Beyond Charity
Beyond Charity
Dreams are universal. Opportunity is not.
Perhaps you have given before and wondered if it really changed anything. Charity that creates dependency keeps people waiting. Opportunity lets people build their own way forward.
Imagine a different future
Beyond charity. Beyond poverty.
Charity as usual keeps people waiting for the next gift, and dependency grows quietly, one handout at a time. We believe in a different ending: the day a mother no longer needs help, because she has become the one who gives it.
becomes a benefactor
The girl who once received a school uniform grows up to pay a teacher’s wage. The family that once received food now feeds its neighbours.
can care for themselves
Skills, health and education let a mother and father provide for their own children, with their heads held high.
becomes a livelihood
A small loan becomes a tailor’s shop or a market stall. The loan is repaid, and it lifts the next family.
This is already happening. Through Hope Enterprises, our economic development programs, Bridges of Hope works in Burkina Faso with our microfinance partner ACFIME, in a wider network of partners that includes Kiva. Together, more than 14,000 entrepreneurs have received a loan to start or grow a business, nearly 9 in 10 of them women, with a repayment rate of 99.97%. Thousands of microcredits are freeing families from poverty. Meet ACFIME See Hope Enterprises
That is the moment we move beyond charity. When one family takes that step, its children inherit a different story. When a whole community takes it, a thousand generations inherit a different future. That is how we move beyond poverty.
Every Bridges of Hope program exists for one purpose, our mission: To promote poverty relief and community empowerment among the poorest nations of the earth.
The problem
Dependency is the villain in this story.
Relief is right in a crisis. But when help never moves beyond relief, it can leave people waiting for the next handout instead of building a life. We believe the noblest act of charity is to open the door to opportunity.
For the family
They want to provide for their own children with dignity, not wait in line.
For you
You want your gift to change a life for good, not only for today.
For all of us
A world where every person has the chance to work, learn and grow is a better world to live in.
The opportunity framework
From beneficiary to benefactor.
We build the human, social, financial and physical assets of people so they become sustainable, and then help others do the same.
Relief
Food, health care and safety when life is at risk.
Restoration
School, skills training and health that rebuild strength.
Opportunity
A trade, a small business, a first job, a harvest to sell.
Multiplication
Those who were helped become leaders who help others.
“We believe in a world where every person can work, learn or grow a business, and we will keep working until that happens.”Beyond Charity
What it looks like
A trade in her hands. A future in her name.
In Burkina Faso, young women complete needlework and sewing training and graduate with a skill they can use for life. That is the difference between charity that ends and opportunity that grows.
Your role
Stop playing the hero. Become the guide.
The families we serve are the heroes of their own story. You get to stand beside them with the one thing they are missing: an opportunity.
What is at stake
Charity that ends, or opportunity that grows.
If help never moves beyond relief
- Families stay dependent on the next gift.
- Gifted people never get to use their gifts.
- The same needs return year after year.
When opportunity is unleashed
- Parents provide for their own children with dignity.
- Communities grow their own leaders.
- Those who were helped begin helping others.
“Those in need want an opportunity, not charity.”
Give an opportunity, not just a handout.
Your gift opens a door that people walk through on their own.
Why we do what we do
In Jesus’ name. For the glory of God.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”Matthew 25:35–36, 40 (NIV)
Six people Christ asks us to see. Six ways we answer.
Matthew 25 is our inspiration: we answer the call of Christ to care for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger and the prisoner, with compassion, love, justice and mercy, and we serve every person with dignity, whatever their faith. Every plate, well, classroom and loan is an act of worship. To God be the glory.