3. WE ASPIRE TO END POVERTY,
SO THAT ALL MAY HAVE LIFE
AND HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY.
4. ALMOST HALF THE WORLD —
MORE THAN THREE BILLION
PEOPLE — LIVE ON LESS THAN
$2.50 A DAY.
MANY ORGANIZATIONS WANT TO
HELP.
HARSH REALITIES
5. UNFORTUNATELY, MOST
INTERVENTIONS ARE NOT SYSTEMIC,
PERPETUATE DEPENDENCY AND LACK
RESPECT FOR THE INNATE CAPABILITY
OF ALL HUMANITY.
HARSH REALITIES
6. WE TAKE A DIFFERENT
APPROACH.
We mobilize long-term, hands on
global relationships to form a
powerful Christian network
that uses business as the way to
create flourishing economic
environments in all parts of the
world.
8. OUR MODEL
LOCAL COMMUNITY
INSTITUTION
Is a locally owned and led,
independent organization that is
working to end poverty through
business by catalyzing
entrepreneurs and job creators in
their community.
9. OUR MODEL
BUSINESS AFFILIATE
Experienced businesspeople
deeply commit to assist a
Local Community Institution.
These individuals and groups
help develop concrete plans,
share expertise, provide
financial support.
10. OUR MODEL
PARTNERS WORLDWIDE
Our staff is at the heart of
our network of partners.
We identify new Local
Community Institutions,
orient new Business
Affiliates, facilitate existing
—or stabilize emerging—
partnerships and grow our
global Christian network.
24. 71 LOCAL COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS
33 BUSINESS AFFILIATE GROUPS
4,751 BUSINESS TRAINING GRADUATES
$11.2 MILLION in LOANS
304 PRAYER PARTNERS
90,603 JOBS CREATED and SUSTAINED
GLOBAL RESULTS
26. FOUR STRATEGIC
DIRECTIONS GUIDE OUR
PLANS AND ACTIONS:
GLOBAL BY
DESIGN
LEAD POSITIVE COMMUNITY
IMPACT
EXPAND PARTERSHIP
MODELS AND
GEOGRAPHIES
ADVOCATE
INTENTIONALLY
32. WE WORK AND WAIT IN
JOYFUL HOPE FOR THE
COMING OF OUR SAVIOUR
CHRIST JESUS.
WE DREAM OF THE DAY
WHEN THE SCRIPTURE IS
FULFILLED.
33. VISION 2020
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
This day is the scripture fulfilled in your hearing.
Luke 4:18-21
It is so good to see you. It seems like an eternity since I’ve been here.
Yet across all this time and the many miles that separate us, we are united in a holy calling:
We are Businesspeople Faithfully Pursuing a World Without Poverty
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You and I have traveled different roads, but we have much in common.
I’d like to start by tell you a bit about my journey.
As a young man I was reborn in the spirit of Christ. This is a picture of me in Bangladesh …. Tell your story.
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It starts here, with our vision:
We aspire to end poverty, so that all may have life and have it abundantly.
This echoes the words of Jesus in John 10:10. Of course he was talking about an abundant life filled with His Spirit. But as we just heard in the public announcement of his mission on earth from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus also came to address the physical needs of the poor, as well as the systems, practices and even laws that oppressed them. He was here to usher in the will of God, and the kingdom of God, an alternative to the Roman kingdom, a place of shalom and peace, for all nations, all ethnicities, and even every person.
In all four Gospels, just before His death, Jesus rebuked the critics for the outpouring of expensive perfume over him—a year’s wages—when they said the money could have been used for the poor. Jesus said, you won’t have me much longer, but the poor will always be with you after I am gone, and you should help them at all times. With compassion he told the rich young ruler to sell all his goods and serve the poor… that is how he would find the abundant life…Jesus had compassion, because He knew what it was like—He too was the rich young ruler, and He was going to die for us!
And so we serve the poor.
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And indeed we know that the poor ARE always with us.
Almost half the world --- over three billion people – still live on less than $2.50 a day
And of course so many want to help. And we as Christians feel a mandate to help. It is at the heart of Jesus’ commissioning: to preach the good news to the poor.
Fact source: https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty
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There is so much “AID” flowing, and so many programs … but it’s not working.
So many of you have told me how aid dollars undermine your businesses and the local economy.
Because unfortunately, most interventions are not systemic, perpetuate dependency and lack respect for the innate capability of all humanity.
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“That’s why we take a different approach.”
“We mobilize long-term, hands on global relationships to form a powerful Christian network that uses business as the way to create flourishing economic environments in all parts of the world.”
What do we mean by flourishing economic environments for all?
It’s a place where families have the freedom to thrive, start a business or find employment, build a safe home, educate and feed their own children.
