In the far north of Uganda, for the first time in our team history, The Chalmers Center equipped refugees to be Innovate: Local facilitators. Working with Compassion International Uganda, Chalmers trained and certified 35 men and women in Adjumani, Uganda, just over an hour from the border with South Sudan.

Being an Innovate facilitator means that these brothers and sisters can take Chalmers’ mission to rethink poverty and respond with Biblical principles into both local and refugee communities, empowering them to solve local challenges with their own resources. 

Innovate facilitator training is a full, three-day event, so the hope and energy we saw from both Ugandans and South Sudanese refugees was inspiring.

One of the most memorable moments in Uganda occurred on day two. A trainee was asked to lead the morning devotion and she chose the familiar story of Elisha and the widow from 2 Kings 4:1-7. The impoverished widow, with children about to be sold into slavery, cries out to the prophet Elisha. 

“Elisha replied to her, ‘How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?’

‘Your servant has nothing there at all,’ she said, ‘except a small jar of olive oil’” (2 Kings 4:2, NIV).

Elisha tells the woman to work with her community to gather as many empty jars as she can and then to start filling them from her original “small jar of olive oil.” The power of God provides enough oil to pay debts and care for the widow’s family.

This story shows us the miraculous provision of God in freeing one family from poverty but the process was interesting from start to finish.

• Elisha asked what the woman already had
• The woman was encouraged to reach out to her neighbors
• God provided in a truly miraculous way

While Innovate does not promise miracles, the principles are the same. Innovate asks what a community already has, it encourages working with your neighbors, and it reminds us that nothing we undertake to bless others will work without the power of Christ. After one day of training, this young woman had clearly seen what Innovate and Chalmers is about.

She wove her and her community’s story into the devotion, declaring that she fully understood and believed that their limited resources, plus God’s power, could deliver them from poverty as well.

It was a powerful moment for her and for all of us who were listening. For the Chalmers’ team in particular, it was a reminder of why we do Innovate and why we are inviting you to Innovate with us this year!  

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In 2026, there are three ways that you can Innovate with Chalmers:

1. Innovate: Local Majority World (Chattanooga, USA) — March 18-20  

Innovate: Local Facilitator Training is an in-person, 3-day event (8:30 am – 6:00 pm on each day). The training and your certification prepare you to guide an unlimited number of in-person groups through the Innovate: Local process. 

Innovate: Local was designed for use in the Majority World. The stories and examples used to guide groups through Innovate are drawn from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. If you become certified in Innovate: Local and use it in a non-Majority World context, you can alter details of stories to fit the culture and context. 

At this 3-day training, you will:

• Experience Innovate: Local first-hand and create solutions to challenges
• Receive your own copy of the Innovate: Local Curriculum and learn how to use it
• Be empowered to implement Innovate
• Benefit from individual coaching to improve your facilitation skills
• Have access to all materials that you will need for the training
• Earn your certificate identifying you as a certified Innovate: Local Facilitator

Register Here For Innovate: Local (Come get certified to facilitate Innovate in-person in your community)

2. Innovate: Express (live online experience) — May 5-7

Innovate: Express provides the fastest way for you to experience the power of our 3-step innovation process: Discover, Design, Do.  Over 3 days, for 90 minutes per day, you will explore an area of your life or work and design a change in how you interact with the marginalized. The way we facilitate the innovation process at Chalmers is unique. We bring together:

• God’s Story of Change
• Design Thinking Tools
• Asset-Based Development.

Register Here For Innovate: Express (Get a taste of the Innovate process)

3. Innovate: Online (live online coaching) — September 3-29

Innovate: Online is our flagship online experience for ministry teams and NGOs who want to design or redesign an intervention for community transformation. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we walk you through over 20 design tools and Chalmers’ Ministry Design Principles that will empower your team to “Help without Hurting” while including those you serve in the process. This is a way for anyone, anywhere, to receive Chalmers coaching.

In Innovate: Online, your team will:

• Develop skills in listening to the community
• Discover hidden assets in the community
• Uncover stubborn root challenges
• Design prototypes
• Test assumptions
• Create an action plan
• Receive direct coaching from Chalmers staff 

Register Here For Innovate: Online (Your team coached by Chalmers)