Partly as a result of regulations enacted by executive order, groups dubbed "faith-based" received $1.17 billion in grants from federal agencies in 2003, and the White House is working to persuade states to funnel more federal money to such groups as well, the Associated Press reports.

According to documents released by the Bush administration, the $1.17 billion awarded to faith-based groups in 2003 represented roughly 8 percent of the $14.5 billion spent on social programs by five federal departments with their own faith-based office. But, said H. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, an additional $40 billion in federal money is given out by state agencies, and many of them do not realize that federal rules now allow them to fund faith-based groups. To encourage them to do so, the White House has hosted a series of information-sharing workshops, Towey has met with state leaders, and the president has personally lobbied governors.

Nevertheless, states have been slow to warm to the administration's faith-based initiative. A 2003 study of state efforts to contract with such groups found little activity, partly because states did not see a need to target faith-based groups and partly because their budgets were so tight, said Richard Nathan, director of the Rockefeller Institute at the State University of New York in Albany. But within the past six months, Nathan said, states have shown increased interest, with more governors appointing liaisons to the religious community and announcing policies to open the funding application process to faith-based groups. By Towey's count, twenty-one governors, including many Democrats, have set up faith-based offices.

Opponents of the initiative argue that the White House is walking — and sometimes crossing — a fine line separating church and state, and they continue to look for a court case to challenge the initiative on constitutional grounds. "There clearly is a wave of new faith-based offices coming to states around the country," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State "and I think some of them are likely to deal with it responsibly and others to deal with it as irresponsibly as the administration does."