Episode 26

September 24, 2025

01:20:14

Episode 26 of the LOVE JUSTICE podcast: "Charity Without Impact is Dead" with special guest: David Bronkema | hosted by Hannah Munn | LoveJustice.NGO

Hosted by

Hannah Munn
Episode 26 of the LOVE JUSTICE podcast: "Charity Without Impact is Dead" with special guest: David Bronkema | hosted by Hannah Munn | LoveJustice.NGO
the LOVE JUSTICE podcast
Episode 26 of the LOVE JUSTICE podcast: "Charity Without Impact is Dead" with special guest: David Bronkema | hosted by Hannah Munn | LoveJustice.NGO

Sep 24 2025 | 01:20:14

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Show Notes

In this compelling episode, host Hannah Munn speaks with Eastern University professor David Bronkema and Love Justice founder and CEO John Molineux about moving beyond good intentions to measurable impact. They explore how well-meant charity can sometimes cause harm—and why excellence, effectiveness, and stewardship must be at the heart of justice work. Through honest reflection and practical insights, this episode calls listeners to reframe charity as a bold, intentional, and accountable pursuit of change that truly matters.

David Bronkema is a professor in the College of Business and Leadership at Eastern University and holds the Eastern University Templeton Chair for Christian Service through Entrepreneurship. He is a core faculty member in the Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership program and teaches courses in leadership theory, qualitative research, global leadership, advocacy and public policy, and fundraising. David has been with Eastern University since 2006 and received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2010. Before taking on his current position at Eastern four years ago, David served in two other roles at the university: as director of Eastern University’s MBA in Economic Development and MA in International Development, and as dean of Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University.

David’s formal education includes an M.A. in International Relations and a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Yale University. His Ph.D. dissertation explored the history of Protestant missions to Latin America and the legacy of those missions for international development work by Christian nongovernmental organizations. David’s publications and talks have explored the intersection of business, civil society, faith, and justice, with particular interest in spiritual metrics, Business as Mission, religion and development, community development and advocacy, evangelical approaches to engaging the development field, and the informing of anthropological theory from a faith-based perspective. He is coauthor of Advocating for Justice: An Evangelical Vision for Transforming Systems and Structures (Baker Books, 2016) and coeditor of On Knowing Humanity: Insights from Theology for Anthropology (Routledge, 2017). David is also cofounder and coeditor of the journal Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy.

David grew up in Portugal and Italy in a missionary family, and after graduating from Swarthmore College in 1983, he spent the next five years in Honduras working with a Honduran Protestant community development organization and with peasant, labor, and human rights organizations. In 1998, David joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), coordinating programs first in Central America and then in the Andean region. During his time at Eastern, David has helped create and facilitate a conference on measuring spiritual impact and a Business as Mission collaboration group, and he has served on a variety of boards and as an advisor for development agencies and conferences, currently chairing the Accord Research Alliance steering committee.

He is married to Robin, and they have three children and one grandchild: Emily (married to Ty, with daughter Haven), Jacob (married to Jordan), and Josiah.

 

