The Daily Signal - Why Nonprofits Serving Homeless Should STOP Taking Government Money

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

After spending years serving the needs of the poor and homeless through nonprofit ministry, James Whitford says he learned that “it's good for nonprofits … to stay away from government funding.”  Whitford, the co-founder and CEO of True Charity, a national initiative to reform charity work, started serving the poor through a ministry called Watered Gardens Ministries in Joplin, Missouri, over two decades ago. Over time, he has crafted a model for how nonprofits can best serve the needs of the poor and actually be a part of solving the homeless crisis.  Step one, according to Whitford, is declining government funding because it reduces fundraising efforts, which disengages local donations, and “those local donors are often volunteers as well,” he tells “The Daily Signal Podcast.”  “So there's a kind of a symbiosis between the local donor and being a volunteer,” according to Whitford. “Sometimes it's a volunteer first that becomes a donor. Sometimes it's a donor that becomes a volunteer. But the last thing we want to do is crowd out local involvement in the work.”  Nonprofits working with the poor also need to measure the “impact, not just outputs, but outcomes,” of the work they are doing, he says.  And finally, “nonprofit leaders need to embrace work for their clients.” Whitford joins the podcast to explain how nonprofits can create a sustainable model to address homelessness and poverty in their communities.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's according to the head of a charity organization called True Charity. Government programs create dependency according to James Whitford. And increased government funding only creates more homelessness, according to Whitford. There's a better model and a better strategy for how organizations, specifically nonprofits, can tackle the issue of homelessness. And Whitford joins the show today to explain what exactly that model is. So stay tuned for our conversation after this. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas. Bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics.

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Find the Kevin Roberts Show, wherever you get your podcast. It is my pleasure to be joined in studio today by James Whitford. James is the co-founder and executive director of Watered Garden Ministries, which is a homeless ministry in Joplin, Missouri. and he's also the co-founder and CEO of True Charity, which is a national initiative to reform charity work. Thank you so much for being with us today. We really appreciate it. Yeah, great to be with you, Virginia.

So if you would, just explain the mission, both of True Charity and of Water Garden Ministries, what is your aim through those organizations? Yeah. Well, really, the aim for True Charities to transform the way that charity is being practiced in the United States today. Water Gardens is a bit of,

basically a brick and mortar ministry in southwest Missouri that my wife and I started 24 years ago now. Wow. And so when we first got started, people would call us sometimes and they'd ask if we sold bird baths or garden hoses or did landscaping because of the name, watered gardens. And of course, it always gave us a chance to share that name comes out of the Bible. It's Isaiah chapter 58 where God is really chastising his people for going through the motions of helping. the poor but not actually doing it the way that he wants them to. And he says, you know, if you will, you know, extend your life or give yourself to people who are struggling in need, then you'll be like

a watered garden and like a spring whose waters never fail. Beautiful passage. And so watered gardens has grown from a very tiny little outreach center 24 years ago to the largest privately funded poverty fighting organization in the area today meeting more than 30,000 basic needs and doing some things that a lot of missions do, but there are also, we have, of course, adult shelter services for men and women. We have a shelter for families, moms, and kids who are struggling in homelessness. We have a long-term residential recovery program for men as well. Unique is a respite unit we offer, so there's people coming out of the hospital to recover but don't have anywhere to go to finish their recovery. So we have a respite unit as well. And we have a worth shop.

We call it a worth shop because we believe that work awakens worth in people's lives. And so folks are earning the very basics of what they need, like food, shelter, clothing, things that many people believe ought to be just given one way, just a handout. But what we found is that people have capacity and potential to do something in exchange for something that they need. And it's a much more dignifying approach. people feel so much better about being able to contribute a little bit or to earn their way. So the Worth Shop provides that opportunity, folks, spending a little bit of time crafting goods that go to market and that type of thing. So when we first got started, that was not the way it was.

We were a handout model. People would donate goods and we would basically hand them out. And we realized that our outcomes that we'd hoped to see in people's lives just weren't occurring. We knew we needed to change something about the way we were doing ministry. And it evolved over time until we became much more developmental, goal-oriented, challenging people at the right time to be the subject of their journey out of poverty rather than just being the object of our benevolence. And as we made that shift, we realized that there were thousands of people coming through our doors who suddenly began to go somewhere else. they were trapped in a cycle of dependency that we at first had been a part of. And when we became more challenging, more developmental, people began to look,

where can I go to get the handout instead? That's when we realized we've got to change more than the thought or the culture within our own four walls of our ministry. We've got to change the thought of a community. So we began doing radio public service announcements and televised PSA, and billboards and things like that, to educate our community. I read a book called The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky, an incredible read. From that book, I began to develop some lunch and learns for leaders, began to educate leadership in our community.

