In a video recorded as part of our Innovate:Online training, Director of Innovation, Tabitha Kapic shares that seeking Shalom is at the heart of innovation. Shalom refers to a sense of completeness, including the flourishing of creation and perfect relational peace. Shalom is the goal of poverty alleviation. As you watch, consider how you might use innovation to foster Shalom, both for yourself and those you seek to serve.
When two Chalmers staff members connected with two churches in Ukraine over Zoom, they began by telling us: “First you need to know that the war has been going on since 2014, not since 2022. (2022 was significant as it was when the war moved into Ukrainian territory).”
Restore OKC is a community development organization in Oklahoma City. They’re “focused on the restoration of health, environment, reconciliation, and equity with neighbors in Northeast Oklahoma City.” For the past 6 years, Restore OKC has been committed to building relationships with the people in their community and working alongside them to bring about transformation.
Based in central Oklahoma, Branch15 was founded in 2013 to serve women in critical, life-controlling situations. Their mission has always been one of healing and restoration in the lives of their clients. Branch15’s main ministry participants have little to no support systems to address crises, which range from substance addiction to sex trafficking to abusive relationships to incarceration.
Last summer, a team from Chalmers’ long standing partner, HOPE International, visited some of the Ukrainian church partners that they had supported in the early months of the war. While encouraged by incredible stories of life-saving relief work, they also detected challenges that often accompany sustained periods of relief: overextended church leaders, dependency from recipients, and frustration from volunteers.
Have you ever been working on solving a complex problem and felt stuck? You knew there had to be a way forward but you just couldn’t see it? That’s how designing a poverty alleviation ministry can feel. Take the issue of food insecurity as an example. Most people are familiar with a “soup kitchen” model…
One of Angie’s primary takeaways from When Helping Hurts was the concept of Asset-Based Community Development. For the first time, they started to look for the assets in their community before looking for what was missing.
Watch now for an inside look at how God is restoring marginalized communities in San Antonio, TX and beyond. “Our partnership with The Chalmers Center is a match made in heaven. We have much in common—certainly expanding God’s Kingdom.” –Jimmy Rodriguez, STCH Ministries With Chalmers’ Faith & Finances curriculum, STCH Ministries is putting…
Often, doing the work of finding out what people care about is “success” in and of itself, because it demonstrates commitment to people and places and focuses on mobilizing existing resources rather than bringing in just one more outside program.
Chalmers’ Founder and President Brian Fikkert and Director of Innovation Tabitha Kapic hosted a conversation on February 16 around how to apply a biblical framework for poverty alleviation to improvise God’s kingdom and foster real change in your community. — Want to learn more? Unleash your church or nonprofit to create a new or…