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Chapters

  • (00:00:02) - Love Justice: Charity Without Impact is Dead
  • (00:01:37) - Mentor David Bronkema on the Podcast
  • (00:03:57) - David on Impact in Charitable Work
  • (00:08:24) - John and David on Charity Without Impact
  • (00:10:35) - John 3:8 Charity Without Impact Is Dead
  • (00:16:08) - Non-Profit Accountability: Intent rather than Impact
  • (00:20:00) - In the Bloodletting of Charity
  • (00:22:41) - Love Justice: The Way of Impact
  • (00:27:41) - Getting Out of Defensiveness
  • (00:29:33) - The Need for Participatory Evaluation
  • (00:30:37) - Will Love Justice Validate or Verify Our Impact?
  • (00:38:24) - Will Impactless Charity Be Bad?
  • (00:42:35) - The Criteria for Meaningful Impact
  • (00:45:33) - Importance of the Impact Mindset
  • (00:48:53) - The Surprising Impact of Science
  • (00:54:21) - What Kind of Inner Character Is Needed to Commit to Measuring
  • (00:57:07) - David on the Holy Spirit
  • (01:00:43) - John on Perpetual Persistence
  • (01:05:48) - The Importance of Hearing Critical Feedback
  • (01:07:45) - The default expertise of the Love Just International
  • (01:11:13) - Reformation in the field of Charity
  • (01:13:49) - What Would That Happen If the Church Fully Adopted Isaiah 58
  • (01:17:02) - John on the Misquoting Isaiah 61
View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast, where we hear from different voices who are. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Joining us in the fight against modern day slavery. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Here's your host, Hannah Munn. [00:00:12] Speaker C: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast where we share the ideas behind Love Justice's work through conversations about fighting the world's greatest injustices. In this episode, we are diving into a provocative idea from our founder, John Molyneux, and his upcoming article, Charity Without Impact is Dead, slated to be published in the October issue of the Christian Relief Development and Advocacy Journal. John's challenge is clear. Good intentions are not enough. Our charity must be measured by the. [00:00:43] Speaker D: Fruit that it produces. [00:00:45] Speaker C: To unpack this further, I'm joined by Dr. David Branchema, professor in the College of Business and Leadership at Eastern University and holder of the Templeton Chair for Christian Service through Entrepreneurship. David has spent decades at the intersection of theology, leadership and social impact, working in community development and human rights in Central America, shaping the next generation of Christian leaders in the classroom, and writing extensively on what faithful, effective impact looks like. Together, we're going to explore with David and John the connection between measurable impact and Jesus, called to be known by our fruit, and the harm that comes from impactless charity and what it would take to see real reform in Christian relief and development. This is probably one of my favorite conversations of the season so far, so let's jump in. [00:01:37] Speaker D: All right, John, can you introduce David to our listeners? Who is David? How did your paths cross and what is your relationship to one another? [00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to and thank you, Hannah, and thanks, David, for being on the podcast today. So David Bronkema is my mentor. I first got connected with him through ardent mentoring through a cord network and, you know, didn't really know much about him or who he was. First time we met, we just really connected. It felt like we were. A lot of ideas were exchanged really quickly. It was. I was kind of just rambling, talking fast and he was really tracking with a lot of what I was saying and he was doing the same. And I think we really connected, particularly just around just a thoughtful approach to gospel justice and in particular impact. So he seems to be one of the most well connected people I know. He seems to be involved in leadership in most of the or many or most of the collaborative initiatives in the Christian NGO space. He also seems to be someone who's particularly. He seems to have someone that he's connected with who is particularly good at almost everything, who, when you talk to them, they say that they would do anything for David Brankoma. So he's just he's meant a lot to me. He's really blessed me and love justice in many ways. He's made really valuable connections for me. Just to give one example, we try to do expert reviews of our core process. David has lined up eight different expert reviews for us. That's just been so valuable and he's, he's just really guided and guided and sharpened my ideas around impact. So glad to have him on the podcast today. [00:03:22] Speaker D: Yeah, we're excited, David. Anyone who can hang with John and his big ideas and track and engage and stay there with him is, is a champion for sure. [00:03:35] Speaker A: I'll tell you. And I mean, John, thanks for those kind words. It's. You use the word mentor. I just feel I've learned so much more from you than anything I've shared. But it has been just a great time of fellowship and I privilege and blessed to just be a small part. [00:03:50] Speaker E: Right. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Of walking with you and love Justice International through that. And so thanks again for that. [00:03:57] Speaker D: Okay, David, so you have spent years working at the intersection of theology, leadership and social impact. Could you share a bit about your journey and how you came to care so deeply about impact in charitable work? [00:04:13] Speaker A: Sure. Hannah, thanks. Thanks so much for that question. Again, it's just so much fun to be a part of this podcast and to have learned from John's ideas and to be able to talk through them. I mean, they really are at the cutting edge. So I'm excited. But just in terms of my own background, quickly. I grew up as a missionary kid in Portugal and Italy. And from an early stage, right, my parents really hammered home to us the importance of walking with a pool and working for justice. And fast forwarded, fast forward then to After I graduated from college, I went down to Honduras and worked there for five years with a Honduran Christian relief, development and justice organization, primarily in areas of community development and the 1980s. [00:04:58] Speaker E: Right. [00:04:59] Speaker A: I'm quite old. So this was the 1980s and that was when the logical framework first began to appear. I don't know if you're familiar, if the audience is familiar with the logical framework. It's a logic model, meaning that you really are required to plan out very closely how your activities lead to impact and then how you are going to evaluate them. And so the organization I worked with, which was affiliated with the World Council of Churches and was being required to adopt this planning, monitoring and evaluation framework, was at the cutting edge of this and actually in many ways was one of the first to pioneer this within that particular framework. So I can Remember being in stating and I was the assistant communications coordinator, one of two expatriates working in the organization as a whole. So it was run by Hondurans, it was Honduran organization. I can remember Steph mutining, you know, over this and all kinds of difficulties implementing it. But it really did gave give outstanding results in terms of that kind of approach. And so after those five years, again, fast forward quickly after I came back, did a few other things. I was called to work for the American Friends Service Committee to coordinate their programs first in Central America and then the Andean region. And so what I started doing there was to kind of implement some of what I learned in Honduras, plus other things that I had studied. By that time I was finishing up my PhD in anthropology, which was geared towards trying to make sense of what was going on in the international development field, including the monitoring evaluation. And so that also was just a lot of fun. Learned a ton from our field staff, was able to kind of implement kind of strategies for monitoring evaluation there. And then when I was called the Eastern and I've been here for 19 years teaching in our international development programs and having responsibility for those, I got to design a course on monitoring evaluation. And so I would update that course each year, would go to conferences to try to make sure that we were exposing our students to the new tools. And all from a Christian perspective. [00:07:12] Speaker E: Right. [00:07:12] Speaker A: How do you integrate our faith into these efforts? And along the way, over these last eight, 19 years, I then had the blessing of becoming a part of the Accord Network which has now formed about 150 different Christian Relief, development and advocacy organizations. And to be deeply involved, especially in efforts around measuring spiritual impact, which of course then leads to all kinds of different aspects of measuring flourishing, which we're working on now, along with a few other things. So all that to say, I absolutely love this topic, this field. It can be a complicated one, but I also think it's a very life