Therapeutic Spreadsheets: How Data Facilitate Healing at a Transitional Housing Ministry

 


Nathan Mayo
Director of Member Services
Read more from Nathan

 

 

In 2006, Jay and Julie St. Clair helped transform a ramshackle apartment complex known on the street as “The Last Resort” into an urban transitional housing program they christened “God’s Resort.” From the original few units, God’s Resort has expanded to now offer nearly 40 housing units for people who need both affordable housing and an intentional supportive community to assist them out of addiction, poverty, or trauma. God’s Resort is not a rehab facility; rather, it’s a next step for people who find themselves stuck. Some are recent graduates of other programs. Others don’t come from a program but just need a supportive community to help them meet their personal goals.

Residents pay rent at around 60-70% of market rates and agree to meet with Life Transition Coordinators twice a month (who function like case managers), participate in some weekly community events (choosing from multiple options), and stay verifiably drug and alcohol free. Residents typically stay for around two years before they are ready to move on to fully independent housing.

 

THE RATIONALE

While many nonprofits would be content to leave the program description with what they are trying to accomplish, the team at God’s Resort was dissatisfied with that. They wanted to know that their programs really work. Do people really leave in a better condition than when they came? A couple of years ago, the team at God’s Resort would not have been able to answer that question—now they can. 

In 2019, Jay St. Clair, in part inspired by James Whitford of the True Charity Initiative, realized that they needed to start measuring outcomes in their program. By outcomes, we mean the long-term objectives in the lives of your clients, not merely the quantity of services your organization provides. Jay said they decided to make the switch to measuring outcomes because he knew it would help them serve their people better and so he could give his donors more confidence than mere anecdotal evidence could provide.

 

THE IMPACT

 

According to the assistant executive director, Beau Hamlin, once they began measuring outcomes, they were quickly excited by the demonstrable success their program already had. They started by measuring indicators of long-term wins for their clients such as number of trusted friends, amount of times they volunteer, number of Christian fellowship events attended, weeks of unbroken employment, credit score, debt, months of sobriety, and a personal stability assessment quiz (more detail is available in the attachments). 

They found that the residents, on net, were appreciative of the evaluations. The assessments lead to natural goal setting conversations. Because the program is generally full of people who have expressed an interest in improving their own situation, most clients will see positive change over time. For many of them, this is the first time in years that the trajectory of their life has been positive, and seeing the improving numbers gives them the confidence to believe the progress is real. Beau says, “Beside every number we try to collect is a corresponding question we ask our residents. Each question reveals a piece of someone’s life.” Consequently, asking these questions can be very personal and must be done in a sensitive way. The God’s Resort team stresses to clients that the numbers, such as months of sobriety, weeks of unbroken employment, or credit scores, are not the core identity of the clients, they are merely tools to help gage progress and relative strengths and areas for improvement.

The new outcomes measurement processes made it easier to fairly identify residents who were stuck in ruts and provide Transition Coordinators with the solid evidence needed to help overcome those residents’ denial. This created the basis to get them to either progress or to free up the housing for the long waiting list of people more interested in personal growth.  

The data collection not only has an impact on the clients but on the programs. The staff at God’s Resort is able to look for areas in which clients are struggling across the board and identify ways to offer the targeted services they need.

Donors also noticed the shift to measuring results. In 2020, God’s Resort gave a second presentation of this program data to community members to show change over time, including personal testimonials to personify the numbers. In response, one potential donor said, “We’ve always been interested in your program, but your commitment to measuring your impact now gives us the confidence to start investing in your ministry.”

 

THE PROCESS

 

Filling out the stability assessments is an active process. The staff has learned that the best practice is to talk the clients through the questions rather than just let clients fill them out alone.

God’s Resort staff meet with clients monthly and try to keep track of key metrics as the topics arise. Beyond this, they do a deliberate quarterly assessment of all the metrics for each client, except the more in-depth personal stability assessment, which is conducted every six months.  

The person who meets with residents to assist in goal setting and progress tracking, as mentioned previously, is referred to as a “Life Transition Coordinator.” The meaning behind the title is that the coordinator isn’t there to solve all of the residents’ problems for them, but rather to connect them to the resources they need.

