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LSA Supports Obama Administration’s New Focus for Faith-Based Office
February 5, 2009 (Baltimore, MD) - Lutheran Services in America (LSA) is pleased that the Obama Administration is planning to expand and re-focus a national strategy for partnerships between the federal government and faith-based and neighborhood organizations.
“Increasingly, the problems that face individuals, families and communities are complex and multi-layered. Solving those problems will require collaborative efforts between government, business, nonprofit and community organizations, and the faith community,” said LSA President and CEO Jill A. Schumann. The solutions must include the insight and energy of the people most in need of the remedies, according to Schumann.
LSA outlined its perspectives on the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in a December 19 memo to the Obama Transition Team.
“Religious organizations and grassroots community groups can be agents of change, not as substitutes for government, but as partners with government,” Schumann said. “LSA encourages government – at federal, state and local levels – to convene and stimulate a wide range of players to lean in and work together.”
LSA also believes that as a greater range of grassroots and religious groups are engaged, it will be important to create accountability for both process and results, particularly when government funding is involved.
Most Lutheran organizations are involved in on-the-ground collaborations with a wide variety of nonprofits, community organizations, businesses and governmental units. They work with local congregations – not only Lutheran but other faiths as well. Through LSA, Lutheran organizations have a vehicle for shared learning and collective action.
“LSA stands ready to offer that vehicle in partnership with government as well and looks forward to working with President Obama and with Joshua DuBois and his colleagues,” Schumann added.
Lutheran Services in America (LSA) creates opportunities with people in thousands of communities in all 50 states and the Caribbean as an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and their nearly 300 health and human service organizations. Working neighbor to neighbor through health care, aging and disability supports, community development, housing, and child and family strengthening, these organizations touch the lives of more than six million people every year – or one in 50 Americans – and have operating budgets in excess of $10 billion. Through these efforts LSA is on the front lines of building self-sufficiency and creating hope in millions of lives. More information about LSA and its members is available at www.lutheranservices.org.
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