Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from RAND Review, Doug Irving investigates how some faith-based organizations have taken extra steps to promote well-being in their communities.

• Faith-based organizations are ubiquitous, but have been an untapped resource for pursuing positive change. How can philanthropy coordinate with faith-based organizations to reach a wider audience?

• To learn about how faith-based efforts can help prevent veteran suicide, click here.

In low-income African-American and Latino neighborhoods like South Los Angeles, long shadowed by poor health and chronic disease, the church is one institution that can move the needle. In recent years, dozens of churches like Friendly Friendship have partnered with RAND to confront two of the biggest killers in their communities: HIV and obesity. Their work has provided a model for how health departments, researchers, and faith leaders can work together for the good of the community.

There were, at last count, around 300,000 religious congregations in the United States. That's more than twice the number of cities, school districts, law-enforcement agencies, post offices, and Starbucks locations, combined. They are the meeting places and public squares of their communities, with a legacy of organizing and leading social change. As faith leaders like to say, they have a captive audience for an hour or two every week.

Most already provide some kind of health programming—a blood drive here, a health fair there, maybe a special ministry for drug users or homeless people. But their efforts have too often been piecemeal, treating the symptoms but not the causes, without enough sustained support from public-health agencies. The research base that could help make those interventions more effective is surprisingly thin.

Read the full article about faith-based organizations by Doug Irving at RAND Review