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Friends,

As the world continues to navigate the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we are acutely aware of the significant health and economic challenges, as well as the opportunity that we have to courageously love our neighbors in a moment of fear and anxiety.

This brief post provides a high-level overview of how COVID-19 is impacting HOPE’s work and how our team is responding. As with every circumstance, we work knowing that God is sovereign and pray that our response will point others to Jesus. You can also watch my video update. Continue Reading…

5 innovative nonprofits we recommend

In their book Rooting for Rivals, HOPE’s president and CEO, Peter Greer, and chief advancement officer, Chris Horst, write:

We’ve been given a mission and mandate that requires nothing less than the best of our efforts working together in unity for the sake of the Kingdom … It’s time that we focus on the Church’s unified mission above our organizational agendas.

At HOPE International, we’re committed to fighting poverty, empowered by the Good News of Christ—and we rejoice that we aren’t alone in this.

This Giving Tuesday, we want to recommend five Christ-centered nonprofits impacting children, global healthcare, the Church, and the Earth. Together, we’re pursuing a greater Kingdom mission, so that more and more people experience the flourishing God intended for His creation.

Would you consider supporting these organizations today? Continue Reading…

Reposted from www.peterkgreer.com.

In the last few weeks, I’ve hit my 10-year anniversary serving with HOPE.

Incredibly grateful, I’m still overwhelmed by the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to serve at such an incredible organization. With such an extraordinary team, I continue to learn every day.

But yesterday, I had the chance to reflect on some things I’ve learned in the past few years:

  1. When hiring … choose wisely. Jim Collins was right—get the right people on the bus, and good things happen.
  2. Culture matters. When you have clarity of culture, you don’t have to spend time worrying about so many other issues. A clear culture guides behavior more than any set of rules or policies. Articulating HOPE’s PASSION statement gave clarity to our culture we wanted to create: PASSION.
  3. Care for families, not just the employee. My friend Steve said, “If you do something nice to me, I’ll remember you … But if you do something nice for my family, I’ll never forget you.” An organization that supports families—whether that’s providing meals or helping people move or creating flexible work arrangements—doesn’t go unnoticed.
  4. It’s always the small things. While having a great benefits package is ideal, it’s the small things each day that matter most. Are employees always on the lookout for ways to tangibly care for each other?
  5. Simplify. And then repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Organizational whiplash, where leaders constantly change priorities and goals, undermines progress. Focusing on core elements and goals, and then reinforcing through repetition, helps an organization move forward in a unified manner. Focus and repetition lead to excellence.
  6. Measure what matters—and celebrate often. “What gets measured gets done.” Beyond measurement, healthy organizations pause to celebrate together. A highlight of my week is when we celebrate individuals exhibiting our culture of PASSION during staff meetings.
  7. Asking the right questions matters more than getting the right answers. The people who have had the greatest impact at HOPE are the ones who know how to ask questions and get to the heart of the problem first. How could you frame every agenda item at meetings with the question you are trying to answer?
  8. Commit to continual learning. Organizational impact is tied to staff members’ constant desire for continual learning. Acknowledging there is always more to learn in the pursuit of progress, we pursue excellence together.
  9. Be willing to change your role. Ten years ago, I did vastly different things at HOPE than I do today. Don’t hold tightly to titles or roles or assignments. Be willing to ask, What can I do right now which will best advance my organization’s mission?
  10. Never forget—every good thing is a gift from God. Whatever good happens, we must remember the Giver of these gifts. At HOPE, we have a very long list of reasons to thank God.

On the list, I intentionally didn’t include the technical lessons learned about enterprise risk management, new financial products to impact poverty, credible and cost effective monitoring and evaluation, internal audit … because I believe these issues seem to be solved when you get the people and culture right.

To staff, friends, and supporters, thank you for the past 10 years—they have been a gift.