The data these assessments generate are stored in a secure cloud-based software.  God’s Resort ensures that their clients give informed consent on the purpose and usage of the sensitive information. (They use Tresorit.com, which offers a 50% nonprofit discount on secure cloud storage.) The data are used on an ongoing basis to assist individual clients with their own progress. They also compile key metrics from all of the clients into spreadsheets for trend analysis and donor reporting.

 

THE COST

 

Beau remarked that the time required to collect and sort data was significantly less straining than one might imagine. That’s because they have found that the most intensive part of the process, sitting with clients and working through assessments with them, is actually quite therapeutic—the outcomes measurement process became a way to set and achieve personal goals more deliberately and, thus, contributed to their existing transition goals. Other than that, they aggregate the data for internal assessment and donor reporting every few months in metrics that do not identify individual residents.

 

THE LESSONS LEARNED

 

Beau cautions that you must ensure the metrics and assessments you use don’t delve deeper into the personal lives of the clients than you are able to safely go. Assessments designed for professional counselors are often outside of the scope of work of a typical nonprofit. Even for in-house tools, sometimes a question on an assessment could trigger someone to open up about deep childhood trauma. Most likely, your team won’t be equipped to do in-house trauma counseling and will need to either refer those clients to outside sources or structure assessments in a way to only bring up issues that you are reasonably equipped to address.

Beau also acknowledges that the need to find people who are good at working through structured assessments with clients has informed their hiring practices. The role of a counselor is different than the role of a coordinator. Titles, but more specifically job descriptions, help direct hiring processes, as well as inform the staff on how to spend their time. For example, a coordinator intentionally facilitates the achievement of goals while navigating some personal struggles, as opposed to primarily performing non-clinical counseling sessions. This structure helps keep the conversations more productive by ensuring coordinators engage clients in topics relevant to the client’s personal growth. Now, they spend more time talking about budgeting and volunteerism and less time talking about arenas outside of the client’s control. When serious issues arise, they leverage professionally trained outside assistance.

Beau also opines with a quote that one of their board members shared with him: “Data is refined through use.” In other words, their measurement has become both more accurate and useful as they have continually put it to the test. If you’re not measuring outcomes in your organization, yet, Beau says the best advice is to start. “Don’t be afraid to jump in—but bring someone along who is familiar with data collection, systematizing, and utilization.” If your organization is a member of the True Charity Network, we are happy to work with you through our outcomes training and coaching, as we have done with God’s Resort.

God’s Resort is also a Certified True Charity because of their commitment to voluntary funding, challenging programs, and measurable results. Their example shows that measuring program outcomes is not only feasible but can also have a profound impact on your clients, programs, and supporters. For more tools like the ones below, True Charity Network members can go to the members portal.

 
 
 
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Relationships and Science: A Winning Combination for an Oregon Nonprofit

 


Savannah Aleckson
Events Director/Adjunct Instructor
Read more from Savannah

 

It’s true that there’s no silver bullet for ending poverty. But one step on nearly every journey up from poverty is a good job. The data speaks for itself: a mere 2% of adults who work full-time live in poverty, according to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau data. Additionally, working adults are happier and healthier than their non-working counterparts. Klamath Works, a nonprofit located in Klamath Falls, Oregon, has taken to heart the value of work—and discovered a little-known scientific tool for getting clients into jobs that work for them.

Prior to the advent of Klamath Works in 2016, a core group of concerned citizens called over 50 local organizations to get their perspective on issues they were seeing in Klamath Falls and determine what intervention was needed. The overwhelming response was that people needed jobs, and indeed, Klamath Works has had their work cut out for them from the start—23% of the Klamath Falls population lives in poverty, a striking contrast to the 14% poverty rate across the rest of the state of Oregon. In response, Klamath Works embraced the opportunity to help men and women find independence through work. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t come with a learning curve.

“When we first began Klamath Works, it was all about figuring out how to get people in jobs,” Joy McInnis, Klamath Works Program Director, shares. “As we’ve grown and learned, we’ve found that the ‘getting a job’ aspect was the easy part!” While overcoming basic barriers to employment such as lack of training or a criminal record are undoubtedly important, Klamath Works staff and volunteers discovered there’s so much more that must be addressed to achieve true success in the workplace and beyond. As the phrase goes, “The devil is in the details,” and indeed, it can be those details that can derail a plan that looks great on paper.

