Affiliation & Bonding

Affiliation: seeking to strengthen the natural relationships in people’s lives whenever possible

Bonding: becoming genuine friends with people in need

 

Affiliation refers to the principle that charity practitioners should always seek to strengthen the natural relationships in people’s lives when possible. If an elderly man needs help cleaning up his yard, you should ask whether he has any family that might be able to help. At a minimum, if it’s possible to include them in your assistance, this will strengthen his relationship with them. In addition to family, you can extend this principle to other relationships, such as his next-door neighbors, who might also be willing to lend a hand.

When affiliation is inadequate to address the whole need, the bonding principle comes into play. Bonding refers to the idea that charity workers should seek to alleviate immediate needs and become genuine friends with people in need. This works only when caseloads are manageable and is augmented by leveraging affiliation first and bonding when necessary.

These principles were popularized by the book The Tragedy of American Compassion and are closely related to subsidiarity.

Challenge

Requiring individuals to develop new skills, set goals, and discover their capacities

 can help them on their journey to overcome chronic poverty.

 

A challenge is a stimulating task or problem that requires effort. Overcoming challenges is the basic way that humans develop new skills and capacities. Those assisting people in need of development to escape chronic poverty can benefit them by providing them with a productive challenge.

This can take many forms, from working with them to set and achieve life goals to inviting them into some labor exchange for services. Offering challenge also acts as a self-selection tool to identify people ready for development. People unwilling to be challenged are not yet ready for change and won’t benefit from developmental programs. Additionally, challenge acts as the basic means of development. By its nature, challenge develops.

Charity

Charity is voluntary aid, including both relief and development, which

 fosters a healthy relationship between givers and receivers.

 

Charity is generally defined as the voluntary giving of help to others, particularly those in great need. It is an evolution of the word originally used to describe the Christian love of all people, but due to the Bible’s concern for the marginalized, it came to be associated mostly with helping the poor.

Our use of the word is limited to voluntary aid in which there is much biblical precedent including the call to give cheerfully and not under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7). Ideally, voluntary charity allows a healthy relationship between givers and receivers, where recipients feel obligated to “pass it on,” and givers are merely stewards of God’s possessions, not the true owners.

We believe that while charity is “optional” at a legal level, it is not optional at a moral level. We all have a specific moral duty to help people in need. We respond to this deeply personal call by assisting those we know, donating to charities, and volunteering time. These acts of compassion benefit both the giver and the receiver. Furthermore, this personal approach results in relationships that uplift everyone involved.

In some fields, the word “charity” is limited to crisis relief, but historically, this word has been used to describe many types of aid to the poor. As early as the 12^th century, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides identified that the “highest level of charity” was to help someone with a loan or secure employment so that they need not depend on others.

Compassion

Compassion is the virtuous, personal emotion that leads to charitable action.

 

Compassion means to suffer with. In New Testament usage, the Greek word translated compassion means “from the gut.” By itself, compassion is both virtuous and useless. For it to amount to anything, it must lead to action.

In the context of poverty, compassion inspires charity. By way of metaphor, compassion is the fuel (compulsion) that drives the vehicle (charitable action).

There are three basic spheres in which all people interact: the market (for-profit business), the government, and civil society (voluntary associations like churches, charities, and families). Each of these domains has strengths and weaknesses adapted to solve certain problems.

For instance, the government, the only sector that uses force, is good at providing for common defense and protecting people from fraud, abuse, and other forms of unjust exploitation. With its price mechanism and voluntary exchange, the market is good at allocating scarce resources to their most valuable uses and innovating new technology. With its personal relationships, civil society is best adapted to help people grow, flourish, and get back up when they fall.

While the precise roles of each domain are complex and debatable, a healthy society has three strong domains and lets each specialize whenever possible.

When it comes to serving people in poverty, we think that the government is best suited to protect the poor from abuse and exclusion from opportunity, the market is best suited to offer a long-term path out of poverty (work), and civil society (families, churches, charities, and communities) is best equipped to befriend, encourage, and get them on that path.

When people with time, money, and skills voluntarily part with them to help people in poverty, it creates a natural bond between the giver and the receiver, which an effective church or charity can nurture. When done well, it can also be a powerful connection that involves mutual learning, growth, gratitude, and genuine understanding.

When governments tax those who have and redistribute to the “have nots,” no beneficial relationships are formed. The involuntary givers become either resentful or feel released from further moral obligation; the recipients remain isolated and often develop a sense of entitlement. There may be some situations where this is defensible, but none where it is optimal.

