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Retired restaurateur Paul Fleming has established two non-profit organizations to help the president in pursuit of money for religious charities.
By MARY JACOBY
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 25, 2001
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's proposal to channel more government money to religious charities faces obstacles in Congress. But a wealthy Arizona restaurateur with Tampa business ties is helping him open a new front: the private sector.
Paul Fleming, founder of a chain of trendy Chinese restaurants called P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc., has established two non-profit organizations to complement Bush's efforts.
One is a Washington-based lobbying group. The other is a Phoenix-based private foundation. Their mission will be to educate Congress and the public on the benefits of faith-based charities and persuade corporations and other private foundations to finance them.
"I've been in business for 18 years. I wanted to do something I thought was more significant with my life," said the Louisiana native, a co-owner with Tampa's Outback Steakhouse Inc. of Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar, a new chain with a location in Tampa.
A Catholic who calls himself "pretty religious but not a zealot," Fleming, 46, recently retired from business to devote himself full time to his new venture.
He has committed several million dollars over the next few years to the groups but does not plan to be their sole benefactor. Part of his job will be fundraising for them, Fleming said.
A church soup kitchen, a storefront ministry that helps rehabilitate drug addicts, a Bible study group that mentors vulnerable children -- these are the kinds of organizations that Fleming wants corporate philanthropists to begin funding.
"Not that bureaucrats in government don't care for the people they serve, but there's no personal connection. The faith component helps bring people up and gives them something to look forward to," Fleming said.
Fleming's interest in working outside government to promote faith-based charities dovetails nicely with Bush's political needs. The president has made the funding of faith-based organizations a priority. If the legislation he backs cannot clear Congress, he will need to turn elsewhere to salvage the venture.
Toward that end, Bush last month called on corporations to support religious charities.
"The federal government will not discriminate against faith-based organizations, and neither should corporate America," Bush said in a May 20 commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame.
One of Bush's informal advisers on the faith-based initiative is Michael Joyce, who officially retires in July as head of the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee.
The Bradley Foundation is a prominent patron of conservative causes, and Joyce is in the circle of conservative intellectuals and activists who have become part of the Bush administration's brain trust.
Joyce said that at a recent Rose Garden ceremony Bush came up to him and said, "Mike, I'm going to ask you to do something important, and you'll be hearing from Karl and John."
That would be Karl Rove, the president's all-purpose political and policy adviser, and John DiIulio, head of the White House's new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Joyce was assigned the task of working from the outside to build support for faith-based programs in Congress and among the public. About the same time, Fleming was contacting conservative policymakers and activists, such as Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, in an effort to learn more about the issue and how he could help.
"I called everybody. Some senators took my calls, some didn't. No one said, 'You're naive. Go back to Phoenix,' " Fleming said.
Kristol steered him to the John M. Olin Foundation in New York, where someone put Fleming in touch with Joyce. Together, they hatched the idea of the non-profit organizations.
The White House is not directly involved in Fleming's efforts but has an important back channel through Joyce.
"They have authorized me to say that the White House very much backs this," Joyce said.
The Bradley Foundation has long made significant grants to faith-based groups. And it has been at the forefront of promoting school voucher programs.
But in what could prove a liability for Joyce in the new venture, the $627-million Bradley Foundation also funded organizations that played prominent roles in the events that led to the impeachment of President Clinton.
Fleming said he is aware that controversy once swirled around the Bradley Foundation but stressed that he and his new venture have nothing to do with that past.
Instead, he said his lobbying group, Americans for Community and Faith-Centered Enterprise, will look to the future by trying to persuade Congress to pass the Community Solutions Act of 2001.
The White House-backed bill could be up for a vote in the House soon. Its prospects are less certain in the Senate.
The bill would make it easier for faith-based organizations to compete for taxpayer dollars. It bars the use of government money for "inherently religious activities." But it still faces opposition from lawmakers concerned about church-state separation issues.
Led in the House by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., these critics argue that government social services contracts will indirectly subsidize proselytizing or worship because the churches and other groups will have more of their own money available for religious activities.
At the same time, Fleming's Foundation for Community and Faith-Centered Enterprise in Phoenix, which has applied for status as a 501 (c) 3 grantmaking charitable organization, will work to persuade corporations and private foundations to give to faith-based groups, Fleming said.
It also will attempt to identify worthy faith-based groups in local communities and educate them about how to obtain grants and write grant proposals.
The approach may find favor with Congress. Lawmakers who don't want government money to go to faith-based groups say that doesn't mean they oppose other means to support their work.
"That's private money," Scott, the Virginia Democrat, said when told of Fleming's proposal. "I have no problem with the use of private money for charity."
Scott said he would welcome a private foundation that wanted to give "the technical assistance that many faith-based organizations need" in applying for grants. He added, however, that "I would assume this is not in lieu of the federal government maintaining its commitment to help those in need."
Fleming may have a harder time persuading large corporations to go along. Mindful of their public image and accountability to shareholders, big businesses have generally shied away from donating to faith-based groups for fear of igniting controversy by appearing to favor one religion over another.
The Ford Motor Company Fund, which gave $98-million to charity in 1999, has a policy against direct funding of religious activity but has donated money to faith-based social services groups in the past, executive director Sandy Ulsh said in a prepared statement.
Ulsh declined to be interviewed about Fleming. But her statement hinted at what makes corporations like Ford squeamish about being asked to fund faith-based groups, or even to submitting to an interview about the possibility: discrimination issues.
"At Ford, diversity is one of our key corporate values, and we support organizations that promote diversity," the statement said. A Ford spokeswoman, after checking with someone else, called back to say Ulsh meant diversity in gender, race, nationality and the like.
Other corporate funds may be more open to Fleming's pitch.
"We never say never," said Procter & Gamble Fund vice president Carol Talbot. "We would look at what it is they're doing and see if it fits what we perceived the community need to be."
Fleming, who is married and has two college-age children, said he became enthusiastic about faith-based charities after he read a newspaper article several years ago about a Phoenix grandmother who had been operating a neighborhood soup kitchen out of her home.
After complaints that the woman's work violated zoning laws, Fleming and other local business leaders donated money and equipment to set her up in a new kitchen in a nearby church.
"I'm Catholic, she's Baptist, and the church is Episcopalian," Fleming said. "It's not about (a particular) religion. We just want to help people."