Our network of partners embodies marketplace ministry. We embody a belief that Christian businesspeople foster these flourishing environments where all may express their God-given gifts and all may live abundantly in spirit as well as body and mind.
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And we mobilize relationships in a truly unique model.
Our model is a Partnership. We meet in the Cross.
We join together Local Community Institutions, Business Affiliates and the Partners Worldwide staff.
Our model is a Partnership – a partnership with three parts:
Local Community Institutions, Business Affiliates and Partners Worldwide staff.
We’ve learned over the years, through trial and error, that it takes a combination of these three groups coming together and working together over time to make a sustainable impact.
There’s an African Proverb that says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. “ This is the foundation of our work.
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The first element of the model is the Local Community institution.
Read the slide:
“A Local Community Institution is a locally owned and led, independent organization that is working to end poverty through business by catalyzing entrepreneurs and job creators in their community”.
This can be a community development organization, an association, a business consortium or co-op, a credit union, a church. (give examples and use terminology relevant to your audience/location.
Stable institutions are needed in communities. It’s the infrastructure that developed economies take for granted.
Without this local ownership and building of institutions, even the most well meaning interventions fail.
Pictured here is part of the team at Talanta Finance in the city of Gulu, in northern Uganda. Ten years ago, its founder, Timothy Jokenne came to his first Partners Worldwide conference here in Grand Rapids. He returned to Uganda inspired and invigorated to address poverty in his once beautiful country. After more than 20 years of brutal civil war, much of northern Uganda was ravaged with killing, leaving communities terrorized and uprooted, forced to live in camps of refuge, resigned to eating donated food, and trusting the Uganda army to protect them from the rebels.
Timothy boldly stepped in and launched Talanta, developing your talents for business, as the solution. Today the future has never been brighter in northern Uganda! Over 3500 entrepreneurs are growing their businesses and rebuilding their communities. Medical facilities have been built, a community health outreach established. Schools are rebuilt with 100% of the children attending, families are growing their own food, and agriculture value networks are being established for exporting surplus, and a dairy industry is emerging. And people sing praises to God for hearing their cries!
Here in India, the Local Community Institution we work with is Business Seva.
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The second part of the model are our Business Affiliates
Read the slide:
“A business affiliate is a group of experienced businesspeople who deeply commit to assist a Local Community Institution. These individuals and groups help develop concrete plans, share expertise and provide financial support”.
These committed business volunteers are a key part of why our LCIs are becoming outstanding, permanent institutions in their countries.
Here’s Larry Haak, from Washington State, who shared his farming expertise with the Farmer to Farmer partnership in Nicaragua.
This partnership has been recognized as a national Pillar of Reconciliation by the government.
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The third part of our model is our staff.
“Our staff is at the heart of our network of partners. We identify new Local Community Institutions, orient new Business Affiliates, facilitate existing—or stabilize emerging—partnerships and grow our global Christian network.
Partners Worldwide staff is located all around the world and provide continuity in partnerships, connecting partnerships together and plugging them into our global network. They allow individual partners to focus on their specific business and community, and align resources to insure stability.
Pictured here is Bob Vryhof, Regional Facilitator for Latin America.
Here in India, Michael Brian leads our efforts.
Our job is: Motivating, encouraging and showing what CAN happen.
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These three way partnerships work on four continents and in 25 countries
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The partnership comes together for four strategic activities – forming our comprehensive approach.
We create partnerships with local community institutions to provide Training, Mentoring, Access to Capital , removing obstacles, building up permanent local capacity designed to catalyze entrepreneurs and job creators and celebrate business as a calling to do God’s work.
This is Ralph Edmund, one of our founding partners in Haiti.
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TRAINING
Read the slide:
“We’ve developed a business curriculum to train new entrepreneurs and to strengthen small and medium business owners”
This training was completed with 4700 individuals last year.
This world class curriculum is now being translated in 7 other languages.
Here is Marisol who works at a leading bank in Ecuador, conducting an accounting class in Spanish at Quenca Partners.
Besides offering essential business training, we take this opportunity to proclaim our belief system about Christian marketplace ministry and to celebrate business as a calling to do God’s work.
Feel free to give examples of what training looks like in your country/region.
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MENTORING
Read the slide:
“Those who have gone through the school of hard knocks mentor others with a listening ear, encouragement and the voice of experience.
Almost 700 volunteer mentors are working with LCIs and small businesses in all parts of the world. And the great news is that while mentors used to be primarily from the US, now the majority are coming from within the countries or regions they’re serving. This is Cesar, also from Cuenca Partners, working with clients hands-on.
Feel free to give a specific example of a mentor (international or local) from your country/region.