Dependency

Effective charity seeks to break cycles of unhealthy dependency.

 

Dependency is to be reliant on another person or thing. Just like there are healthy and unhealthy ways to exercise trust, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to be dependent. The infant is fully dependent on others for her every need. The married man depends on his wife to manage some aspects of their household – but his dependency is mutual, for she also counts on him to do his share. When they are old, they may depend on their adult children. We are all dependent on God for daily bread and eternal hope. While dependency and interdependency are necessary parts of flourishing life, toxic variants also occur when relationships are not properly ordered.

In poverty alleviation, this most often takes the form of capable adults dependent on other adults to provide for their basic needs on an ongoing basis. This can result from a lack of skill, opportunity, or motivation on their part and is often exacerbated by continuous handouts. Robert Lupton expounded this vicious downward slope of dependency as five steps: Appreciation, Anticipation, Expectation, Entitlement, and Dependency. Effective charity empowers people in need to escape unhealthy dependency.

Dignity

Believing that all human beings have inherent worth,

effective charity offers ways for individuals to awaken their self-worth.

 

There are at least two senses of the word dignity. One is the intrinsic sense that all humans have worth by being created in the image of God. However, there is also an “actualized” sense. If you say a man has lost his dignity, you do not mean he has ceased to be human, but rather that he has ceased to act like a human should. This may be because of some tragedy that befell him, forcing him to beg or steal to survive. This may be because he is deliberately acting in malicious or slovenly ways.

It is essential that we acknowledge human dignity at an intellectual level and give people paths to actualize it. This involves looking for people’s strengths, entering into reciprocal relationships with them, and expecting them to take responsibility for their actions. These expectations ennoble people and awaken their sense of self-worth and dignity.

Flourishing (i.e. the “good life”)

Flourishing, synonymous with Shalom, is the state of people when they are in the right relationship with God, themselves, other people, and the physical world.

Flourishing should be the ultimate objective of any poverty alleviation program—helping the formerly poor to thrive, not merely boosting their material standard of living.

Every human is created in the image of God. We are inherently relational and need to be connected to each other and God. These relationships were broken at the fall, but restoration was made possible through the work of Christ. Jesus is the reigning King and has made a way for Shalom, or peaceful flourishing, to be experienced in the here and now – even as He works towards the consummation of all things.

In the here and now, God has seen fit to give us responsibilities to steward the physical world, to provide for our families, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. These are all pictures where we can live out restored relationships, and they create accountability and inspire the action required to help people flourish. True flourishing is impossible apart from the restoring work of God through the sacrifice of Christ and the active work of the Holy Spirit.

Function vs. Dysfunction Focused Categorization

Effective charity workers focus on what individuals can do rather than what they can’t.

An essential principle to helping people develop is to focus on what they have rather than what they lack. The typical approach is dysfunction-based. When someone needs help overcoming a difficult situation, their friend or case manager often inventories their problems, threats, and limitations. However, it is essential also to inventory what social, intellectual, and financial resources a person has, as these will often be the source of long-term growth and solutions. While we shouldn’t ignore needs, especially urgent ones, we should always keep the primary focus on capabilities.

The “asset-based community development” model manifests the concept of function-based categorization by first identifying what skills and resources the residents have and building on those strengths to address shortcomings in the community.

 

God

God is the uncreated Source of all things; He exists in

 three distinct persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

His creative design allows us to claim that humans have rights, duties, and intrinsic value. His character creates an immutable framework for morality. His Word teaches us about our nature and our purpose, and, it reveals the path of reconciliation to himself through the sacrifice of Christ the Son.

Furthermore, God challenges His people, the Church, to hold themselves to a higher standard of love for one another and their neighbors. This higher standard is made possible through the power of His Spirit alone.

Acknowledgment of God’s preeminence is the only stable foundation for a just and charitable society. A society unmoored from a moral law cannot hope to practice effective charity. For a properly secured society, even unbelievers benefit from the common grace of the systems and institutions that people of faith create.

Human Rights (Liberties vs. Entitlements)

True human rights, grounded in a moral source, are protective liberties

 rather than entitlement to provisions.

While the term “right” is often attached as a label to any number of desirable things, for a right to have any moral weight, it must have a moral source. Consensus does not constitute a moral source. If it did, there would be no cause to protect the “rights” of minority groups since those rights would not exist once dismissed by the majority opinion. We agree with the Declaration of Independence’s authors that any human rights must have been granted by their creator.

