generosity Archives | Page 7 of 7

Keeping Christ central

A series from HOPE’s director of spiritual integration

This fall, I had the pleasure of gathering with colleagues and friends from the Christian relief and development community at three different conferences.

I love learning and meeting new people at these events, but this year one observation really blew me away: We typically think of generosity in financial terms, but so many of these leaders are radically generous in sharing their life’s work. It was like they had a bullhorn and were shouting, “Here’s my life’s work—take it and use it however you can!”

For most of the world, innovation is viewed as intellectual property to be fiercely guarded rather than shared. While there is nothing wrong with profiting from hard-earned expertise and diligence, treating one’s knowledge and experience more like Wikipedia than a classified government secret proclaims a different Way … a way of unity, joy, and freedom.

The number of people I know who fit this description goes far beyond Christian organizations and outstrips my space to acknowledge them. So this got me thinking: How can we move away from a posture of protectiveness and choose to open up our lives and work in radically generous ways?

I offer five principles to help us.

You can never be poor, as long as you give.

Congolese proverb

This #GivingTuesday, across the U.S. and around the world, people are celebrating generosity. Often, when we think of giving, we might think of financial giving, which is much needed as we seek to equip families to break the cycle of poverty. But if we look to the Greatest Commandment—to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves—generosity takes on a deeper, much more relational meaning.

At HOPE, it is our greatest joy to walk alongside hard-working families as they put what they have in their hands—their skills, talents, and passions—to work, providing for their families and giving generously to their churches and communities.

Recently, after a community bank meeting in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, we asked a few HOPE clients to share what generosity means to them. Their words capture the loving heart of generosity we pray that each HOPE-network client lives out in their families and communities. Continue Reading…

Join HOPE in celebrating the clients featured in this year’s gift catalog, men and women using the gifts God has placed in their hands—talents, dreams, and hard work—to provide for their families and give back to their communities.

Living in the rural village of Crasnoarmeiscoe, Moldova, Vera Matveiciuc lost her husband several years ago, leaving her to support their three young daughters on her own. To supplement her $100 monthly salary from her job at a local bank, Vera raised produce and livestock to help feed her family and sell the surplus at market.

In Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, poverty is concentrated in rural areas like Vera’s, where many families live without heat, running water, or nutritious food. Three years ago, Vera didn’t think her family would survive another harsh Moldovan winter without the money needed to insulate and heat their home.

That December, Vera learned about Invest-Credit, HOPE’s local partner, and took out a loan to install insulation and a furnace. “The first loan from Invest-Credit saved my family,” she says. “We could not go through another winter without making changes to our home.”

Last year, nearly 4,000 individuals, families, churches, foundations, and businesses gave over $10 million dollars to support HOPE’s work in 16 countries around the world. At HOPE, we deeply value the partnership and trust of each donor, and we are committed to wise stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to us (1 Peter 4:10). As evidence of this commitment, HOPE received Charity Navigator’s highest rating for the sixth consecutive year, placing us among the top 3 percent of nonprofits nationwide.

As one of HOPE’s grant writers, I prepare proposals and reports for hundreds of HOPE’s donors. I know many of our donors by name, though I remain anonymous to all but a few. I know about their families, their businesses. I read about them in newspapers and pray for them with colleagues. And I am deeply touched by their sacrificial giving to HOPE’s mission.

But I have favorites…

My favorite donors are not the ones who give the biggest grants. They’re not the ones who give without asking questions or digging into the facts of where their money is going. My favorite donors are those who thoughtfully choose to give unrestricted funding to HOPE.

Unrestricted gifts—donations that aren’t earmarked for specific programs or countries—are the most generous because they give HOPE the flexibility to use resources in the current areas of greatest need. That could mean providing loans to empower entrepreneurs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that continues to rank as one of the most difficult places to run a business in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. That could mean HOPE can recruit, hire, and train more fantastic staff like the savings facilitators serving more than 17,000 clients across the Philippines. It could even mean keeping the lights on in Lancaster, PA, where everyone from accountants to web designers to volunteers to microfinance advisors work hard to help HOPE achieve its core objectives. All these areas are vital (I can’t write in the dark) to HOPE’s mission of proclaiming the Gospel to entrepreneurs living in poverty.

Of course, we love receiving all kinds of donations—earmarked or not. HOPE uses each donation, whether $5 or $500,000, to further the Kingdom through Christ-centered microenterprise development, but unrestricted gifts provide the most leveraged impact. As we continue in our work with HOPE, my prayer is that each of us will be able to see how God uses our contributions and pieces them together into a greater vision.

I’m currently sitting on a plane, flying back from a week of experiencing Rwanda and all the beauty that is held in this land of a thousand hills. It has been a week of experiencing “beauty over poverty,” as my colleague Chris Horst describes it.

Behind Rwanda’s surface-level reputation for genocide and desolation is a thriving and ambitious country full of hard-working people and innovative ideas. Rwanda is blossoming; it is being restored. It is a beautiful thing to witness. In the folds of poverty, individuals are finding dignity. They are experiencing fullness of life. Continue Reading…

When the Poor Become Generous

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

How many times will you hear these wise words this holiday season? This is my favorite time of year primarily because of this season’s emphasis on giving. The charitable and gift-giving yearnings among us all are stoked and encouraged more in December than at any other time of the year. This spirit is encapsulated and affirmed in what might be our favorite Christmas saying: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

The axiom could not be truer. Giving is a joy. Research suggests that generous people are happier people. Generous countries are happier countries. Benevolence brings vibrancy to our faith. Historically, openhandedness and abundant giving have been the fragrance of the Church. Part of our mandate as Christians includes a call to a countercultural understanding of our role as stewards, rather than owners, of our time and treasure. I’ll just speak for myself, but my hunch is others will resonate: My charity often robs the poor of the opportunity to give, rather than encouraging generosity. Continue Reading…

Archives For generosity

Matthew Rohrs

Matthew Rohrs

Week 13: 5 keys for being less stingy with what we know

Keeping Christ central

HOPE Intl

HOPE Intl

What does generosity mean to you?

HOPE Intl

HOPE Intl

Cultivating change

Madelyn Houser

By Madelyn Houser

A grant writer’s two cents on effective giving

HOPE Intl

HOPE Intl

Unexpected generosity

Chris Horst

By Chris Horst

When the Poor Become Generous

About HOPE

hope_intl