degree of local support in some areas but this is almost entirely undocumented and rather patchy. Support activities are predominantly characterised by activities including dissemination of information, seminars and training, promotion and support of networks, advice, consultancy and mentoring.

National Structures

At the national level, there is one multi-faith organisation, the Faith Based Regeneration Network UK (FbRN UK) which supports faith based social action and one key interfaith organisation, the Inter Faith Network for the UK (IFN UK), which, though not focusing on social action, is key in building social capital with faith groups.

Faith Based Regeneration Network UK (FbRN)

The Faith Based Regeneration Network UK (FbRN) is the leading national multi faith network for community development and regeneration. Set up in 2002 by practitioners of faith based community development, regeneration and social action, it aims to:

link practitioners to learn and gain inspiration from each other across the different faith traditions in the UK
encourage the active engagement of faith groups in regeneration
build their capacity for this
provide an interface between policy makers and communities.

It is managed by a Trustee body drawn from nine faith traditions: Bahá'í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian.

FbRN has 1,400 individuals and organisations on its contact list. By cascading through other organisations, its newsletters and email bulletins reach 9,000. It produces a Toolkit for practitioners, Tools for Regeneration: Practical Advice for Faith Communities, 4,000 of which are in circulation. It runs seminars and training events, for example in 2006/7 on Faith in Community Development and Faith Communities and Social Enterprise, resulting in policy focused publications and further good practice guides.

FbRN is a member of the Government's Faith Communities Consultative Council and the CLG Third Sector Partnership Board. With the Inter Faith Network for the UK, FbRN facilitates the developing English Regional Faiths Forum Network.

FbRN is developing a new website which aims to be a major resource for practitioners and policy makers.

Inter Faith Network for the UK (IFN)

The Inter Faith Network for the UK was founded in 1987 to promote good relations between people of different faiths in Britain. Its 150 member organisations include national representative bodies of the Bahá'í; Buddhist; Christian; Hindu; Jain; Jewish; Muslim; Sikh; and Zoroastrian communities; national, regional and local inter faith organisations; and academic institutions and educational bodies concerned with inter faith issues.

The emphasis of the IFN's work is on linking, co-operation and communication. It provides information and advice to a wide range of organisations and individuals on inter faith matters and on how to contact communities at both national and local level. It holds regular national and regional meetings and organises seminars and conferences on a variety of issues and projects and publishes material to help encourage and resource inter faith activity.

In recent years a Faith Communities Forum has been developed within the framework of the Inter Faith Network for the UK to provide a mechanism for consultation between national faith community representative bodies on matters of mutual concern, including issues on the public agenda as well as the development of inter faith relations. IFN services, with FbRN, the recently formed English Regional Faith Forums Network.

Alongside these multi and inter faith organisations, a number of bodies springing from a single faith (though often working with others) are also key. They are as follows:

Church Urban Fund (CUF) provides support in the form of funding for small faith based community projects, practical advice and information for them and acts as a vehicle for representing their voices at all levels. CUF has been operating for 20 years and emerged from the 'Faith in the City' report (see also Dinham, 2005). The overall aim is to tackle poverty and deprivation. CUF does this via targeting funding at small and local faith based social action projects that are open to all. These projects need to be located in the top 10% of poorest areas in England in accordance with the Index of Multiple Deprivation and/or serving intrinsically deprived communities. They make grants totalling between £1.5 and £3 million per year. The average annual grant is £5,000. CUF is also funded by the Cabinet Office in support of its CUF Xchange (CUFX) initiative, aimed at creating a voice for small faith based social action projects and encouraging them to network together (mostly at national level, but also at regional and local too). Through this they run an interactive website. The longer term aim is to broaden this network to include all faiths and projects that are not receiving CUF funding but that meet CUF's funding criteria as well as the 500 projects that are currently supported. Other support activities offered by CUF and CUFX include conferences, training workshops, tool kits, one to one consultancy, signposting, infrastructure development and advocacy work.

A recent study showed that CUF funding results in much greater impacts than originally intended by the grant itself (Dinham 2005) and that these arise out of a number of distinctive factors, many of which are shared with other faith based support structures and indicate something of what can be distinctive about the faith 'offer':

Strategic and prophetic insight - seeing beyond the immediate to the long-term and sustainable
Making small grants targeted towards needs that would otherwise be unmet or find difficulties in getting support
Strong local and historical presence via diocesan and parish structures - giving voice to grassroots organisations
A developmental approach which is responsive, flexible and creative
Linking up local work with diocesan, regional and national agendas
Commitment to building capacity
Challenging others to 'join in' - setting an example
Encouraging and allowing people to take risks and be distinctive

Churches Community Work Alliance (CCWA) is an infrastructure organisation with a remit to work across all parts of the UK and Republic of Ireland to advance and encourage church-related community development work. It promotes community development values and principles as the most effective and authentic way to engage with communities and it seeks to support frontline workers and organisations in delivering training and services. CCWA has a comprehensive website to help build capacity in the sector (www.ccwa.org.uk). CCWA is currently undergoing a major review of how it will provide capacity building support in the future and is looking at the major challenge of how it will sustain itself financially and structurally as an organisation. This is likely to result in CCWA becoming a virtual network of organisations and workers, with its website being the major tool for providing information, advice, resources and discussion. In accordance with community development values, CCWA wants to equip frontline organisations and workers to become better informed about a range of issues and policies, and be able to participate in networks and policy critique more effectively and to reflect on the theological motivations for community engagement, as well as how their own work can have more impact.