In this excerpt from a recent HOPE event, HOPE’s president and CEO, Peter Greer, demonstrates the urgency felt by those in poverty as they try to build a better future for their families. He also paints a picture of how Christ-centered microenterprise development can accelerate the process and make a difference by preparing people to work today.

Worship in Congo

Keeping Christ central

A weekly series from HOPE’s director of spiritual integration

Let’s face it: Christ-centered poverty alleviation attracts a can-do, action-oriented crowd. If you are reading this blog, chances are you’re the kind of person who believes that following Christ comes with responsibilities for the “here and now.” You believe in a world that can be more just, and you take seriously the call to be ambassadors for Christ. At HOPE, these convictions are a driving force behind our mission of “investing in the dreams of the poor as we proclaim and live the Gospel in the world’s underserved communities.”

Coming from the right foundation, these intentions to act as agents of reconciliation are good and God-honoring. But as our president and CEO, Peter Greer, explained in The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good, a misplaced desire to accomplish things for God can lead to soul-damaging consequences, both for those we serve and for us.

A few years ago, Gordon MacDonald wrote a helpful article titled “The Dangers of Missionalism.” In it, he defines missionalism as “the belief that the worth of one’s life is determined by the achievement of a grand objective.” The key idea here is “worth.” Now most of us know better than to say that we should base our worth on what we do for God, but that doesn’t always make it easy to avoid this subtle trap.

Continue Reading…

Reposted from www.peterkgreer.com.

Santa Clause, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle. But Saint Nicholas has another lesser known moniker—the patron saint of pawn shops.

How could this jolly old fellow be known as the patron saint of such a seedy business?

Pawn shop

In the Middle Ages, montes pietatius were charities similar to urban food banks. And they were created as an alternative to loan sharks.

These charities provided low-interest loans to poor families. Started by Franciscans, they became widespread throughout Europe.

Even the pope (Julius II) gave an edict endorsing montes pietatius.

In folklore, Saint Nicholas generously provided a poor man dowries for his three daughters, gold coins in three purses. The symbol of gold coins in three purses became the symbol of pawn shops and fit with his title of patron saint.

In the 1300s, people in poverty met caring friars when they entered the doors of pawn shops. The shops existed to help the poor get back on their feet. These friars had their best interests in mind.

Today, often the opposite is true.

Over time, pawn shop owners lost sight of their identity. Created for good, pawn shops have drifted away from their purpose. From caring for the needy to an instrument often preying on families in distress, pawn shops have lost their original intent.

Here’s the reality: Mission Drift is the natural course for industries and organizations. Having a clear founding identity and purpose, having initial zeal for the cause, and even having Father Christmas as your patron saint are insufficient safeguards from Mission Drift. It takes focused attention to sustain your mission.

“It’s the exception that an organization stays true to its mission,” said Chris Crane, president and CEO of Edify. “The natural course—the unfortunate natural evolution of many originally Christ-centered missions—is to drift,” he said.

My colleagues Chris Horst, Anna Haggard, and I have been studying Mission Drift in Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches, being released January 14. We’ve discovered some prominent examples of Mission Drift—Harvard, ChildFund, and the Y.

Mission Drift is recognized as the normal direction for faith-based organizations. In a survey of hundreds of Christian leaders at the Q conference in Los Angeles in 2013, 95 percent said Mission Drift was “a challenging issue to faith-based nonprofit organizations.”

Realizing the seemingly inevitable drift, it became our passion to find organizations which have protected their core identity for generations. By researching and sharing their practices, we hope to equip many other organizations to faithfully stand the test of time.

This is a personal issue. I care deeply about the work I do with HOPE International. Founded by a local church in response to needs in the former Soviet Union, our mission has always been to address material and spiritual needs in places of intense poverty. My aim is to ensure the decisions we are making today help this organization stay true to its founding ideals. My desire is that it does not follow the slippery path of pawn shops and so many other organizations.

This Christmas, every time I see a photo of Santa Claus, I’m reminded how easy drift occurs. Let’s be involved in building organizations that remain focused on what matters most.