Other communities began to hear a little bit about what we were doing, started to go and talk in some other communities, and True Charity was born. True Charity was really born out of Watered Gardens, Ministries, and, you know, and what we had learned along the way, which are these three primary things. One, it's good for nonprofits like mine to stay away from government funding. And secondly, it's great to measure your impact, not just outputs, but outcomes. And thirdly, nonprofit leaders need to embrace work for their clients. So privately funded, outcome-driven, work-oriented approaches to fighting poverty.

I believe represent the solution for the problem of dependency in America today. Let's talk about that first point that you just made of staying away from government funding because within the nonprofit world and working with the poor and needy and the homeless, there's a constant need for money. You always need more resources. And so when the government comes along and say, hey, we have a program, we have initiative, we're giving grants. why wouldn't a nonprofit want to take that money?

Well, there are a number of reasons. First, it's very interesting. There's been some research not that long ago within the last five years that shows when an organization begins to take government grant money. They actually reduce the resource that they're putting into fundraising. So it's a natural kind of crowd out that occurs. And what we need to do is focus in on how do we do good fundraising. It's one of the things that True Charity leans into. and has some tools and training for leaders, because it's important to just think about how to do that from a local perspective.

You know, we really do need to see a charity done privately at the most local level. Not only does it disengage local donors, but those local donors are often volunteers as well. So there's a kind of a symbiosis between the local donor and being a volunteer. Sometimes it's a volunteer first that becomes a donor. Sometimes it's a donor that becomes a volunteer. But the last thing we want to do is crowd out local involvement in the work that's being done because people who are living locally around folks who are in poverty, they're going to know more about the situations that are happening.

They're going to be better equipped to actually deal with situations of poverty in individuals' lives, building real relationships with people. So again, I think that the more that we embrace government funding, the less we're going to see local contribution and involvement, and the worst things will get. You've spoken out on this specifically around the issue of housing for homelessness, and you've been critical of a plan that the White House rolled out called All In that's really focused on getting the homeless into houses first. What are the problems that you have seen with that?

Yeah. Well, what I've seen is a high recidivism. So we see people that are excited about a housing voucher and many times hearing people say, I'm waiting on my housing voucher, I'm waiting on my housing instead of I'm going to look for work. So I think we're perversely incentivizing people to really remain in poverty in hopes of being able to get whatever they would qualify for. Housing is a big thing, but it doesn't address the root issues. So you can imagine if you've got all of the things that are going on in a person's home. heart and life with trauma and neglect and addiction issues from the past. And all of that,

now I'm going to just take you from the streets and put you in a house. Well, that's not going to solve the problem. But that's exactly what housing first is suggesting. That plan really requires that a person go into a house, but without any sort of requirement for them to go through treatment or to attend any sort of programming or anything like that. The sobriety is not even required. How can we expect? That is going to actually help people. And now we've seen over the last 10 years more than 100% increase in the permanent housing beds that are government-sponsored. I think $20 billion or so has been spent on the whole housing first initiative in the last decade. And unsheltered homelessness has risen 44% in that same time frame. So something's not adding up. It's just not working. Yeah. What are those underlying issues that you all have seen? In working at Water Garden Ministries and working with so many homeless folks over the years, why do people end up on the streets? Well, it's a variety of reasons. And I think that's important for us to consider when we're

thinking about plans out of Washington, D.C. to solve the problem. It's a very complex issue. I love the way Arthur Brooks put this in his book. I think it was called the conservative, of the conservative heart. And he differentiates between complex and complicated. He says, a complicated problem is like building a jet engine. But once you've solved the math and the physics, you've solved a complicated problem. And now you have a blueprint where you can solve it as many times as you want, create as many jet engines as you want. Complex, he says, is more like a football game.

No matter how many football games you've been to or the experience you have, you never quite know how a football game is going to turn out. That's because they're too complex. Human life is too complex. So there's never a plan like housing first or any other sort of blueprint plan that we're going to be able to apply that's going to solve complex problems of individual lives. There are many reasons why people end up on the streets. Sometimes it's a lot of trauma that's occurred in their background. Sometimes it's being lost in addiction and not being able to get the treatment services they need. Sometimes it's just a matter of circumstances that land you there.

So we see all sorts of different reasons why. And it requires that we do what I call investigative charity work. You're going to have to sit down. We're going to have to get to know an individual and understand why it happened and what is the path out. And then begin to walk with that individual out of that situation. So what does that look like for you guys at Water Garden Ministries when either you meet someone who is homeless or someone somehow connects with you guys, how do you walk them through the journey of identifying these are the core issues, let's find solutions to actually get you

into a stable place. Yeah. Well, first of all, as soon as somebody's walking through the doors, I think it's incredibly important that they feel and understand compassion, that there are people who really care. But also, at the same time, people who come through the doors of any mission have a need and we can get over-focused on what the need is and then lose sight of what the person's gifting skill or capacity is. So we work really hard to make sure that we understand what do you gift what are you gifted in? What are you able to contribute here?