How can you anticipate those troublesome details and address them before they cripple a good effort to find employment? For Klamath Works, it all comes down to personal relationships and tailored approaches. “It usually takes more than just a few minutes to figure out why the client is in the position he’s in,” Joy offers. “That’s why it’s so important to have someone to build that rapport with clients, and that’s the role that our job coaches fill. They spend a lot of time communicating with the client.”

It’s through that steady conversation that peripheral obstacles are identified and addressed. If it’s a lack of transportation that would cause the client to be unreliable in his new job, Klamath Works refers him to their bicycle program. If it’s a lack of knowledge on how to manage finances, then the client is recommended the budgeting life skills class. 

But what about the less tangibles, like mental health issues or dysfunctional personality traits? It’s in those cases that Klamath Works has found their Structure of Intellect assessment to be key. The Structure of Intellect (SOI) assessment helps the client to, as the ancient Greek aphorism goes, “know thyself.’ The assessment evaluates three key components of intellect: Operations, Contents, and Products.

  • Operations: This part of brain function includes the ability to comprehend new information as well as remember and create. 
  • Contents: This refers to the building blocks of information the brain processes, such as pictures and words.  Different minds process different contents better than others, such as sounds for an auditory learner or symbols for a visual learner. 
  • Products: These are the results of the brain processing information. This includes finding patterns and foreseeing consequences.

The SOI is a research-driven approach to help clients understand the unique way their mind works. While there are many competing models for understanding human intellect, any of them can help someone be introspective about their own skills and attributes. “It’s helpful to know what you think like. Knowing yourself better gives you opportunities to understand what you can work on,” Lavar Moore, SOI specialist at Klamath Works, shares. Lavar tells about one client whose assessment revealed that, due to a traumatic brain injury and a subsequent struggle with addiction, he was lacking in judgment and clarity. This honest evaluation opened the door for him and the caring staff at Klamath Works to develop a game plan so that he could practice better discernment and make healthier choices in difficult situations. More than a simple handout of material assistance or a job application coldly passed across a counter, this strategic intervention empowered him with tools to flourish.

The SOI is more than a simple personality test. It’s an in-depth, thorough evaluation of how the client processes information, and as such, it requires a significant amount of training in advance. Any organization that uses the assessment must participate in a week-long in-person training and be approved by SOI Systems for basic certification. The written assessment that the client takes—typically  over three hours to complete—is administered by a certified trainer and then fed through software that compiles the information to create a client profile. From there, a trainer with advanced education in SOI implementation is required to analyze the data and make recommendations for the client accordingly. All in all, there was about a $5,000 start-up cost for Klamath Works to integrate the SOI into their programs.

There’s certainly an implementation cost that accompanies the SOI. However, this data-driven approach coupled with heartfelt relationships can drive real solutions to difficult problems. Eric, another success story from Klamath Works, demonstrates this well. Homeless with mental health issues and a criminal record, his job prospects were dismal. “Eric came in with nothing, but he was ready to work and receive information,” Lavar shares. Though he was down on his luck, he enthusiastically gleaned from every resource offered, from the life skills classes, to the one-on-one job coaching, to building relationships with Klamath Works staff—and it’s paid off. As Lavar says, “Eric is back to work and loved by his employers, he’s stable and paying bills, he’s paying off debt.” Recently, Eric approached his mentors-turned-friends at Klamath Works to seek advice on whether he should ask for a raise at his job that he was steadily improving at and thoroughly enjoying. Through the sound advice and reassurance given by his trusted job coach, Eric was able to ask for a raise—and he got it!

What advice would Joy and Lavar share with other organizations trying to help the poor find jobs in their communities? “Remember that it’s on an individual basis,” Lavar emphasizes. “Poverty looks different for everyone—sometimes it’s a lack of skills, sometimes it’s a lack of childcare, sometimes it’s addiction, and so on. There is no blanket solution [to get people in jobs] for root causes so varied.”

