Harnessing Faith for Improved Quality of Life: Government and Faith-Based Nonprofit Organizations in Partnership

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on a public social services department’s intentional recruitment of the faith-based community in meeting the department’s mission. Using the framework of network governance theory, we describe and analyze how the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services realized that reaching the largest number of clients and providing services that people would be willing to accept must involve the faith-based community. The department and the process it took are described and analyzed through the lens of network governance. Practice, policy, and theory implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Community engagement and advocacy
• leadership and organizational change
• management
• organizational theory
• analysis