giving one. Just engaging in conversations with it within organizations and across organizations in and of itself I think is extremely productive. And that's part of why I'm so excited about this podcast. [00:08:03] Speaker D: Yeah, David, it sounds like you were in monitoring and evaluation before it became very popular and very flashy in this world, which I didn't know. That's really exciting. And also just goes to show why I think you're the perfect person to kind of engage in this conversation. And that conversation, being around this idea that John has soon to be a published article that is charity without impact is dead. John, what do you mean by that statement? And can you unpack it for us a little bit? [00:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it just means that impact is the purpose it needs to be. The only purpose for which charity exists is to actually impact people's lives and to make a difference if love does for others what we would want done for us. And if it was me or my loved ones who is in need, you know, I wouldn't care about intentions. I wouldn't care about. I wouldn't care about anything other than whether or not I was impacted or my loved one was impacted. And so, yeah, I think that that's the idea behind it. It's a very simple idea. It's not. Not very controversial, I don't think, but it's also as simple as it is. It's. It. It almost goes without saying, but maybe it has gone without saying, and it needs to be said in our field. [00:09:31] Speaker D: So, John, you. You say that it's something so simple, but why do you feel the need to communicate that and write an article about it? [00:09:43] Speaker B: Because it's not, you know, surprisingly enough, a lot of. A lot of nonprofits aren't necessarily defining and measuring and seeking to maximize their impact. And that is, I would say that's maybe more of an exception. And if you're not defining and measuring your impact, it's somewhat likely that you may not be having that much impact. And so money that is spent to help people should help those people. And that's incredibly important. It's the whole purpose for which charity exists. And, of course, we know how important it is to the heart of Jesus that we're helping those who are in need. [00:10:28] Speaker D: Yeah. And, David, I would say that what John is saying is a pretty, I would say, bold claim. And I'm curious what your reaction was the first time that you read or heard about this idea of charity without impact is dead. Why did it resonate? Or why did you resonate with it? And why do you think it's such an important idea for the broader field, especially given your experience in history with monitoring and evaluation? [00:11:03] Speaker A: Well, first of all, just that saying, that turn of phrase, charity without impact is dead, it immediately grabbed me because of the obvious reference, right. That faith without works is dead. And so that scriptural analogy is like, bam, right? It just hits you. [00:11:19] Speaker E: Right, Right. [00:11:20] Speaker A: Right through the eyes. And so it immediately, you know, draws your attention and you're thinking, as John said, yes, of course. [00:11:28] Speaker E: Right. [00:11:28] Speaker A: And. And it challenges you. It automatically challenges you. Not just because it makes you think about, okay, the relationship of charity with Impact, but because of the scriptural reference as well, right? I mean, faith without work. So you think you have faith, but you're not actually doing works. I mean, James says that's, that's not faith at all, right? It's dead. It's dead faith. And that analogy, right? You think you're doing charity, you think you're being loving, you think you're helping others, but you're not having impact. Well, that's not doing good at all, right? And so that's why it grabbed me. I, you know, I would agree with John, right. There are. And I know we're going to get into it, right. There are many organizations that, that for a variety of different reasons, are not really seriously measuring, right. The impact that they have. And I think these conversations are so important to get people to think about it, to challenge people and to convict people to follow the calling of the Spirit in order to do better in this area. [00:12:29] Speaker D: Yeah. David, in Matthew 7 and in Luke 6, Jesus gives both the golden rule and the challenge that by their fruit you will recognize them. How should we as Christians connect spiritual fruit and measurable impact when it comes to charity? [00:12:49] Speaker A: So, Hannah, that's a great question, and I'm sure John would agree with me. I think it's always important to start with definitions, right? So what is charity? What is impact? What is spiritual fruit? Now, I'm not going to have the final say on this, right? But charity, I mean, it comes from the Latin word word, right? Karitas, which is the word for love. Charity in the Old English used to be the word for love. And so charity, I think really is that, that we're commanded to do, which is love our neighbor, right. In a variety of different ways. And in the ways that the organizations are doing it now that we're talking about, it really is going. Using money that's donated to them, right. To help, as John said, the least of these have, have a better life and enable better quality of living. Impact, Right. I would say that all charity has impact, Right. And implicitly what John is saying, and John, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we're talking about good impact, right? Because you can have harmful impact, right? You can have beneficial impact. You can have to have, to use a biblical phrase, lukewarm impact, where you're not maximizing, right. The impact, the good impact that you have. So I think implicitly it's there. I just kind of wanted to get that on the table. Spiritual fruit, right? When I think about that, obviously right there, the reference to the fruit of the Spirit. I think there's other fruit as well. [00:14:04] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:05] Speaker A: That Jesus is referring to. But to me a simple definition of that is, you know, how are you exhibiting and putting into action, right. In thought and word and indeed your love for others. [00:14:19] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:20] Speaker A: And what kind of change is that making? [00:14:22] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:23] Speaker A: In their lives and in your own life. [00:14:24] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:25] Speaker A: And so I think when we connect the, you know, charity and impact with. And fruit with the Golden Rule, as John so well pointed out, and it's just a, just a great article, is that you really want to make sure that you are evaluating whether what you are doing, led by the Holy Spirit is in fact what you should be doing. [00:14:51] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Based on the impact. And you know, we all, in our, we all evaluate our actions in some way, shape or form personally. [00:14:58] Speaker E: Right. [00:14:59] Speaker A: Whether we do it explicitly or implicitly. And what John is calling for is, you know, at the organizational level, and this is just so important, is that we be more intentional to make sure. [00:15:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:11] Speaker A: That the spiritual fruit of our organizations, the way that our organizations are expressing love for the least of these is in fact something that the actions that are being carried out are ones that if we were in their place. [00:15:25] Speaker E: Right. [00:15:26] Speaker A: That we would want to see happening as far as impact and as far frankly as the relationships are being carried out to achieve that impact as well. [00:15:35] Speaker D: Yeah, I love hearing that Greek, I think you said Greek word for charity being rooted in. [00:15:42] Speaker A: I believe it's Latin. I believe it's Latin, but sorry. [00:15:47] Speaker D: That the Latin root of that word being connected to love. And we've heard John talk about time and time again that love is not idle in the face of people's sufferings. And if you kind of connect that all together, love without impact is dead. I think that's really powerful too in terms of thinking about this. But John, you write in that article that the difference between help that works and help that doesn't is the difference between help and no help. Why do you think it's been acceptable in our non profit ministry sector for so long to focus on intent rather than fruit? [00:16:32] Speaker B: Well, I would at least say there's a lot of situations when you encounter an injustice, you're trying to help the most vulnerable and you just have to go out there and try. You just have to try things. You have to do something and you don't start out knowing what's going to work. You know, when you encounter an injustice, you just know that you have to do something. And so I think it's okay to just do the best you can and sort of Sow seeds and know that the results are in God's hands. And that's how nearly every organization starts out. But at some point, I think you have to start evaluating what is working and doing more of what is actually having an impact and less of, of what doesn't. And so, you