Welfare reform is not only dramatically changing life for millions of America’s low-income families, it is also redefining the mission and role for tens of thousands of local churches and faith-based organizations as they work to provide needed services to these families. Since welfare reform became a reality almost a year ago, churches and nonprofit organizations have been reclaiming the church’s active role in social ministry across the country.

Vision Cities and Community Partners:

World Vision, serving the poor in 94 countries, brings the expertise and technical assistance it developed overseas "back home" through its national network of Vision Cities and community partners. In the United States, World Vision gathers churches, agencies and nonprofit organizations together to allow existing organizations to connect with one another and access more resources and opportunities. World Vision forms partnerships with local churches and community organizations to build on the assets that already exist within a given community, to address common concerns and to develop new initiatives.

Vision City partnerships are beginning to achieve significant results in a number of communities throughout the U.S. World Vision has Vision Cities---communities where World Vision works alongside local organizations to address inner-city needs---in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, DC, and Detroit. Similar programs have had success in rural areas of Northern Appalachia and Albany, Georgia.

In addition, World Vision has established local volunteer clearinghouses with 100 community-based church networks in 32 states to provide private sector services to the poor.

Some of World Vision’s domestic programs, made possible through these partnerships, include:

Gifts-in-Kind: This year, World Vision will provide at least $24 million in donated products to support the outreach efforts of churches and community organizations. This includes new clothing, building supplies, toys, personal-care products, books and disaster relief supplies.

LOVE INC: This nationwide bank of human and financial resources is a volunteer clearinghouse that helps more than 4,000 churches coordinate their assistance to people in need. Each clearinghouse receives referrals from churches and community social service agencies, verifies need, explores underlying causes, taps into existing community assistance and mobilizes church volunteers. There are currently 100 active LOVE INC affiliates in 32 states. In 1997, they mobilized at least 381,000 hours of volunteer service, provided $22.9 million worth of goods and services and served more than 89,000 families.

LOVE for Children enables churches and their volunteers to provide support to the families of young, at-risk children from birth to age 5 through collaboration with the Head Start and WIC programs. There are currently LOVE for Children programs in nine states. More than 34,000 children were served last year through the work of over 10,000 volunteers since the program began.

CityLINC links hundreds of urban and suburban churches and organizations with inner-city programs in need of volunteer assistance and technical support. These programs are established in Chicago, the Twin Cities and Washington, DC. In Chicago alone, more than 15,000 volunteers have provided 133,000 hours of community service.

Kids’N Need: About $2 million in donated school supplies will be provided to teachers and students in schools in inner-city Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC In these cities, where nearly 80 percent of the families live below the poverty line, schools cannot afford to purchase even basic supplies.