“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” ~ Desmond Tutu When I first ran into this quote, I laughed out loud. I didn’t laugh because the quote is funny, but rather...
“Program is our native tongue,” the missions pastor told me. Her words caused the gears in my brain to realign and click together. After meeting with countless groups who deeply desire to love and serve their neighbors, but struggle in many ways to do so, the metaphor...
Have you ever wondered how to recognize a flourishing community? In this journey of being a Change-Maker, sometimes it helps to see an example of what holistic success really looks like. Over the last forty years as a part of FCS, we’ve refined our vision of what it...
How Human Flourishing Works Human flourishing is the end-goal of all holistic neighborhood development work. When we say flourishing, we mean when individuals and neighborhoods are living with joy, purpose, connection, and autonomy. Systemic inequity disrupts...
Flourishing in place is the end goal of all of our community development work. We want everyone to Flourish in Place. It’s why we exist at the Lupton Center – to equip change-makers to build neighborhoods that thrive. Any work we do in development or ministry or...
How Community Development and Community Organizing Work Together As a change-maker, you’ve probably run into the phrases “community development” and “community organizing” many times. But did you know that these two concepts work together for mutual benefit? Today,...
Community Development was an innovation. Now, we are innovating even further by implementing. Holistic Neighborhood Development. Over 40 years ago, Bob Lupton and his team at Focused Community Strategies questioned the standard nonprofit model. In particular, they...
“My name is William, and I am an alcoholic. It has been 19 years since my last drink.” This was how a guest speaker in my college class introduced himself. I thought to myself, “Wait. How can you call yourself an alcoholic if your last drink was a...
How to Evaluate Community Development Program Impact It’s important to assess the impact of your community development program. Every community development organization wants to make change. We care about our neighbors and want to make things better, otherwise...
“You are not going to believe this, Katie.” Ms. Ethel declared as I passed through our food co-op meeting last week. “I just got back from the doctor, and he told me I’ve lost 10 pounds and my diabetes levels are the lowest they’ve ever been. He asked what’s made the...