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Read the slide:
“We help communities advocate for themselves, removing barriers to fair and flourishing business environments”.
For example, 80% of the extreme poor in Central America are landless. Here’s a woman in Honduras proudly displaying the title to her home.
Because she now has legal title to her land – probably for the first time in generations –she has a peaceful, joyful smile.
Another example of advocacy was our lobbying the US government to lift tariffs on Kenyan textiles entering into the US, resulting in 100s of 1000’s of job in Kenya.
You could give other relevant advocacy stories from your region or related to your audience.
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Our 4th strategic activity is ACCESS TO CAPITAL.
Read the slide:
“We raise capital so Local Community Institutions can fund the dreams of individual entrepreneurs, and small and medium sized businesses. “
The loans are made and repaid locally, not from afar, which is a key to successful accountability and high repayment rates.
We’ve loaned over $11 Million dollars through our local partners this past year.
Here is Michael Kingara from Nairobi Kenya. He’s always happy, but here’s he’s smiling because he now has 32 employees, after using the capital he received to expand his packaging business.
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When it all comes together …
In places where we have brought all three parts of the partnership together and provided training, mentoring, access to capital and advocacy we see ethical Christian businesspeople leading their entire community to flourish.
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Let me tell you just one story of a place where it’s all coming together ….
Hondurans suffer from the world’s highest murder rate. The reason is gangs -- and the terror and violence that comes with gangs.
Parents so fear for their children’s lives that many send them on a perilous journey to the US border seeking asylum.
An exception to this gruesome reality is the town of Nueva Suyapa, in the hills outside the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
In 2005 Nueva Suyapa had three-times the national average murder rate. Since then, that rate has decreased by one-third, but the national rate has doubled.
What has happened in Nueva Suyapa since 2005?
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In the midst of hardship, (MCM) Stewardship of Christian Ministries, our partner in Nueva Suyapa, models the way to a safe, flourishing community.
For over 20 years, MCM provided community services such as a school and a health clinic.
But in 1999, after Hurricane Mitch, the economy was devastated, People struggled to re-build or start up businesses.
MCM knew they needed to help.
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So they reached out to Partners Worldwide --- and fully embraced our comprehensive model of training, mentoring, access to capital and advocacy.
MCM has since helped thousands of businesspeople start up and grow business.
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A Partners Worldwide Business Affiliate has been faithfully working with them for 9 years.
On the left of this photo are: 2 members of this business affiliate members – Ken Van Zee and Don DeWaard – the middle two men are a business owner they mentor – Jose Acosta (in blue shirt) and one of his employees.
One the far right are two MCM staff - Yonatan Venegas and Yoni Arias
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Our local staff person – Debbie – is integral to supporting the partnership and helping it grow. Here she is on the far right, working with the BA and LCI leaders in a strategic planning session.
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Mama Alba is one of the business members of MCM.
Since she was six years old, Mama Alba sold tortillas by the roadside. After she married, her husband worked as a security guard.
But they had a big dream to start their own tortilla business. They now employ four others in addition to their own four children.
They make 10,000 tortillas a day. It’s the traditional maize tortilla- You see a stack of those tortillas in this picture.
Their next dream is to package the tortillas and sell them under their own brand. They have the name and the label designed.
They have a plot of land next door to expand.
Currently, MCM serves hundreds of other business members like Mama Alba.
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Here are some key metrics of our whole global network for the fiscal year just ended
Read each line
These numbers represent thousands of stories of businesses starting, surviving and eventually flourishing -- Stories of hundreds of thousands of people now working and earning a living wage and supporting their families -- Stories of communities building their own schools, their own churches, their own health clinics. Stories of people in community caring for one another.
THIS IS WHAT THE ABUNDANT LIFE IS. Jesus wasn’t just talking about spiritual and physical condition of individuals, his vision was a much greater one, about seeing communities and nations flourish, until that day when all will be ushered before the King Jesus.
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So where do we go from here:
We’re pleased that we’ve been able to achieve some results.
But we don’t want to stand still.
The need is too great.
WE asked ourselves: is our vision big enough to respond to the voices of the poor all over the world.
Setting our sights on the year 2020, we convened our global network for a time of prayerful reflection about how to increase our efforts.
We dream of a Christian Jubilee: a day when all humanity is reconciled in the Spirit of Christ Jesus.
And it is a whopper of a vision.
Vision 2020: the vision is a dream. It’s a dream of Jubilee.
Just as in Old Testament times,
the Jubilee year was the year in which all differences, all injustices were reconciled to the Lord.
So how will we get there … how will we work toward the Jubilee Year.
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We’ve identified four Strategic Directions to guide our plans and actions.