While it would be too great a task to articulate here the origin of each particular human right, rights can be divided into two categories. The first type is a right of protection from the actions of others—such as “the right to life,” “the right to personal property,” or “equal treatment in criminal justice.” Call this type of right a “liberty.” The second is the right to provision—such as food, housing, or financial security in retirement. Call this type of right an “entitlement.”

Liberties can be universal since your protection from crime or toxic waste does not hurt your neighbor. Your neighbor need not do anything for you; he must only refrain from harming you. Entitlements are zero-sum since they require forced transfers of goods from losers to winners. If you enjoy a comfortable retirement you did not save for, it must come from your neighbor’s retirement.

Enforcement of liberties is one of the most basic functions of the government and the reason that the government “does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4).

On the other hand, we can find no moral source that would cause us to believe that even basic essentials like food, housing, and equivalent entitlements are rights. If you attempt to create one, you will soon find that the entire system breaks down because such entitlements put all “rights” and, therefore, all people in conflict against each other.

This analysis does not preclude us from providing these basic needs to others, nor does it preclude the fact that we may occasionally have a moral duty to provide them. A moral obligation for givers to share what they can differs from recipients’ moral right to take what they need. However, based on the moral source that underlies our beliefs, we also do not see that obligation as a universal imperative to provide goods or services to all people, regardless of their willingness to participate in society. Such a belief is unmoored from a stable source in theory and a wellspring of bitter contention in practice.

Justice

Justice is not the amelioration of poverty’s effects, but the redress of injustices that cause it.

Given there are different types of justice, a comprehensive definition of it has been much debated. To wit, In 1976, famed economist Friedrich Hayek opened a lecture by saying, ” To discover the meaning of what is called ‘social justice’ has been one of my chief preoccupations for more than 10 years. I have failed in this endeavor” [sic]. His conclusion was “social justice” has “no meaning whatever. ”

Thinkers like Hayek challenge us to ask if poverty itself is an injustice. Careful consideration reveals the answer is “no.” Not every ingredient of poverty is an injustice. Indeed, factors such as intelligence, location, physical health, and accidents may be causative agents; yet they are not injustices. Conversely, parental neglect, abuse, prejudice, exploitation, other violations or transgressions — and even well-intentioned charity that creates dependency — are injustices that create much of the poverty we see.

Toward a solution, we offer this perspective: Traditional justice is a state or condition attained by redress of injustice through restitution or restoration of what was lost — and/or penalties levied against trespassers. Its purpose is to give a person what he is due. Thus, the more perfect the action, the more perfect the justice, and the more we realize what ought to be.

How does that play into the work of charity?

Since justice as “what ought to be” is a foundational goal of charity, it should not simply ameliorate poverty’s effect but effectively redress specific injustices that cause or perpetuate it.

Sadly, ineffective charity is itself an injustice because it fails to address root causes, leading to a host of negative outcomes including unhealthy dependence, loss of purpose, and diminished dignity. Effective charity supplanting ineffective charity is therefore an act of justice leading to “what ought to be.”

Mutual Brokenness & Benefit

All are sinful and broken, and no person is superior to another.

Everyone can learn something from his neighbor.

 

If people with material wealth approach the poor with the belief that they are generally superior, this is an error at best, the sin of pride at worst. Character, spiritual stature, and morality are independent of wealth or its lack.

Effective charity models invite people to use their gifts and contribute to the common good; we assume they have something to offer. However, the fact that everyone has something to offer also implies that everyone has areas of relative weakness in which they can benefit from exchanging knowledge. By definition, people in chronic poverty lack the tools or conditions necessary to create or sustain substantial wealth for themselves. To pair them with paths to boost their skill, knowledge, and access to wealth creation and sustainment is to acknowledge that the poor have areas in which they can learn from and benefit from the assistance of others, which makes them no different from anyone else.

Outcomes and Outputs

Measuring long-term results (outcomes), not just services provided (outputs),

is essential for any organization serving those in poverty.

 

Outcomes refer to what an organization tries to accomplish in the long run. In the context of poverty resolution, this consists of moving clients towards a flourishing life and would consist of improvements in income, education, family stability, spiritual growth, health, and more. Outcomes are distinct from outputs, which refer to the measurable services that an organization provides. Outputs could consist of things like pounds of food given away, nights of shelter provided, or hours of case management. Outputs measure activity, and outcomes measure results.

Outcomes are not a neutral concept but are informed by our worldview. While most people in the West can agree that the poor would be better off with more income, education, and wealth, there are other possible outcomes. How you define the flourishing life is important, and based on our definition, we see spiritual and relational growth as essential components of any outcomes measurement system.