And so we begin that process of really partnering with that individual. And they'll go through what we call care coordination. Basically, it's sitting down, getting to know someone that's a volunteer on our team or maybe one of our staff members, setting goals, measurable, objective goals, not goals that we as a team member on, but they own the goals. And we're talking about helping a person vision cast for a better future. Where do you want to be in a year? Where do you want to be in two years? These are questions that many people have never been asked. They're not even thinking about it. And for us to be able to help plan that out, set some goals, and then it's a matter of what's going to be the best route there. Thankfully, we have a lot of

different ministries that are part of our ministry that we're able to help people begin that walk out of poverty. Are there some individuals that stand out in your mind that you all have been able to work with and serve over the years that you just carry their stories with you? Well, yeah, certainly. But maybe I'll mention the story that I shared in the article that you referenced. So just a fantastic guy, Joshua. But when I first met Joshua, he was laid out of on a sidewalk. And I just, I said, hey, what's going on? Talked with him for a minute. And I realized this is a guy who's, you know, he's relatively young. He's wotted up on a sleeping bag on the sidewalk. I knew that he had capacity and potential. And I said, I just don't want to see you on the sidewalk

again. I said, there's something for you to be doing today in the middle of the day. Yeah. Other than this. And so he ended up coming into the mission, started going to our worth shop, earning his way, went into our long-term program, we call it Forge, went through a year and a half, through our Forge program, graduated our program, and has now been reunited with his kids, he's full-time employed. I mean, it's just an incredible transformation. It's the story that we need to be seen across America. And, I mean, we see it in the news all the time. People just like Joshua who are on the streets, and it seems like a hopeless situation, but it's not. We've just got to exercise effective charity with individuals like that and approaching it from a top-down,

you know, blueprint type of solution that's just not going to work. Housing first didn't work for him. In fact, he actually, there were welfare issues that were perversely incentivizing him to stay away from our program. And we've just got to start doing things from a more local level. You're here in Washington, D.C. And while you're here, you're going to be meeting with some folks on the Hill, on Capitol Hill. What's your message to lawmakers who maybe do have incredibly high homelessness in their own districts, lots of poverty? And they're saying, I want to be a part of fixing it. I want to be a part of the solution. Well, how can they effectively be a part of the solution without, as you've assessed, muddying the waters further and actually just making the problem worse?

Well, yeah, I think that's where true charity comes in. And so again, embracing the idea of privately funded, outcome-driven, work-oriented approaches. We have grown a network now of 180-plus churches and nonprofits across 30 states who are a part of our network leaning into those tenants of effective charity. And we also have an ambassador program who are championing true charity, those true charity principles in more than 20 cities across United States. That's what needs to happen. That legislator that wants to see something done and his or her community needs to call us so that we can come out and have a workshop. We'll do an all-day workshop with the leaders, non-profit, church leaders in that community

and help them begin to rethink who the human person is and what are the real problems and how to practice effective charity. Let's take the ideas and put them into practice. And so we'll help them kind of get the engine started with a workshop, maybe get some ambassadors that would be in that community that would stay there and help continue to guide organizations in the area and move that way. That's what we've got to do. How many staff do you all have versus volunteers, and for an organization starting out, how many staff are necessary versus how effective is it to lean on volunteers within a ministry

that is really trying to focus on how do we fix the homeless crisis in our community? Well, my recommendation is to be as volunteer-driven as possible. I think that often you see the local church is there and able to help. We need to welcome folks to be in volunteering. For us, we had more than 3,000 volunteers come through our mission in the last year. Wow, 3,000. That's a lot of volunteers. That's amazing.

It is, yeah. So a lot of groups will come through and want to help and serve. But we have more than 800 volunteer shifts that get filled every year, just through regular volunteers that are coming through doing various, various things. So, you know, our staff, we've got 44 people on our staff right now for watered gardens and true charity combined. But again, mostly volunteer driven and run and really recommend that. And how can folks get involved?

If they're either, they might be living in the Missouri area in the Midwest and want to partner with the work that you're doing, or they're thinking, oh gosh, I want to copy this model in my city. or I'm already working or volunteering at an organization, and I think we need to implement some of these principles. How can they go about finding out more? Yeah. Well, I mean, just come to our website. It's truecharity.us.

So if you're interested in us coming to serve in your city in some way, rally some leaders together around the movement of effective charity, true charity. Truecharity. . . . . . . . . . is the place to check out. And if you're in the Missouri area, you want to come by. And we have a lot of people that want to come by and see the work of water gardens. feel free to come to water to gardens.org. Excellent. James Whitford of Watered Garden Ministries and True Charity.

Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it. Yeah, great to be with you today. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. We do not have a top news evening show today, but we will be back with you tomorrow, Tuesday, April 2nd, for our top news edition. In the meantime, if you have a few minutes,

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