Fruitful Partnerships in a Rural African American Community: Important Lessons for Faith-Based Initiatives

Rural African American congregations often have been pitted against their urban counterparts, with the urban churches viewed as superior social agents with a wider range of community services. An examination of social service provision in rural areas is necessary because both policy and programmatic responsibilities increasingly are delegated to state and local governance and ultimately to local communities. Legislation referred to as Charitable Choice encourages the government to contract with faith-based and community-based social service providers. This legislation also increases the importance of understanding the role that rural congregations play as the social service system favors private delivery of such services over public avenues. In this study, an in-depth examination of 17 congregations in an historically all-Black town revealed the distinct patterns of African American congregations providing a unified network of collaborative social services with secular organizations on behalf of their communities.