That’s why Klamath Works emphasizes the importance of tailored approaches based on each client’s individual context. “It just comes down to a one-on-one relationship so that you have a better idea of what’s going on. Every situation is different,” Joy reminds. A willingness to dig deep into the specifics of a person’s situation, coupled with a compassionate and understanding heart, is what makes the difference between cold, sterile charity and life-changing help. And, as Klamath Works has found, coupling scientific approaches with that warm relationship can be a winning approach.

Have a question about how Klamath Works has integrated the Structure of Intellect assessment into their programs? Contact them through the True Charity Network Member’s Directory.  For more information about the True Charity Network, visit truecharity.us/join.

 

Fuller Center for Housing: 5 Tips to Transition from Paternalism to Partnership

 


Savannah Aleckson
Regional Director for Joplin, MO, Area
& Events Director
Read more from Savannah

 

For Royce Nelson, Executive Director of the Fuller Center for Housing chapter located in Joplin, MO, material assistance is less about provision and more about partnership. That perspective has shaped the way Fuller Center for Housing approaches charity, inspiring meaningful exchange and quality relationships—in their view, treating their clientele as collaborators rather than charity cases is key to sustainable, development-oriented solutions for those in poverty.

With over 75 chapters across the United States, Fuller Center for Housing aims to alleviate one common social woe: inadequate housing for those in poverty. Whether that’s through building new homes or rehabilitating homes that have deteriorated, Fuller Center for Housing envisions a world where everyone has a safe place to live—and they see collaboration as the vehicle through which that becomes a reality.

How can you participate in charity that’s less like a toxic handout and more like a dignifying exchange? Royce shares 5 tips to achieve just that from Fuller Center for Housing’s operations.

 

– 1 –

Do your homework

 

Before the Fuller Center for Housing team gets started on a project, they explore several relevant questions: What’s the client’s story? Why is he unable to afford a new home build or repair by conventional means? What’s caused the decay of his current home? Has any other agency stepped in to help in this situation? The answers to those questions are best found through personal, careful investigation that is unmoved by any pressure to rush. Fuller’s team members take the time to get to know the client and their situation before agreeing to assist. They also use community collaboration tools such as CharityTracker to gain more insight into the client’s backstory and determine how else he has been helped.


– 2 –

Expect more, not less, of your clientele

 

The temptation to zero in on what feels like urgent and serious need, like a rotting floor or a badly damaged roof, is potent. However, Royce urges those involved in charity to step back and get the big picture: even those with pressing needs have valuable skills, resources, and assets to offer. To invite the poor to put those giftings to use in exchange for assistance is not a cruel ask; on the contrary, it’s an incredibly affirming and dignifying process! For that reason, Fuller Center for Housing is intentional about deeply involving the client in the process of the home build or repair. They are expected to chip in:

  • Financially. Fuller’s helps complete the needed work well below market rate to assist their low-income clientele who may be unable to afford a conventional loan. Clients are expected to pay for the discounted materials along with a 12.5% fee to help with Fuller’s operating expenses; if payment cannot be made up-front, then a payment plan is arranged. “This is about giving back,” Royce shares. “Clients understand that the money they pay is not just to repair their own home, but to help keep the ministry going so other folks can receive help, too. It’s good for people to know they are capable not just of being helped, but helping others as well.”
  • Physically. Yes, clients are even expected to get their hands dirty in the physical repairs of their home! This is what Fuller’s refers to as a “sweat-equity” model. Royce chuckles as he recalls all the myriad ways they’ve had clients get involved, from hanging drywall, to fixing flooring, to installing new shingles on the roof. It’s through this willingness to take things a little slower in order to involve the client that clients are able to learn new skills and take ownership over the project for their own home.

 

– 3 –

Honor and promote real relationship

In the view of Fuller Center for Housing, the most effective social safety net is the one at work right here at home—the connections between family members, friends, and community members. Root issues of poverty are addressed and life change is put in motion when those vital affiliations intervene to help their neighbor in need before more distant, bureaucratic forms of help get involved.

