Our Vision
Our vision is a neighborhood without poverty or injustice
Our Mission
To love people out of poverty.
Our Values
We commit to striving to treat others in accordance with the following values (and to sincerely apologizing when we sometimes fail).
Worship. The work that we do should first and foremost glorify God, who created us and gave us our abilities and resources.
Joy. We strive for all of our activities to create as much joy as possible for everyone involved.
Value. We believe that every human being is created in God's image and has great, inherent value. We aim to help others unleash their God-given value and to always create more value than we consume.
Discipleship. Growing as individuals and as a team is the lever by which we multiply our efforts to create joy, value, and love.
Love. Most importantly, Jesus loves us all: our students, mentors, partners, and community. Jesus also loves the hurting, the exploited, the orphan, the widow, the lonely, and the lost. Profit for our company is the extent to which we are able to express Jesus' love to others.
What is Poverty?
Poverty is complex. We don’t claim to understand it fully, but we attempt to fight it nonetheless. Poverty is not simply the state of being financially poor. To the best of our understanding, poverty is the state of hopelessness. Hope is the confident expectation of something better.
A poor person with genuine hope and the right opportunity can lift themselves out of poverty with modest financial support. However, endless support can be (and often is) wasted on impoverished people who are not also given hope and opportunity. In many cases, well-intentioned but misguided attempts to help leave impoverished people worse than before they were “helped.”
There are also many different types of poverty. Financial poverty is the first that comes to mind, of course. However, many rich people are relationally, physically, or missionally impoverished. Many people find themselves in the rut of professional poverty in spite of a decent paycheck.
A Holistic Approach to Poverty
A complex problem like poverty requires a holistic approach. We aim to address poverty on several fronts.
Professional Hope - Providing for myself and my family while continually growing and thriving at work.
Financial Hope - Stewarding money and growing wealth, so that it can be generously and responsibly deployed to share the love of Jesus Christ.
Physical Hope - Thriving in the physical world without preventable limitations.
Relational Hope - Being fully known and unconditionally accepted.
Missional Hope - Having a purpose bigger than myself that will persist after I’m gone.