United Reformed Church (URC) Community Development Programme was a pioneer in Church Related Community Development. Its CRCW programme has been running since 1982. It trains community development workers who are then deployed in local areas and are paid a stipend in the same way as the clergy. It also encourages local church congregations to become involved in community development and produces resource packs and a video. The CRCW Programme is serviced centrally by the URC.

Caritas is the umbrella organisation for Catholic social care organisations working within England and Wales. It produces research reports and resources for Catholic social action.

United Synagogue, Community Development Group encourages community development and volunteering by the Jewish community. It works to develop strong leadership and community empowerment. The CDG recognises that the faith community needs encouragement to build up their confidence and capabilities and supportive relationships through which they can develop social capital. It runs a range of programmes including networking and training, and publishes resources.

Faithworks is a national second tier support agency specialising in the Christian faith sector which has three core aims:

Empowering and inspiring individual Christians and local churches to develop their role in their community
Challenging and changing the public perception of the Church by engaging the media and government
Encouraging unity and partnership to meet needs of the community

Faithworks offer training resources, telephone advice, consultancy and tool-kits and are active in supporting and encouraging the development of networks between Christian faith based organisations.

The above organisations have as their primary purpose the supporting of faith based social action. There are, in addition, national bodies of faith traditions, some of which support and encourage their members in social action as part of a wider remit. It is not feasible to list all these organisations here and a full list can be found on the website of the Inter faith Network www.interfaith.org.uk

Support Structures at the Regional Level

Faith Councils/Forums of Faiths

A range of regional faith bodies have been developed which work in various ways as structures of support to faiths. (For details see the 'Regional Forums' section of this report). Faith councils or forums exist in eight of the nine English regions:

Northwest Forum of Faiths
South East of England Faith Forum
West Midlands Faiths Forum
Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum
Forum of Faiths for the East Midlands
East of England Faiths Council
South West Council of Faiths
London has a Boroughs Faiths Network and is developing a Faiths Forum

The regional section of this report explores the regional forums in detail. For the purposes of this report it should be noted that, at regional level, it is predominantly the Christian Churches that have geographical spread of population, physical presence and infrastructure. Thus, in each region a number of Anglican and Roman Catholic Dioceses, United Reformed Church Provinces, Methodist Districts and other groupings may well map onto the footprints of regional governance, as also the ecumenical Churches Together bodies that exist at county level in many parts of the country. That said, they are all working with other faiths to one degree or another (as the regional section of this report shows). The issue of differing capacities and resources between the faiths is an important one in framing a way of interfaith working. Faith forums recognise that it is crucially important to avoid institutionalising inequalities of capacity as this will further disadvantage the faiths which are newer to Britain, many of which also share minority ethnicities.

FaithNetEast and Faithnetsouthwest

In addition to the regional forums of faith, in two regions there are also information and learning hubs which support the social action activities of faiths. These are in the East of England and the South West. The following case study gives examples of the work of one of these hubs, for more information on FaithNetEast and faitnetsouthwest please see the regional section of this report.

Churches Regional Network

CRN coordinates the input of the Churches into regional development, supports the Churches Regional Officers. The Churches regional structures have different names in the different regions. CRN frequently acts to support social action through good practice, experience and information sharing either informally or formally via events.

A particularly active example of a regional structure is the Churches Regional Commission (CRC) for Yorkshire and the Humber which provides advice, training, conferences, seminars and briefings. It has given funding to projects in the past, but its primary activity involves engaging at regional level with policy and strategy, and acting as a catalyst for action and networking. CRC Y&H supports the sharing of good practice and has provided help with funding bids, especially in the area of heritage and tourism. It also employs two people in North Yorkshire who work with a Christian organisation called Farm Crisis Network, providing (alongside volunteers), free advice and support to farmers. CRC Y&H was also key in setting up the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum. With the Faiths Forum they run 'Faith Matters', a programme which trains people in secular organisations to better understand faith communities and how to work with them; 4,000 people have completed this training.

Sub-Regional & Local Structures

Specific faith based support is also available through structures at sub-regional level. The availability of other support varies greatly across the country. There are models of good practice to build on and we focus here on two: the Active Faith Communities programmes in West Yorkshire, and the Hull Search project.

It should also be noted that the Anglican Church is particularly strong in having staff located in most dioceses across England that have as at least a part of their role the support of church based social action. The other larger Christian denominations (Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, United Reform) have their own equivalents.

A recent survey by the Church Urban Fund (CUF 2007) found that the projects it supports (mostly Christian and with links to churches) are most likely to seek help from a Church or faith organisation and it uses the Anglican diocesan structures to 'reach' those communities in need.

The next most likely source of support is the local authority or a local council for voluntary service. The local 'Churches Together' (see the Hull Search case study) frameworks in towns and cities provide the most used opportunities to engage in partnership work.