Fuller Center for Housing finds a variety of creative ways to encourage their clientele to lean on old relationships and create new ones, from asking family members to help with the physical labor if the client is truly immobile to completing projects side-by-side with the homeowner. These small interventions pack a punch: family and friends are reminded of their duty to help those in their circle, and hours together working on a project opens the door for good, life-giving conversation.

 

– 4 –

Remember that the devil is in the details

Through that close bond that is forged through hours spent working together, Fuller’s team members get a glimpse into details of the client’s life. Paying attention to those glimpses can make all the difference in the success of the project. Royce shared the story of one couple who was having trouble keeping up with their repayment plan. One of the team members who was helping with the project found out that they were spending $350-$400 a month on cable and suggested that they cut it to find the necessary money. The couple accepted this counsel and were able to regain hundreds of dollars of cushion back into their budget not just for the repayment plan, but for future expenses as well! Knowledge of details increases the chances of charity teams like Royce’s to find and route out the devils that hold people back from the flourishing life God intends.

 

– 5 –

Celebrate success, big or small

Royce beamed as he shared the best moment of the entire project, from intake, to evaluation, to getting the project underway, to completion: “You can’t beat the pride a client has when he’s able to step back and look at his newly built or repaired home and say ‘I did that! I can take care of myself!’” A challenge met and overcome is a dignifying and rewarding process, and something that the Fuller Center for Housing team is careful to protect for their clientele. An equally satisfying moment occurs when clients call back some time later to tell the team about a home repair they were able to complete on their own, thanks to the training they received from Fuller Center for Housing.

 

To the Fuller Center for Housing, their role is about much more than the sum of the boards, nails, and paint it takes to shore up a broken-down home. It’s about ministering to folks through relationship, healthy challenge, and accountability. It just so happens that repairing homes is a great vehicle for delivering those life-changing ends.

 

Intake With Love, INC: 7 Steps to Take Your Process from Clinical to Transformational

 


Avery West
Director of Community Initiatives

 

 

Love, In the Name of Christ (INC) of Hillsdale County doesn’t give out a single penny, meal, or piece of furniture, but the group meets needs every day. Nestled in a small town in Michigan, this Love, INC chapter is one of 122 across the United States. Love, INC acts as a clearinghouse for their local network of churches, connecting needs to appropriate ministries. They take the time to get to know the individuals asking for assistance, and often are able to meet deeper needs than those originally presented.

Jessica Fawley, executive director of Love, INC of Hillsdale County, shared how her volunteer team practically gets to know the people who call in, and where they go from there.

 

– 1 –

Set expectations

Hillsdale Love, INC volunteers always begin their conversations with a disclaimer: They don’t have any resources on hand, but can connect clients with a church who does. As a part of the intake process, they’ll go through a lengthy list of questions. Volunteers assure clients that these questions are not meant to be judgmental, but only to give Love, INC a better understanding of their particular situation. This authenticity gives the conversation a sense of rapport and respect from the very beginning.

 

– 2 –

Listen to their story

After setting expectations, the volunteer sets aside the need the individual originally called for, and focuses on getting to know him or her as a person. Often the people who call are more than willing to decompress and tell their story. Jessica pointed out that this simple act of receptivity affirms that the client is worthy of being listened to. As they listen to clients’ stories, volunteers ask questions that help them understand what brought the individual to this point of need.

 

– 3 –

Verify existing connections

Next, the volunteer verifies the need with the client’s pastor, if he or she has one. The goal here is not only to alert the pastor of a need in his congregation, but also to find out if the individual’s own community has resources he or she hasn’t tapped into yet. You can learn more about how and why we work towards reestablishing community ties through the free True Charity University Affiliation course.

 

– 4 –

Make a timeline

Volunteers help clients come up with a plan that addresses not only the initial need, but also the situations that led to it. For instance, the client might make a plan to work through his budget with a volunteer, sign up for job skills class, or meet with his mentor.

When Jessica comes alongside a client, she asks herself “Who in the body of Christ can I connect this person with?” This focus on relationship rather than material goods radically changes the conversation. Recently, Jessica worked with a woman who called in asking for a bed, but later revealed she was in an abusive marriage and felt uncomfortable in her church. Jessica was able to connect her and her husband with help, as well as put her in contact with friends from a different church.