Paternalism

Treating adults as moral agents responsible for their actions is crucial;

this avoids undermining an individual’s capability and autonomy.

 

The other side of the coin of unhealthy dependency is paternalism. In a strict sense, paternalism involves curtailing someone’s liberty in their supposed best interest, as when a father snatches his child from playing on a road. While this may be appropriate between parents and children, it is disordered for adults to treat other capable adults like children. In the context of poverty alleviation, this often takes the form of givers who imagine that recipients of ongoing relief will not be able to cope without their continued generosity. While it is healthy to be invested in the success of others, ultimately, we must treat adults as capable of providing for themselves once given access to opportunity.

Poverty

Beyond its symptom of the lack of material possessions,

poverty involves deeper root issues, requiring personalized, relationship-focused solutions.

 

The Oxford Dictionary informs us that poverty is the state of “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.” While this is certainly the symptom of poverty and is generally consistent with the usage of the equivalent words in Scripture, the root causes always run deeper. It may be a traumatic past, a lack of skills, an unjust exclusion from employment, or generational learned helplessness. Every situation is different. Some people need to reconnect with family, some need help with money management, and some just need childcare to pursue their education. One-size-fits-all solutions are ineffective. Personalized solutions are essential. Compassionate individuals in local communities are best suited to deliver them.

The ultimate objective of a poverty alleviation program is to help the formerly poor flourish in relationships with others, not merely to boost their material standard of living.

Reciprocity/Exchange

Giving individuals the opportunity to be a part of their own solution through work, partial payment, or serving others honors their inherent dignity and ability to contribute.

One of the unique aspects of what it means to be human is that we can consciously undertake mutually beneficial actions. When you hand a barista a few dollars for a cup of coffee, you and the barista say, “Thank you.” The reason is that both of you have become better off. You value the coffee more than the money, and the barista values the money more than the coffee. Neither of you has made a sacrifice; you have engaged in reciprocal exchange.

Exchange of this kind is a key component of how the market generates economic prosperity. There are parallels in the world of non-monetary relationships as well. Family members and churchgoers often help each other out in mutually beneficial ways. There are times when sin corrupts this system, and people are exploited. There are other times when people are unable to participate in exchange and require relief.

However, we believe that exchange is an ideal that we can often help people progress towards, in addition to being served. This is especially important in the rehabilitation and development phases.

Relief, Rehabilitation, & Development

These are three broad categories of assistance that can be rendered depending on the circumstances. It’s important to choose the right one.

 

While poverty is complex, its solutions can be grouped into three broad categories: relief, rehabilitation, and development. A temporary crisis, such as a natural disaster or unemployment, requires relief, characterized by one-way giving designed to alleviate immediate suffering. Returning to the pre-crisis state, such as rebuilding a home or finding a new job, requires rehabilitation, characterized by the recipient becoming an active participant in his or her own recovery. Advancing to a higher level of flourishing than previously experienced, such as getting a better home or job, requires development. Development and rehabilitation require the same basic intervention—both require active participation from the individual advancing.

These terms were popularized by the book When Helping Hurts.

Sin and Brokenness

Sin is something you choose; brokenness is something that happens to you.

Both are causes of poverty.

 

Man has the demonstrated capacity to do good and evil. While theologians debate the parameters of these choices, we rule out the idea that people will always do good if given an opportunity to do so. When people willfully choose evil, this is sin. Sin is an illness common to all people, only curable by the sacrifice of Christ. Willful sin is a possible cause of material poverty, though not the only possible cause. For a biblical example, see Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son who wasted his inheritance on “reckless living” (Luke 15:13).

A related concept to sin is that of brokenness. “Brokenness” refers to disordered conditions and circumstances resulting from living in a fallen world that does not specifically result from sin on the part of the person experiencing the brokenness. This can result from the physical world, such as a natural disaster or illness. It can also result from the sins of others, such as physical or mental trauma resulting from violence.

Social Capital

Social capital refers to an individual’s network of relationships

that allows him or her to function well in society.

 

In economic terms, capital is an asset you can use to generate wealth. This can refer to a physical good like a machine or a piece of land, but the concept can also be extended to other sorts of assets. The phrase “social capital” acknowledges that our relational connections are key to generating wealth as well as providing a “safety net” in times of crisis. A woman who wants to sell a product or find a job will have a much easier time if she has numerous connections with people who might buy that product or provide that job. Similarly, in the case of a sudden job loss, she will also be more effectively helped because of those connections.

Of course, human connections are an inherent part of a flourishing life, not just a means to an economic end. Thus, when we use the term social capital, we refer to the breadth and depth of a person’s relationships.

