The Collective Construction of Need: Group Styles of Determining Deservingness in Christian Social Service Agencies

ABSTRACT

Research finds that faith-based organizations (FBOs) serve highly disadvantaged populations, but few studies explore how such organizations decide who is deserving of assistance. Drawing on 12 months of observation and 24 interviews at two FBOs in neighborhoods with different poverty rates, I find that agency members circumscribe conceptions of who “needs” assistance based on stories of people who take advantage of services. These stories undergird group styles of service provision that differ in their emphasis on leniency or stringency but share the goal of deterring less-than-needy clients. The group styles demonstrate how informal practices shape resource distribution within FBOs.

KEYWORDS:

• Faith-based organizations
• poverty
• deservingness
• place
• welfare

Disclosure Statement

The author declares no conflicts of interest with respect to the research or authorship of this article.

Notes

1. In total, I completed 155 hours of participant observation working as a volunteer at both agencies. I also conducted an additional 20 hours of observation at other local service providers in order to understand the extent to which my cases were similar or different from other local FBOs.

2. Volunteering prior to beginning the project helped me build rapport with organization members, which helped facilitate greater organizational access over time. That said, my high level of access was no doubt also related to my social location, as I fit the basic demographic profile (white, middle- class) of most staff and volunteers at each site.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Pre-Dissertation Research Grant from the Social Sciences Research Institute at Rice University.

Notes on contributors

Daniel Bolger

Daniel Bolger is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Rice University and a Graduate Research Fellow at the Religion and Public Life Program. His research interests include social inequality, urban ethnography, religion, poverty, and culture.