 

– 5 –

Maintain mutual participation

Love, INC highly values mutual participation, and believes that the volunteer should never work harder than the client. Jessica explained that their model always puts the ball in the client’s court, so the process will naturally end if the client remains unwilling to participate. The key to mutual investment is the volunteer’s commitment to clear expectations, willingness to have a loving confrontation, and understanding that not everyone is ready to progress toward self-sufficiency.

 

– 6 –

Follow up

Love INC volunteers make sure to check in with their clients every month after the initial intake. Whether they become aware of new hurdles to overcome, find out the client has not followed his steps toward self-sufficiency, or hear a story of transformation, follow-up is always fruitful and essential.

 

– 7 –

Keep the goal in mind

When you’re cranking through intakes, Jessica said, it’s easy for the conversations to become very clinical. She used the decreased caseload during the pandemic as an opportunity to recalibrate her intentions, and pour more deeply into the few individuals they were able to work alongside. It’s a constant fight to focus on the person, not the need, but Jessica and her team remind themselves every day of this greater goal.

 

Whether your group provides food or diapers, car repair or budgeting services, we can all focus on making our intake process more relational. Love, INC’s model of setting expectations, listening, reestablishing existing relationships, and long-term mutual participation is a good place to start.

 

Journey Church: a Congregation and Community Transformed

 


Nathan Mayo
Director of Member Services

 

Pastor John “Chip” Boyd recalls that prior to 2011, Journey Church’s ministry focus was almost 100% internal. With a small church of only 130 members, they did not expect to change their predominantly poor urban neighborhood in Joplin, Missouri. When a devastating tornado ripped through their town in 2011, they were jolted to consider how they could help their neighbors. This question was amplified by a Wisconsin-based missions company that used Journey as a platform for a short-term mission trip to assist with tornado rehabilitation. 

When Journey Church members saw people coming from out of state to serve their own community, it was a clarion call to put their faith into action. The church refocused its ministry to spend 80% of their ministry time, energy, and dollars in their neighborhood. A wave of exhilaration swept through the church as members experienced the thrill of serving people in need. As the years went by, that exhilaration eroded into the fatigue of watching the same people with the same problems get the same “help.”

 

In 2017, Journey Church did some soul searching and determined a more deliberate way forward than their previous strategy of one-way handouts. They crafted a plan to reach every neighbor in a two-mile radius over the next five years—the “2 in 5 Initiative.”  The plan was to offer some tailored assistance and friendship to each family with an intent to improve their long-term situation, as laid out in these steps:

 

1) Make their acquaintance. This could be through an in-person invitation to an event, like a community Christmas dinner or to participate in a program, like a community garden. This also takes the form of identifying obvious needs, like a collapsing roof and stopping to ask if the church could be of assistance.

 

2) Assess their complete needs. Once a church member or leader establishes a connection with the community member, they are asked to discuss deeper needs, using a brief assessment card as a prompt for conversation. If your roof is collapsing, there is sure to be a discussion of why you are unable to pay for your own roof. Is it inadequate income? Or inadequate management of existing income? Sometimes the needs are simple requests for relationship—“My husband is in prison, and I wish I had someone to play catch with my son.” Pastor John remarked that literally every community member he is aware of was willing to discuss underlying problems, if a church representative first established rapport and expressed a sincere desire to help. In his words, “If we want to really help people, we’re going to have to get into their business, and it is going to get messy.”

 

3) Match the needs of the community member with the assets of the church members. For those needing better income streams, the church pairs them with members who teach resume writing and employment skills. For those needing assistance with money management, the church teaches budgeting. If they need home repairs, the church is happy to assist. If they need money to get them through a tight spot, the church offers members an interest-free loan—repayment is required for additional financial assistance. In short, the church is thrilled to offer people ways to better their own situation. However, the leadership team will ask tough questions and, for those uninterested in bettering their own lot, the church is friendly but refuses to enable bad choices. When a young couple came to request assistance with their electric bill days after spending their tax refund/credit on expensive electronics, Pastor John helped them return their new toys. They paid their own electric bill.