Global by Design: We strive for unity to be reflected in all aspects of our global network of partners. In thought, word, and deed move further away from the “us to them” mentality through our structure, brand--, board--, staff-- and funding model. We are linked, not ranked, celebrating and spreading innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the system.This means building up our resources in regional hubs, empowering each one to be a catalyst for growth, raising capital both human and financial in each country, in each region. It means tapping into the resources present in each region. And It means a global Board and management team. Global by Design means being global INTENTIONALLY, NOT ACCIDENTALLY.
Expand Partnership Models and Geographies
We will continue to broaden the types and locations of our network of partners,
join with corporations and like-minded organizational allies for greater impact, expand geographically to all parts of the world,
pursue in-country and cross region growth,
be the catalyst for local expansion with the support and encouragement of the WHOLE global network
We’ve already started engaging new types of partners.
For example, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras where I was several weeks ago, we’ve partnered with the University’s School of Business. As new graduates enter the workforce, they can start out as young mentors rather than wait until the end of their careers.
Another example is a new partnership we are forming with Land of Lakes: the huge dairy company here in the U.S.
We’re aligning with them in our global agriculture value network.
And our global partnership team has identified strategically the next countries we should enter. I think they’ve identified 24 countries. We’re implementing: We just signed our first partnership agreement in Taiwan. We just hired our first country manager in Guatemala
Lead Positive Community Impact Successful entrepreneurs, small businesses and community institutions are a stabilizing force in their communities. Our partners lead and work toward transforming their ENTIRE community into flourishing economic environment for all: Employing others, encouraging new start-ups, joining together to develop institutions for stable, fair and joyful societies. Of course our focus is on helping entrepreneurs and small businesspeople start and grow businesses to create jobs. Once that happens these business leaders, these servant leaders, employees and stable families can then stabilize their entire communities: building churches, schools, medical clinics, outreaches to orphans and widows and the aged. The point is, the businesspeople in our network lead their communities to insure a flourishing environment for ALL.
Advocate Intentionally. Some community problems can only be alleviated when people join their will and influence together. Our network of partners works to remove obstacles to fair and flourishing communities for all. We are intentional catalysts, forging alliances to build strong economic and social infrastructure, advance fair trade policies, calm local unrest, restore property rights, address poor governance. We’ve actually BEEN doing this since our beginning. Kenya is a great example. 15 years ago, some of our North American business affiliates lobbied to lift US tariffs on good coming from Kenya. They succeeded and the goods began to flow, rectifying a huge trade imbalance. The impact of this one act on the economy of Kenya cannot be overemphasized. This is what leads us to raise advocacy to a strategic choice. We need to do more of it.
Another example is the work we’re doing with a partner in Honduras AJS, Association for a Just Society. We’ve joined AJS’s work on reliable land titling. We’ve organized a new kind of Business Affiliate: a group of attorney’s from Michigan and Wisconsin who are working with the property department of the President’s office. The first three attorneys are reaching out to other attorneys and the American Bar Association to build a secure system of land titling.
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Read the slide.
This is an opportunity to talk about a specific geography, if appropriate.
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All of this takes funds.
Not funds alone.
But funds are crucial.
(If this is a fund raising presentation, the presenter can stop and outline specific financial needs and opportunities)
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We are grateful for those who simply pray for those who are out in the hot sun doing this work.
We cannot overemphasize how critical this support is, and we ask each and every one of you to join in this prayer ministry.
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We all have been given different gifts within the body of Christ.
Our business affiliates fill a critical role with their time and business skills. Can you consider investing YOUR time and skills in the role of long term committed partner?
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Qualified Local Community Institutions are needed to expand the network, to form the community infrastructure to support budding entrepreneurs and small businesses.
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Doug, this is where you’ll pose the question about heaven and hell: what if Jesus can’t return until we build the kingdom on earth.
Go to the next slide and read the scripture.
Ask each person to think and then write what part of building the kingdom is their job:
What does the kingdom look like.
Give 2-3 minutes.
Then we’ll facilitate people sharing from the floor.
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He commissioned US to do the same thing.
This is the task he left us: the end of poverty on earth, replaced with His will, reign and shalom.
This is our work ----
To do as He did -- love and serve the poor.
And it is a whopper of a vision.
Vision 2020: the vision is a dream. It’s a dream of Jubilee.
Just as in Old Testament times,
the Jubilee year was the year in which all differences, all injustices were reconciled to the Lord.
So how will we get there … how will we work toward the Jubilee Year.
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This vision of heaven on earth, of Jubilee in which all are reconciled to God through Christ.
In our lives it begins as we express our God-given calling and talent in business.
We are Businesspeople Faithfully Pursuing a World Without Poverty
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