About Us
About Bridges of Hope
People are not projects. They are partners.
Perhaps you have wondered whether charity can do more than keep people going. For 24 years, Bridges of Hope has invested in people so they can build their own future, and then help others do the same.
Why we exist
Relief alone cannot end poverty.
Bridges of Hope is a registered Canadian charity. We work to reduce poverty through sustainable development: schools, health care, orphan care, clean water, income projects and strong local leaders, in Canada and around the world. When people have real opportunity, the need for relief grows smaller.
To promote poverty relief and community empowerment among the poorest nations of the earth.
To enhance the capability and productivity of local organizations, leaders and people committed to poverty relief and community empowerment.
To see local leaders become excellent at reproducing their ability to relieve poverty and empower communities in other places.
Our approach
Invest in people. Watch them lead.
We build the human, social, financial and physical assets of people so that, over time, those who once received help become the ones who give it.
- Local leadership. We work alongside people from the community, who know its needs best.
- Opportunity over dependency. Education, skills, health and income that last longer than a single gift.
- Our own programs. Every program is a Bridges of Hope activity, carried out under a written agreement, with budgets we approve and reports we review.
Guiding principles
How we treat every person.
Dignity
- We promote the dignity, potential and health of people and communities regardless of ethnicity, age, gender or creed.
- We emphasize shared responsibility.
- We give our staff and volunteers the tools they need to do the work well.
Respect
- We listen to the people we serve alongside and let their voices shape our planning and our work.
- We ask permission before we contribute, and we ask how our help should be given.
- We relate to every community without condescension.
- We are motivated by compassion, love, justice and mercy, and we do not tolerate the mistreatment of people of any faith.
Capacity building
- We invest in the growth of leaders, staff and volunteers.
- We pay close attention to how we work, not only to results.
- We build cooperative relationships with leaders who share our purposes.
Our journey
Twenty-four years of building bridges.
Bridges of Hope International Network of Development Agencies is incorporated.
Registered as a Canadian charity with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Registered in Alberta, with our home office in Lethbridge.
More than 50 programs in 21 countries, close to home and around the world.
Accountable in every gift
You deserve to know who we are.
Governed by a volunteer board of directors. Our registration and annual filings are public with the Canada Revenue Agency.
PO Box 81, Stn Main, Lethbridge, AB T1J 3Y3
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.
Your part in the story
Find your place on the bridge.
“A single straw of a broom can be broken easily, but the straws together are not easily broken.”African proverb
Who we are
Our mission, vision and dream.
Bridges of Hope exists to promote poverty relief and community empowerment amongst the poorest nations of the earth.
To enhance the capability and productivity of indigenous organizations, leaders and people who are committed to poverty relief and community empowerment.
To see indigenous organizations, leaders and people become excellent at reproducing their ability to relieve poverty and empower communities in other places of need.
Our guiding principles
Dignity
We promote the dignity, potential and health of people and communities regardless of ethnicity, age, gender or creed, and we emphasize shared responsibility.
Respect
We listen to our partners and let their voices shape our plans. We ask permission before we contribute, and we relate to every person without condescension.
Christian compassion
We are motivated by the Christian principles of compassion, love, justice and mercy. We are unashamedly Christian, and we never tolerate negative treatment of people of other faiths or none.
Capacity building
We invest in leaders, staff and volunteers, pay close attention to how we work as well as what we achieve, and build cooperative relationships with those who share our ends.
Be part of what comes next.
Give, serve or host, and help a family move from surviving to thriving.
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.