 

4) Follow up to ensure their needs were met. To ensure that projects and classes have the intended effect, assigned church members follow up with beneficiaries monthly. They build lasting friendships when possible, and when not, they provide feedback to the church on how effective the assistance was and recommend additional assistance as needed. 

 

5) Invite the community member to partner with the church in helping others. The ultimate goal of charity is not to merely assist “the needy,” but rather to transform the needy into flourishing people and see them pass on the service they received. In the case of Journey Church, this begins with invitations to accept Christ and join the church. If people decline or already attend other churches, they are still encouraged to use Journey as a local hub and share the needs of neighbors with the church and join collective projects in support of their own community.

 

The 2 in 5 Initiative is ahead of schedule to meaningfully impact every family in a two-mile radius of the church. Pastor John also notes how incredibly generous their diverse-income church is at contributing to the church’s operation and outreach.  John attributes this generosity to the fact that members know their dollars, time, and talents are really changing lives—not because of emotive advertising, but because of effective, challenging programs with measured outcomes. 

 

Journey Church is a remarkable story of a congregation transforming from an inward focus to being dedicated to transforming their community. Not only that, but they resisted the pull of paternalistic and perpetual giving, which was unlikely to help many people in the community improve their own situations. Journey Church acknowledges that their journey to optimizing their impact is not yet complete, but thanks to incorporating principles of true charity, they are certainly on the right path.

 

 

Neighbor Connect: Meeting the Needs Next Door

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Kyle is a young man who has been mowing the yard for Mary over the past two summers. Mary is in her sixties, suffers from depression and anxiety, and is on disability. Kyle and Mary were introduced through Neighbor Connect, a program of Watered Gardens Ministries that cares for the local community by connecting one neighbor’s need to another neighbor’s skill. By databasing and categorizing the services volunteers can offer, Neighbor Connect took Kyle’s willingness to volunteer mowing services and paired it with Mary’s lawn care needs.

And the relationship between Mary and Kyle has only grown from there.  At the end of last summer, Mary was so thankful for Kyle’s excellent work, she sought ways to bless him in return.  And when Mary was hospitalized earlier this year for heart surgery, Kyle stepped up to take care of her dog. Then he and his wife brought dinner over while Mary was recovering.

“Who does that?” Mary said when she called the local Neighbor Connect coordinator. “Who does that? That is what a true Christian is supposed to do!”

The experience of Mary with Kyle highlights a key principle of True Charity: Subsidiarity.

The principle of subsidiarity states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized, competent agent. Adhering to the principle of subsidiarity means viewing the government as the last source of help for a person in need.

When government is looked to first, local communities lose their resolve to care for their own.  The result?  The welfare problem grows, and the fabric of a local community wears thin. Without any understanding of the person or his or her situation, charitable transactions are mostly blind and ineffective. True charity is based on face-to-face relationship-building, which empowers, ennobles, and sets free people captive to poverty.

So, if the government should be the last source of help for a person in need, who should be first?

Family, friends, and neighbors. In that order.

It is important to note that when a client comes to Neighbor Connect with a need, the Neighbor Connect coordinator does not automatically step in to help. An interview is conducted with the intent to connect them with their own family. If they don’t have any family, then effort is made to identify friends who could help–or the church to which they are affiliated. If they don’t have any of those, then Neighbor Connect seeks to step in and help.

What does that help look like?

It depends on the need. Initially, Neighbor Connect consisted of a database of willing volunteers, their location, and their identified skills. When a need arose, the Neighbor Connect coordinator would go through the database and try and find a volunteer geographically positioned with the skills to meet the need. Now, while a Neighbor Connect app is in development, a texting service is utilized. A text goes out to all of the volunteers, and this allows people to see needs in real-time and step up on a more frequent basis if they want.

It wasn’t long ago that neighbors were the first respondents to needs in their communities. We need to get back to that priority again. It’s why Neighbor Connect was created, and the program is set up to be easily replicated in any community. Like yours.

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If you live in the Joplin 4-State region and are interested in volunteering with Neighbor Connect or referring a client of your ministry for assistance, visit neighborconnect.us.

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To find out more about establishing a Neighbor Connect center in your community, visit neighborconnect.us.
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