There is no comparable information about other non-Christian faith communities, most of which do not have similarly well established structures, though their faith based social action itself is extensive. As noted above, it would be beneficial to map activities by faith tradition. It would also be useful to map and database structures of support in order to target capacity building in these area and as a resource for faiths everywhere.

Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund

The Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund (FCCBF) has been another key source of support. In its two years of funding faiths (2005/06 and 2006/07) it has supported 338 faith based capacity building initiatives and 238 interfaith initiatives. Funded projects gave an indication of which faiths they would be working with. Of 139 projects reporting, in receipt of large grants, 609 faith groups were identified as end beneficiaries of their projects. Of those, the breakdown by faiths is as follows:

Christian 114 (17.3%)
Muslim 111 (16.9%)
Hindu 85 (13%)
Sikh 79 (12%)
Jewish 71 (10.8%)
Buddhist 62 (9.4%)
Bahá'í 48 (7.3%)
Other 33 (5%)
Jain 32 (4.8%)
Zoroastrian 22 (3.3%)

^{Source: Derived from data on p14, Faith, Cohesion and
Community Development: an evaluation report from the Faith Communities Capacity
Building Fund}

The breakdowns for small grants follow a similar distributive pattern amongst faiths.

The evaluation of the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund indicates that there are several key learning points in relation to interfaith dialogue and social action:

That capacity needs to be built from the 'bottom up' and reflect the diversity of faiths by being supported at regional, sub-regional and local levels
That funding streams should use these networks to respond to local needs and be set up in such a way as to hear them
That there needs to be a realistic mix of paid and unpaid staff and volunteers at the local level. It should not be assumed that faiths have an unlimited supply of labour and other resources
Projects dominated by one faith may have diverse beneficiaries but often find it hard to attract diverse governance. There is a specific capacity building need around some of the faiths which are newer to Britain.
It is important that when capacity is built in one place it is not at the cost of effective existing work in another.

Our discussions with faith groups also indicate that there is concern that FCCBF was effective in building capacity in year one but subsequently squandered much of it by not funding some of the year one initiatives in the second phase. It is important to strike a balance between supporting innovation on the one hand and consolidating excellence on the other. Faith based social action should not be regarded as solely or perpetually innovative. It must be allowed also to become established.

A Note on Non-faith Based Support Structures

Faith based organisations are also able to turn to secular VCS organisations at national, regional and local levels in the same way as other organisations can. It has been noted by Barnes and Berkeley (CUF 2007:6) that faiths are most likely to seek help from a faith organisation, local authority or local Council for Voluntary Service. This may reflect the fact that many of them feel their voice is heard by faiths themselves or at the local rather than national level.

There is also strong evidence from users that faiths appreciate and express a need for support that is informed by awareness of and sensitivity to the culture and practices of their organisations and, indeed, preferably by faith based organisations. Partners in the VCS and elsewhere need to develop faith literacy.

A 2007 report by the National Council for Voluntary Service concluded that while many of the support needs of the faith sector could be provided by generic VCS infrastructure organisations 'there may be a case for targeted support to meet the needs of particular constituencies'.

Whilst some communities and faith based organisations are aware of and will use voluntary, and occasionally public, sector support agencies, others are ignorant or suspicious of the support they provide and do not access them. Research based in Guildford for the Governance Hub concludes that smaller 'faith based organisations are unlikely to search for VCS support or belonging' and that 'existing faith sector infrastructure needs greater recognition and support'. (Jones, P 2007).

Some CVSs and culturally specific support agencies are well attuned to the needs of faith groups and report a significant take up of their services from faith communities, but there is still a mismatch with the perceptions of some faith groups who feel their faith-specific contexts are not adequately understood. A clear written compact between VCS structures and faiths would be of great value.

What do Support Structures Do?

At present there are five main ways in which faiths are supported. They:

Provide mechanisms for communication with membership/clients/contacts: this may be through email/telephone help lines, attendance at events
Conduct research: some organisations undertake specific research and consultation with faiths
Facilitate dialogue amongst networks and between groups and individuals
Disseminate literature, for example guides, toolkits and other sources and resources
Formulate and interpret policies, information and opportunities around all parts of faith based activity

Many of these sources and resources are produced at local and regional level. While some are effectively and widely disseminated, others seem to be bound by their localities and it is likely that opportunities for support and learning could be more widely shared round.

Barriers to Using Support Structures

Some of the barriers to accessing support structures include:

Many faiths do not see themselves as part of the VCS and therefore do not go to those wider structures for support
There can be misunderstanding and, in some cases, hostility towards faiths from non-faith support structures
Suspicion of official bodies, especially in the context of a focus on prevention of extremism
Such suspicion can transfer from suspicion of government to suspicion of other 'official' sounding bodies such as CVS's
Poor publicity/knowledge of support available
In some cases there are limited resources and lack of capacity for seeking support
A key barrier is lack of time where reliance is placed on volunteers with many other commitments. This is often consolidated by the perception by others that faiths are time and resource rich whilst in reality this may only apply to paid officers and within the more established traditions