know, one of our, one of our principles is define, measure and allocate by impact. Ultimately we want to put our resources in the strategies that are, that are having the greatest impact. And to do that you have to measure it. So but remember that the field of professional international development, you know, it is, it's a young field. David is probably, David, you know more about this than I do. And you have been probably in the midst of, and at the, at least some ways at the center and near the center of a lot of what has happened, but didn't really get moving until after World War II. And then David talked about this logic model in the 80s, but that was ahead of its time. And I don't think really became the I, the impact idea didn't become mainstream into mainstream is until recently. It's still not in, in a lot of circles, I would say. But when I started out 20 years ago, as far as I was able to discover, the whole field of program evaluation was about everything except impact. You know, it was about how many board members you have, whether you have a conflict of interest policy, how many trainings you did, what, whatever. But the idea of measuring impact or even some kind of a social return on the investment, I think, I mean, David, what you guys were doing maybe was at the forefront of it. And I think it started to become more mainstream just in the last 15, 20 years and, and still has. Not by any means. It's not that it's, it's not the norm in the field from, from my perspective. So it's a still very young field. And if you think about, you know, medicine just a couple decades ago, you know, very little was done that was actually effective that helped and harmful practices were common, like bloodletting, drilling holes in the school, the mercury. These things were the norm. You know, Benjamin Rush was, was a famous doctor who signed signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was called the Prince of Bleeders. He, he believed that all sickness was caused by a single underlying cause, morbid excitement of the vascular system. And it had a single universal cure, which is copious bloodletting combined with ingesting mercury. And so we know now those things are harmful and, and that was what the field was at that time. So it's not impossible to imagine that, that a young field might not be as effective as. But of course, at that time, people didn't know it wasn't effective. They thought it was. And so. But the field of medicine, before it became scientific gives us a picture of, you know, what well meaning attempts to help can look like without what ultimately I think is the deeply moral principles of science. So it's, you know, frankly, it's really easy to do harm and it's hard to find the things that really do work. And so it was very common, even the norm in medicine then. And I think it's not uncommon in our, in our field today. [00:20:00] Speaker D: Okay, John, I have two follow up questions for you, and we'll take them. We'll take them one at a time because you just kind of, you dropped some good stuff there. So in, in the bloodletting, what are some of the equivalent bloodletting practices you see in charity today? And do you think it's worth maybe pausing and even defining what bloodletting is for listeners who might not be familiar with that topic? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Well, I'm not sure I know exactly how it worked, but I believe that they would just use a scalpel to cause you to bleed and drain your blood. Is that David, am I getting that right? [00:20:36] Speaker A: Again, I'm no expert, but that's my understanding. They believe that there are things in the blood and from what I understand that were causing harm. And so if you kind of open up a vein or something like that to let blood out, that, that would essentially get rid of whatever was bad in there and, and help cure the person. But again, I'm no, no expert on that, but that's my understanding. [00:20:56] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So in terms of the, the equivalents in the nonprofit today, I, I'd say the biggest ways that I see that, that I see harm done in is one, facilitating corruption while failing to have an impact, Two, putting vulnerable people in the care of people who end up abusing them and three, facilitating learned disempowerment or creating, you know, a dependency that leaves people ultimately more helpless than they would have been. So the two of the things I've learned by living in the field for 20 years, one, how common corruption and abuse are on the edge of the world's greatest injustices. They are alarmingly, shockingly common. And two, how easy it is for us as foreigners or outsiders to have the wool pulled over our eyes. And it's key to recognize like we are motivated to keep it that way because we want to think the best of the things that we give our life to and raise money for. And so, but it's really hard. You have to sort of be willing to admit your weaknesses. You have to sort of, you know, face up to the ways that what you've said may be less than true. And it's hard to do that. It's, it's, it's, it's just contrary to every instinct in us. But Hannah, you've been a part of that journey in those conversations. But ultimately we have to just, we have to insist to ourselves and to each other that we be as really honest and even, even our most honest self isn't enough. I think we need also we need outside people speaking into what's happening and evaluating the effectiveness of our work. [00:22:35] Speaker D: Yeah. Which David would probably be one of those people for Love justice to some extent. John, I want to follow up on something that you had shared earlier and that being on one hand, you know, encouraging and calling people to be mindful about impact and the way that we think about impact and this idea that, this idea that charity without impact is dead. But in the same vein, you don't want to discourage someone from stepping into this work or stepping into doing something really, really good. And you know, I think you're very open and honest about learning from your own mistakes in the 20 plus years that you've been in the field. And I want to take a pause for you to share at what point in that journey you started thinking about impact and you know, giving yourself the grace to just dig in and get dirty and start figuring it out. But at what point did you start thinking about impact, evaluating the way that you measure impact? [00:23:45] Speaker B: You know, I think that the idea of impact is like implicitly built into the very morality that was driving me and Love Justice. You know, like, it's not, it wasn't like all of a sudden this is the word impact came along. I don't know, at some point and it was like, okay, that's helpful. But to state the obvious thing that we all feel and that we know, you know, it was a word. Um, yeah, and, and, and you know, the, the in, in terms of being skeptical, you know, like we, we've just had a lot of people within Love justice mostly that, that are just very fair minded and very skeptical and, and, and I think that has that really my initial reaction to a lot of that was to be very defensive to, you know, to, and it is hard to, to face up to the possibility with an open mind that maybe what you're doing that you've been telling people is helping in making such an impact is actually not or is actually harming people. That's scary. But it's ultimately like what I guess, you know, everything that I had been thinking and learning about blindness just made me realize I have to do that. And so we began sort of, I think, together really pivoting towards admitting our weaknesses, being skeptical of our own impact and having a very opposite stance to. To what we're. We have an natural inclination towards. But I also. We can never ultimately really do that. Can never really get that out completely. We can never really be trusted with ourselves with. With decisions about our own impact. Just like, you know, a scientist can. Can't peer review his own work. It's just not in the nature of man to be trustworthy enough to do that. And that's why, you know, the scientific method is all about, you know, bias and getting that out. [00:25:37] Speaker D: So what I think is really interesting, John, is that process that we went through internally as a team with people in your. Your team being very skeptical about impact and being committed to walking it out with you and not just saying, I'm skeptical, I'm out, but rather like, really partner with you to do the due diligence to really. Yeah, I would say work that out and how to really prove the impact that we're having. I think what's interesting about that is it's, in my opinion, really paved the way for now, addressing outside stakeholders who are questioning it, to then be able to really come with a very thoughtful answer and really thoughtful responses to different things to say, like, yeah, we've thought about this and here's what we've done, or you make a good point. Right. You know, here's our thoughts on this. And I don't know if you feel the same way, but that's kind of what I've been processing the last several months is just that doing that internally has really prepared us for the season that we're entering into as a ministry, you know, talking with more and more potential donors. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. And I mean, the most astute and skeptical donors do have a lot of questions about our work, but it's not very often that we encounter questions that we haven't really probed pretty deeply internally with. With a lot of skepticism and that. And that kind of just helped us just prepare the way. And there are times, and you've. You've been a part of some of those where we were too skeptical about, you know, where our impact. Things that we learned later were like, oh, that was. That was not a You know, but I think there's. There's probably even now ways that we're. We're missing things and we're not sufficiently skeptical. So, yeah, it's been. It really did help prepare the way for. To make the case about our impact, to have. Have been very skeptical about it for a long time and trying to be as self. Critically honest about it as we could. [00:27:38] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Maybe if I could just jump in real quick. Yeah. I mean, this is fascinating. One of the things that's always struck me about you, John, and Love justice, is how thoughtful you all are. It seems to me the verse that was running through my head as you were talking about kind of moving from perhaps a little bit of defensiveness. Right. To opening up is, know the truth and the truth will set you free. I imagine it was kind of a freeing experience as well. Is that true or is this free? [00:28:05] Speaker B: It's one of those. There's many things. Nothing like admitting your weaknesses, admitting you're wrong, and forgiving people. They all have this. This property. They seem hard. They seem so scary. And it's like when the person who's not doing it, it's like, I can't. You. Everything in you is screaming not to do it. And in that moment, it feels so, so hard. And then you do it and you're like, that was so easy and it's so obvious. So to shift my. My perspective from whenever someone criticizes me to like, here's 15 defenses that have popped into my head in the first second and a half that I want to just start laying out and hammering. To shut all of that down and be like, what is true in this? I need to. I need to be. In fact, even though I don't see anything that's true in it, I'm going to accept it. Because this person loves me and cares about me, and two people are saying it or, you know, and so. And actually, once I started doing that, I found what had seemed so hard before turned out to have been easy. And it's like, I make it. It's kind of a life mission. I want to share this with that, with people. This. This thing of admitting your weaknesses, facing up to ways that you're wrong, ways that you're failing. I know it seems really hard, but once you've done it, it's so you're just free. And that's. That's. You put it very well, David. It just set and it turns out to have been not hard. And then it's just a blessing. It just makes you better. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Amen Amen to that. Yeah. One of the things, and I may be taking this off script, I apologize, but one of the things that, that brings to mind is the way that there is such a fear in organizations to engage in participatory approaches. [00:29:45] Speaker E: Right. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Where the people with whom they're working, oh, you know, the locals don't know, we have to control it. [00:29:50] Speaker E: Right. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Etc. Etc. And that also the participatory approaches started out again coming in the 70s and the 80s, and I was blessed to be again part of that organization where they were pioneering by bringing in outside people like Jerry Aker from Heifer Project International, who was pioneering participatory approaches to evaluation. And just, you know, having the local people be co leaders in designing the evaluation, not just the indicators, but the evaluation, collection of data, the analysis of data. And like you said, that can be really, really, really scary to people. But what a blessing because it also then just enhances your relationships with local people. You learn a ton for them and ultimately. [00:30:30] Speaker E: Right. [00:30:30] Speaker A: It helps build up their capacity to do these things on their own. But anyway, sorry for kind of the parentheses there. [00:30:37] Speaker D: No, no, no, that's good, David, because I think what would be helpful context, too, to this conversation that John has been alluding to is when I'm not hosting episodes of the Love justice podcast, I'm the senior director of Compliance at Love justice, and I, for the last 10 years, I've been digging into the nitty gritty of our impact. And if anything, you know, John maybe coming on the side of having, you know, inherent belief about our projects and our programs. I'm coming from a side of probably having, or, you know, my. Most of my interactions with the work and the impact of Love justice is sorting out issues and getting to the bottom of them. And so we're probably coming at it from very different extremes. And then, you know, we're. We're oftentimes coming to the middle. And so I've had hours and hours and hours of conversations with John probably being one of the biggest skeptics over, over the years, and rightfully so, being maybe too skeptic. And so that's the, the maybe framework in which I'm coming to this conversation and what John has been alluding to and what's interesting with. And also as recently as this week, sorting out like, several issues that we haven't had in several years. So it's very fresh. But all that to say what's really interesting about the way that we kind of, I would say, validate or verify our Impact is we are incorporating local nationals into that process. And so I think that to say, okay, the expat staff or the. The American staff of Love justice have to validate every single intercept that's coming through, I think would have a lot of blindnesses to it because there are a lot of, you know, nuances to collecting data, to incorporating data. And it's not. You can't solely rely on just local nationals because of the experience and maybe the delays in the westernized way in which we're trying to incorporate monitoring and evaluation. But at the same time, you also can't rely solely on the Americans to do everything or the Westerners to do everything. And what I love about our approach to impact verification is it's both, and it's largely deferring to the local expertise of local nationals within the framework that we've helped develop over the years of refining and refining and refining. So, yeah, maybe I'll pause there. John, do you have anything you want. [00:33:14] Speaker A: To say that's so good? Maybe, maybe just to jump in. So Paulo Freire calls that dialogue of knowledge, right? The dialogue of knowledge of. So the popular education movement in Latin America refers to that, right, because there is kind of a tension where some people would say, oh, the locals know it all well, sorry, but from a Christian viewpoint, locals are just as sinful as anybody else, right? And have see through a mirror dimly just like anybody else. On the other hand, of course, while Westerns, the Westerners have the expertise, right? They have the technology, so they should be the ones guiding. But no, as you so well said, and I'm. It doesn't surprise me to hear that you all are doing that. I mean, because I know John had mentioned, as part of. And I think Kirk had mentioned, right, that you do incorporate local nationals in all facets of what you're doing. And how rich, right, is that to have that dialogue of knowledge? And the problem sometimes that one can run into is that if the local nationals don't feel that they are empowered to say what they really think, right, then you don't get that richness. So setting the table right for that enables people to say what they truly think is part of that process. So, yeah, great job with that. Sorry, John, I think you were about to say something. [00:34:30] Speaker B: I remember when, when we first created the verification process, John Hudlow at that time was the biggest intercept skeptic in the whole organization was very skeptical. And the idea of, of making him the lead on those verifications, it was like. At first, it was like, no, it was crazy to me to even do that because he was the, you know, that he was the last person that my instinct was to empower to that role. And then I was like, I sort of activated that I need to have the opposite of my natural bias and blindness and so put him in that role. And it was the best thing to have done. But in hindsight, those decisions, they just strengthen our ability to talk about our impact. And now I just feel. I feel a lot of confidence in what we say about our impact is accurate because there's. There's a lot of people really, really who value that and. And make sure to have a lot of care about it and. And take a lot of responsibility to make sure that that happens. [00:35:28] Speaker D: So, yeah, I would say I had a little bit of imposter syndrome stepping into that role, because John Hudlow's, like, academic rigor, his logicalness, like the way that he thought about it, felt so irreplaceable. But I will say that I think John, hello. And I complemented each