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Chapter 11 Using Congregational Capacity to Help the Homeless: The NPIHN Story In a climate in which there are more partnerships among community organizations, it behooves scholars of nonprofit groups to examine the organization and success of interfaith networks (Cnaan, Wineburg, and Boddie 1999). How do they operate, and what marked characteristics do they exhibit in their social service efforts? Some interfaith collaborations are comprised of organizations coming together to form an alliance or a coalition. In other instances, several groups in an area are asked to help support another organization that aims at solving a particular social problem. This chapter examines one such program, The Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network (NPIHN), whose primary mission is to provide food, shelter, and transitional assistance to homeless individuals and families in the Germantown area of Philadelphia by utilizing congregational resources. NPIHN has only a few staff members, but has been able to mobilize and coordinate the extensive resources latent in local religious congregations to provide an impressive array of services to Philadelphia’s homeless population. In a sense, NPIHN is like a company which designs, markets, and sells, but outsources production. Nevertheless, NPIHN directors are closely involved in service provision, and the values of the organization permeate all of its outsourced operations. All this leads to an interesting parallel with a much more well-known valuesdriven company: Newman’s Own brand of salad dressings and pasta sauces. In Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good (2003), actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner describe the formation of Newman ’s Own. No doubt many readers have seen their products on the grocer’s shelf if not in their own kitchens. But not all users know that the company pours its entire profit into charitable giving, most of which goes to various summer camps for sick children. In twenty years of operation , Newman’s Own has earned and contributed some $150 million. Though the tone of their story is light—they claim to have acciden- 218 Chapter 11 tally flouted every known sound business principle and attribute all their success to luck—Newman and Hotchner are clearly proud of their close personal involvement. The story starts with Newman and Hotchner stirring a batch of salad dressing in Newman’s basement, and goes on to highlight their perpetual commitment to quality ingredients, freshness, and high standards. They point out that their brand is genuinely their business, not merely celebrity name-licensing. They do what they feel is right, not necessarily what’s calculated to bring the most profit—and then of course they give any profits away. With such pride one might expect them to operate their own factories . However, as they clearly state: ‘‘We even toyed with the notion of setting up our own bottling plant in a nearby vacant facility that had once housed a bottler, but the prospect of hiring workers and running such a plant was too daunting’’ (19). Instead they contracted with existing bottling plants to produce the dressings and sauces according to their specifications. They defined this operating mechanism ‘‘shameless exploitation’’ because they used the manufacturing resources of others. NPIHN is like Newman’s Own in several key ways, all of which will be apparent in the more detailed description below. First, NPIHN serves primarily as a designer and facilitator, and outsources everything from facilities to labor. Second, the NPIHN staff demonstrates intense and ideologically driven involvement with every aspect of the service. Third, NPIHN explicitly attributes success not to business acumen but to a combination of external forces and the inherent good of their core values. Newman’s Own says they got lucky; NPIHN says God answered their prayers. Fourth, Newman’s Own is unswervingly committed to freshness and quality ingredients; NPIHN is committed to combining personal, respectful holistic provision of immediate food and shelter needs with motivation and skills training toward lasting life change. In essence, both produce much-needed public goods by harnessing resources that they do not command and do not intend to command. Social Service Delivery to Religious Congregations Outsourcing is nothing new to government and business. Businesses contract out services to able parties, and foundations seek expertise on issues from university scholars; government contracts with the private sector for many things up to and including war fighting. What is relatively new is the trend toward enlisting the services and resources of civil society (Salamon 1987), including religious groups, as outlined in the most recent welfare...

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