Moving Your Organization From Charity to Change: Developing a Liberating Programming Model

Presentation Summary: Edmundite Missions has served as one of the largest and most consistent organizations doing poverty mitigation and alleviation in the Black Belt Region of the Deep South since 1937, where many of our clients survive on less than $11,000.00/year. As the first lay director of the Missions, it became apparent that many, if not all of the educational, health and economic deficits associated with this deep poverty were deeply embedded in the historical and societal structures of the society in which the Missions and the people we served lived. It became apparent that if we continued our traditional approach to program delivery – one that was well intentioned and charitable – that the people that we served would always need our services. So – I was compelled to ask a simple question: How do we align our programs to liberate people from their poverty? Once I asked that question I had to ask these questions - How did we evolve our current ministries to meet our new strategic goals? How did we develop new programs? How did we get buy-in from critical stakeholders like our clients, our funders, our staff, and our Board? And, most importantly, how do measure our success if not by simply counting the dirty dishes at the end of the dinner service?

These questions and more will be answered during the presentation as I use the transformation of the Missions as a case study from which any organization could take away valuable and actionable insights.