other really well because I was really able to engage in conversation with local nationals. And that can be really exhausting, actually, to take the time to really get down to the nitty gritty nuances of what is it that you actually think and feel in this situation? And not what you think I want to hear, but actually I just want to get to the bottom of what we think is happening for better or for worse, and have gained a lot of experience doing that over the last several years from being on three hour zoom calls about one or two cases or being in person and having all day meetings where it's all that we're talking about. And yeah, it's really hard, and it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of time and. But I think for the better at the end of the day. And I've certainly learned so much from that process, and I've learned so much from our local national staff in the field, and that ultimately has shaped the way that we verify our impact over time. [00:37:01] Speaker A: And it's. And it's all about relationships, isn't it, Hannah? And building up trust. [00:37:06] Speaker E: Right. [00:37:06] Speaker A: And it does take time. [00:37:07] Speaker E: Right. [00:37:07] Speaker A: And it takes. It's exhausting on your side. I'm sure it's exhausting on their side as well. [00:37:11] Speaker E: Right. [00:37:12] Speaker A: I mean it. Because building up that trust. [00:37:14] Speaker E: Right. [00:37:14] Speaker A: And getting to the point where you feel, you know, you can be open about everything is a process. [00:37:21] Speaker E: Right. [00:37:22] Speaker A: So that's awesome to hear. Yeah, Congratulations. That's wonderful. [00:37:26] Speaker C: You've seen the headlines, you've heard the stories. Children are being trafficked every single day and everything in you says this has to stop. And but rescuing kids after exploitation is never enough. If it were your child, would you sleep soundly knowing that they might be found after being taken, or would you want to know that they were never taken at all? At Love justice, we've spent the past 20 years building a proven model to stop trafficking before it happens. Training local monitors, intercepting at key border points, and reuniting kids with their families. We can do this for 100 per person intercepted, but there are more borders, more children, more lives at risk than we can reach right now. That's where you come in. Join Project Beautiful, our monthly giving community, and stop trafficking before it starts. [00:38:15] Speaker D: Visit projectbeautiful.org well, we definitely went on a really good tangent there. But, David, I want to. I want to bring us back to kind of what we were talking about with the. The article. And one of the most compelling arguments in this idea of charity without impact is dead, is that impactless charity may actually be harmful. Have you seen that dynamic firsthand? Why do you think this is so hard for organizations to face? [00:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, Hannah. And to kind of come back to saying it's a little bit of a misnomer to say impactless charity. I know that we mean implicitly we're talking about charity without good impact. But again, back in the. I think it was 1975, the Patterson. I think it was the Pattersons published a book called We Don't Know How. It was a. An Evaluation of US ID Project. So just going back briefly to John's comment, John, I would agree definitely in kind of the evangelical sector. [00:39:21] Speaker E: Right. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Like you say, a lot of this is quite new, but I would say in kind of the more progressive Christian sectors, affiliated with the World Council of Churches and definitely with the secular international development sphere, that a lot of this. [00:39:36] Speaker E: Right. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Did start in the 70s and 80s and was kind of, in a sense, almost fully enshrined by the 90s or so. And so I think it's really good that you're pointing out. Yes, for many, this is quite new. At the same time, there's a lot of wisdom we can draw on and not take everything Right. But a lot of wisdom that can be drawn on from kind of past experiences. So. Yeah, so back in the 70s already right there. And there's several publications pointing to how, for example, in the multilateral sector, people were evaluated based on how much money they moved, not on the impact of the projects. And so it was a huge problem. But on the non governmental side there is that learning process that John talked about that everybody goes through. And hopefully what one can do by reading things is kind of perhaps avoid a few of the pitfalls that have happened before. But you know, yes, I have seen this firsthand and been a part, right. In Honduras, for example, other places of kind of doing things and not realizing that either they were ineffective or sometimes harmful as well. And just to give you a few examples, right. Building latrines that the community didn't use or building houses that the community didn't use. Use. [00:40:55] Speaker E: Why? [00:40:55] Speaker A: Because we didn't, you know, we didn't consult with the people in appropriate ways. [00:41:00] Speaker E: Right. [00:41:00] Speaker A: And they were, they were either not going to use them because of cultural reasons or whatever it might be. Fish farms, right. Built where people culturally didn't eat fish. [00:41:11] Speaker E: Right. [00:41:12] Speaker A: And so, so this is not something new. And I think part of the problem. [00:41:18] Speaker E: Right. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Is also, and this is one of the aspects that I love about John's article, it's not just about harm that can be done, right. Or kind of ineffective projects, but it's also about maximizing the good that you can do. So you may have projects, right. That you actually are achieving significant impact, but you could do even better. [00:41:40] Speaker E: Right. [00:41:41] Speaker A: So I think there's kind of that scale of things from harm and of course, you know, when helping hurts, you know, Brian's book and others, right. Have pointed to kind of harm that can be done in a number of different ways. It's not just kind of harm as far as, as far as creating dependency, but it can be psychosocial harm and things along those lines as well. So we really do want to be attuned, right to kind of the impact in all forms including and I would probably say especially the unintended impact that one has. And there, right. In methodologies including outcome harvesting and goal free evaluations and things like that that can be employed. So yeah, no, that's John's article really. Again, I come back to. It is so important in order to kind of convict us of paying attention to these issues. [00:42:35] Speaker D: Yeah. And John, in that article you introduce a framework for meaningful impact. It must be life altering, dependent on the intervention and not enabling. Why were those the three criteria that you chose? And how has that changed the way that Love justice has worked? [00:42:54] Speaker B: You know, I would say it doesn't really feel to me like I chose those but. But rather like they're built into morality itself. You know, that love wants to help and it would rather of course help more than less. And so it seeks to make the greatest impact. And life altering just means it's just a way of saying a really significant impact. And of course that's what you want to aim for because of course that's what you would want if it was you. And, and then, you know, to help means to be the cause of that help. And, but, but this is something that's key. It's not just metaphysically but morally the cause. And what I mean there is that you're, you're aiming for impact that will not happen without you. This counterfactual dependence, you know, you can't just find someone who's about to give someone a life saving injection and knock it out of their hands and get, give it yourself and call it impact. That's not impact, even though you cause that. But impact is, is what won't happen without you. And so that has had some really interesting and important implications in our work. Like for instance, in our early transit monitoring work in Nepal, it meant that we really tried to avoid just going and setting up a booth where, in places where other organizations are already doing transit monitoring. You know, we, we wanted to go where, in a place where no one is working. And we want to help those who won't be helped unless we do. And so there's another implication for, for those of us who work for Love justice. And I think for most people, insofar as Love justice exists as an organization that will go on without us, really, we're just blessed to be able to be a part of the impact that the organization is having rather than being the cause of it. And so like, for, for me, if I wasn't CEO, someone else would be if that other person would have more impact than I would. I'm actually having negative impact by being in this role. And so the only impact I have is in my role. And it's true for each of us, is the amount better that I'm doing the job than my replacement would. And so I think that's really true for anyone who works in any institution. [00:45:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really