There are two types of social capital, and both are important to a flourishing life. Bonding social capital refers to close relationships with family and friends. You spend your life with these people, trust them to watch your children, and call them in an emergency. Bridging social capital refers to your network of acquaintances. These relationships are particularly important for wealth generation, as these are usually the people you reach out to for job opportunities.

Subsidiarity

Practicing subsidiarity means solving problems at the most local level

 rather than initially seeking aid from sources farther away.

 

Subsidiarity is central to the vision of True Charity. In a biblical example, Paul instructs Timothy in 1 Timothy 5 that first-century widows should provide for themselves if they are able. If they are not able, then their family should provide for them. Only if that option is not available should the church care for them. It would stand to reason that Paul would not have favored the Roman government providing for them before the church had its opportunity. This principle recognizes the nuance that some situations are so dire that higher level intervention is warranted but attempts to always solve the problem at a more local level first. This results in better solutions because people closer to a problem have more in-depth knowledge of the situation and can encourage all players to do their part.

Systemic Injustice

While systems can be unfair, trying to rectify all historical unfairness is futile and totalitarian,

but efforts should be made to correct resolvable and actively unjust systems.

 

Systems can be unfair to some participants even though there was no malice in creating the system. For instance, a city may choose to route a freeway through a neighborhood because it provides the most efficient travel path. However, this choice may diminish the neighborhood’s cohesion and destroy its community spaces, denigrating the residents’ ability to get ahead.

As noted above, attempting to rectify the effects of all historical unfairness is worse than futile – it requires submission to totalitarianism and ultimately can only equalize everyone downward. In the post-colonial era, many countries attempted to rectify the injustices of colonial masters by empowering native-born dictators to settle the scores. Inevitably, these countries ended up worse off.

However, this isn’t to say that we are powerless to correct systemic injustice. In many cases, the system perpetuating the unfairness is not archaic (like feudalism), but active and resolvable. For instance, the city mentioned earlier can take greater care not to bifurcate future communities and consider how any communities it has already might benefit from some infrastructure to reconnect the separated segments or rebuild common spaces.

It is also important to note that systemic injustice does not explain all human problems. Personal injustice, sin, and brokenness explain much more. Each claimed instance must be evaluated on its merits. For instance, proving that one neighborhood has higher arrest rates than another does not automatically prove that the police favor the residents of one over another.

Some of the most pernicious instances of broken systems often escape criticism of the socially progressive. This includes a welfare system incentivizing broken families and discouraging savings and work. These systems may be well-intentioned, but their impacts are devastating.

Traditional Family

The God-designed unit of a husband, a wife, and their children

 surrounded by the support structure of their extended family.

 

The most foundational unit of society is the family, designed by God. All other institutions stand or fall on the shoulders of this one. Traditionally, the nuclear family (husband, wife, and children) is surrounded by the active support structure of their extended family. We are born into a family with duties to our fellow family members that do not disappear when we become adults (1 Tim. 5).

A family serves numerous purposes that range from the economic to the sacred. At its most basic level, it allows for efficient sharing of resources and division of labor. Fathers and mothers work together to ensure their needs are met and children are cared for. Many businesses are started with siblings and cousins acting as the first customers or business partners.

A family teaches children virtue, cares for the elderly, and develops all its members into better people. It is essential to human flourishing. While in a fallen world, the traditional family setup is not always possible, that should not cause us to reject it as an ideal. A society consisting primarily of alternative arrangements will never be as moral or prosperous.

Wealth Creation

 Voluntary exchange, division of labor, and innovation

in a free and virtuous society are the primary creators of wealth.

 

The global population is over eight times greater than it was back in 1820 when 94% of the world’s population lived under the extreme poverty threshold. These days, that number has fallen to 10%. This fact demonstrates wealth is not a “fixed pie” to be divided, but a pie that can grow big enough for everyone.

Wealth is created, not merely redistributed, through specialization, innovation, voluntary exchange, and many other well-documented economic concepts. This fact is significant because many assume that all wealth must come at someone else’s expense.

It is also possible to become materially prosperous at someone else’s expense through fraud or force. Such behavior is common in human history and condemned in the Bible (as in passages that condemn the rich for withholding the wages of the poor James 5:4). Despite the prevalence of such coercion, it remains an inadequate explanation for the existence of the wealthiest societies.

If exploitation were the primary path to wealth, the most exploitative societies would be the wealthiest. In fact, they are usually the poorest. The slavery-era American South was massively underdeveloped compared to the free North. North Korea starves, while South Korea is an economic powerhouse.