good, John. [00:45:05] Speaker E: Right. [00:45:06] Speaker A: I mean, that's really good. And I think it points to how we all, especially in leadership positions, need to be constantly, constantly evaluating. Are they, are there people we should be making way for? Right, Stepping aside. You know, in the old missionary movement, the thing was let's work ourselves out of a job. [00:45:25] Speaker E: Right? [00:45:25] Speaker A: That used to be the refrain. And I think that still has a lot of, a lot of truth to it across all levels. [00:45:33] Speaker D: Yeah. David, from your vantage point, how can this kind of impact focused mindset be cultivated in leaders who come from different cultures, theological traditions or resource levels? [00:45:46] Speaker A: You know, that's a great question. I actually think that there is an impact mindset. And let me explain a little bit why. I think that everybody, not everybody, but just about everybody, is called to this work. And John makes that point so well in the article and made it in our conversation day, right. People feel called to this work because they feel that, that the Lord is calling them to do something to help, right. And so I think what was it, the life altering, the not creating dependency, that, that, that you're not doing something that somebody else is already doing. I think those are already there. I, I think the problem is, as John points out, people aren't taking that step to measure it, right? To define and to measure it. So I think the motivations are there. I think the mindset is there across cultures. I mean, I have seen it, right. People working for their own people, you know, organizations are foreign because they want to have that, that impact. But the question, as John so well put it, is are you defining and are you measuring it in such a way that it helps you to do better and better? [00:46:56] Speaker E: Right. [00:46:56] Speaker A: A process of continuous improvement. And I think there are a variety of reasons, completely understandable reasons, why people don't define and measure impact. First, I think they tend to be overwhelmed by it, right? Where do we even start? [00:47:10] Speaker E: Right. [00:47:11] Speaker A: How do we do it? They might feel they don't have the capacity, number two, right. And I think John alluded to this. They, they might not think it's necessary. It's obvious we're having an impact, right. So there's kind of that impact bias. But, you know, I mean, you, you know, we were working in Honduras and health and agriculture and just through some simple soil conservation methods, kind of seed planting, things like that, people doubled and tripled their crops. You, you see it, right. I think also related to that and these are all kind of related. Perhaps they don't define and measure it because they think it takes too much time. It takes away from more important things, right. You take time, you only have a certain amount of staff. You take staff time away from achieving that impact to try to measure it. That doesn't in the, in the cost benefit analysis, it doesn't seem to make sense. I think there is some of what John referred to. You're kind of afraid about what you're going to find out, right? Maybe it isn't all roses, right. And I Think also part of it is that when people do define and measure, many times they're not defining it, and especially not measuring it with the spirit or in the way that helps them improve programs because they just want to get information to report to their donors. And so their actual evaluation processes are not ones that are helpful. [00:48:32] Speaker E: Right. [00:48:33] Speaker A: And are not ones that really get at what would help people to improve. And so I think again, to summarize, there's a lot of that mindset of wanting to achieve impact. I think the problem that John so well points to, it's defining the measurement of it. [00:48:50] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. The other thing I'm processing just hearing you guys talk about this is there's probably an element of being scared that everything that you've dedicated your life, resources, energy, effort to might not actually be having an impact. And facing up to that can be really daunting and humbling at the same time. And maybe is one of the many reasons, like you stated, David, that it could be difficult to wade into that from time to time. And John, you talked about the bias that is very much present in you to want to believe that this work is impactful. And you talk openly about that. And bias being that idea that we're naturally inclined to believe our work is more impactful than it actually is. You've kind of alluded to it earlier in this conversation about how that surfaced for you personally. I think what would be helpful to unpack right now would be how you surrounded yourself with people, systems and structures to hold you accountable to your own bias and how that ultimately, I would say, allowed the organization to flourish in the way that it did. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Well, I wouldn't. [00:50:21] Speaker D: In the way that it has. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Sorry, not because, I mean, like, so first of all, like, I am completely biased to believe that the organization that I started is impactful. I want it to be impactful. It will always be my first instinct to shun anything that suggests it's not impactful and to magnify whatever suggested it is. But. And it wasn't that I surrounded myself, it was just that we hired different people and had different people who were involved. And those people all happened to be all of you guys. Hannah, that. That were. That had had such integrity and such fair mindedness, you know, that and, and skeptic, you know. And so, you know, Mike are the chairperson of our board. He was a big voice in there. I mentioned John Hudlow. Hannah, you were one of those, our chief, chief of staff, Schweitzer. He's just a very fair minded, skeptical person. So again, My early responses were all very defensive to that. And, you know, it feels like your life, like you alluded to, it feels like your life's work is being attacked. But it even goes deeper than that because when you're someone that's founded an organization, it's part of your identity. And so it's. It is hard to face up there. At least. At least it is daunting. But then once you actually do it, I'm telling you, it is not hard. So, yeah, I mean, I had spent a lot of time thinking about blindness and thinking about how sin is blindness, and we spent a lot of time talking about that. And so I just came to first grudgingly accept. It's funny, just in this moment, I'm remembering a motorcycle drive and a thought that popped into my head and where I was, you know, and then eventually embrace that we need to be very skeptical of our own impact. And we tried to create a culture around that, admit our weaknesses, became one of our values, and be scientific. And then we started being intentionally and systematically doubtful about our own impact. And that really helped us to improve the quality of our impact so that it could withstand scrutiny. And, you know, the things that were the most impactful, we did more of those. The things that were less impactful, we did less of. So we became much more impactful by doing that. And so now, you know, recently we've had independent experts who are scrutinizing our impact. And I think that's something that we want to build into the framework of how we always work. So, yeah, my bias, as I said earlier, to permanent feature of who I am, I will never be able to switch it off. No one really can. And we have to mitigate it by being aware, by creating that culture, by using external people. And I also say that those are the elements that make science science. And science is so much better at making an impact than everything else. And it's rooted in this deep understanding that bias will ruin everything if it is not just. And that's why it's peer review. And experiments need to be replicable, and they're blind experiments because every single person involved all the way through, if their bias will ruin it. And so now we're trying to find ways, and David, you and I, to have conversation about that, to build some of those elements into just the framework of how we work. [00:53:36] Speaker D: Yeah, it's interesting, John, hearing you process that, because when I first joined Love justice, we were working in Nepal and had just started working in Bangladesh and India, and just all the different projects that were in those countries and how over the years those projects have dropped off and it has kind of solely focused on our transit monitoring model as well as our, obviously our family homes at our dream school. But there were so many different, like the Women's Empowerment center, things like that, that just weren't impactful and didn't meet that criteria that you have come to develop in the ways that you think about impact. And that could even be its own conversation of getting into the nitty gritty of that. But David, you've interacted with leaders across many sectors, and in your view, what kind of inner character and spiritual maturity is needed for someone to actually commit to measuring impact and to change the course when they find that they're wrong? [00:54:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think John's articulated it well. I think in all of us there's always a desire to kind of believe that, you know, we have insights. [00:54:56] Speaker E: Right. [00:54:57] Speaker A: That we're on the right course and, you know, to, to be able to shift and to be open to new ideas, especially ones. [00:55:06] Speaker E: Right. [00:55:06] Speaker A: That kind of challenges, as John said, kind of our, not just our fundamental beliefs, but our fundamental hopes. [00:55:13] Speaker E: Right. [00:55:14] Speaker A: That what we're doing is being used by the Lord to have impact. You know, that can be tough. I, again, I think going back to what we talked about before, I guess I do think you put it, you said inner character and spiritual maturity. I, I think a lot of it is, is comes back to what John said, right? Which is, are. Are you willing to question whether you are hearing the Lord's voice, right. As being spoken to you by others. [00:55:45] Speaker E: Right. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Especially by people who perhaps have less power than you organizationally. Are you willing to, as John said. John Yadmy chuckling where he said, well, it just kind of happened that we hired people and said, well, I, I'm not so sure that just kind of happened. [00:56:02] Speaker E: Right. [00:56:03] Speaker A: I think. And I know you, you know, your, your processes of hiring are prayerful, right. They're deliberate. And so, you know, it requires even more so today, right. When there are so many echo chambers to hire people who bring different kind of thoughts and ideas, who can challenge and, and above all, I would say, organizationally speaking, people who love the Lord and who, you know, are, are good team fits. [00:56:34] Speaker E: Right? [00:56:34] Speaker A: You, you, you, you just have to have that. And obviously you buy into the mission of the organization. And so what I would say is, is just an answer to that question is just echoing what John just said. [00:56:48] Speaker E: Right? [00:56:48] Speaker A: It's, it's just kind of drawing again on the strength of spirit to overcome kind of Our natural inclinations and hesitations to, to, to take action right in areas that, that are important, especially as we've been talking about in defining and measuring impact. [00:57:07] Speaker D: If I could pause for a second because this, this whole kind of time I've been thinking, I've been trying to think of a question for John of like, where's the Holy Spirit in all of this? And the way that we think about impact and the discernment factor of that. And you just said it so well, David, where you're hearing the Lord's voice through other people. And I think, John, I'd love to get your feedback on this too. I think there's just been an undercurrent of the Holy Spirit in the evolution of this for you. And I think sometimes we almost over spiritualize it of like, I really just have to hear from. Directly from the Lord. And that could even be its own conversation of how do you hear from God in the way that you think about this? But I think it's actually probably more hearing the Lord's voice through other people than it is like directly connected to him. John, I'm curious if you have a response, like a reflective response to that of what David said. And just thinking about this conversation of like, yeah, that really resonates. And how have you maybe had to discern whose voice to listen to and who's not to listen to? Because I also know, just being in this with you, that there have been voices that it was like, man, we just. That doesn't sit right. [00:58:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things, if people who are wrong don't think they're wrong. That's. That's just a basic fundamental fact. So. And then you think, okay, so in the times that I'm wrong, I don't think I'm wrong. So the fact that I don't think I'm wrong in any given situation really has little to no bearing on whether or not I'm wrong, given that I would not think I was wrong if I was wrong or if I wasn't wrong. And various essays of C.S. lewis brought me to this idea that I have blindnesses that everyone else sees and I just do not see. And even if they try to tell me and then I think about it, I won't see it and I won't. I'll think it's not true. And so I sort of had to shift my criteria for, for how I would respond to critical claims by others towards me. And it doesn't mean that you simply accept everything that anyone says about you, you know, but I mean, for example, like, if two of our trusted staff or even one in, you know, have anything to say, you know, if I'm going to take that and basically treat it like it's true even if I don't see it. And just because you're never going to err by like, repenting, you know, like, if you say you're sorry or you try to be better about something, even if you don't quite see it, you're never going to go wrong. But boy, we go wrong all the time by refusing to admit the possibility that we could be wrong. And so, yeah, and there again, that whole shift for me was one of those things that, like, it went against every, of course, instinct in my body. It's like we, we, we are, we are inclined to treat critical feedback of us as poison and to shun it with every fiber in our being, but in fact, it is a cure. And, and once you take it and you feel better and you, you feel, you see clearly and you're, you're, you're like, what was I doing? Why would, why would anyone not, you know, not do that? And, and I've just, I've done that enough that like, I really, I really believe those things and, and I don't want to say that I, that I do them perfectly by any means, but, but at least that, that I've, my life has been deeply impacted and changed by the ways that I've done that. [01:00:43] Speaker A: John, I'm curious too whether in my experience that, Whether your experience is similar in mind, that. That extends to ideas as well. Where ideas are presented, it's like, no, that's never going to work. [01:00:54] Speaker E: Right. [01:00:55] Speaker A: And shifting to what I call, you know, I, I always like to say I, I've never met an idea that I don't like to encourage. [01:01:03] Speaker E: Right. [01:01:04] Speaker A: And see whether it's of the spirit or not. [01:01:06] Speaker E: Right. [01:01:06] Speaker A: And that that can be a little risky too. [01:01:08] Speaker E: Right. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Especially with all some resources. Do you think that extends to ideas as well as kind of critical reflection? [01:01:15] Speaker B: I would say it does in all cases, except. But obviously you have to allow for the possibility that sometimes you can clearly see that something won't work. Work. But just because, you know, even then, like, honestly, Hannah revolutionized love justice by some ideas that she had about how we should be working seven years ago, and she was really adamant about it and felt really strongly, but also wasn't really putting it into the words that, that, you know, the, the group of us that were discussing it really agreed or saw and we almost had to pull out of her. And then by the time we had, we had got to the bottom of what it was. It was. And honestly, in hindsight, Hannah, you know, in hindsight, how obvious is it that that had to do with the way we track compliance of our core processes and, and how when we install core process, we also have to follow up it with reporting to make sure it's being used correctly. [01:02:10] Speaker A: What it brings to mind also is kind of the importance of staff. There's a great book called the Courageous Follower by Ira Chaliff and he talks about a very old book. He talks about the responsibility of followers and organizations to really be persistent in terms of kind of bringing things to the attention of the leaders. I think sometimes that's difficult. [01:02:36] Speaker E: Right. [01:02:36] Speaker A: But you know, if the leader creates a culture in which those kinds of things are acceptable, then the follower really does need to be persistent. [01:02:44] Speaker E: Right. [01:02:45] Speaker A: And so sometimes, like you said, John, I, I found that myself where I just can't get it through my head. I can't understand like why this would make sense. [01:02:54] Speaker E: Right. [01:02:55] Speaker A: But through persistence, right. Of people around me saying, no, no, look this, and trying to explain it to me different ways, all of a sudden the light, the light bulb went off. [01:03:05] Speaker E: Right. [01:03:06] Speaker A: So I think that persistence, right. Scripturally speaking, right. That was it. Widow knocking at the judges judge's door for justice. [01:03:14] Speaker E: Right. [01:03:14] Speaker A: I think that's also creating a culture where that's not only acceptable but encouraged, I think is important as well. [01:03:21] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think like, as John was talking in my head, I was like, yeah, I wasn't being logical in my explanation of why I was adamant that we needed to do that certain thing. And someone had given me feedback on my own blindness and weaknesses of. [01:03:39] Speaker B: I. [01:03:39] Speaker D: Had to learn how to speak John's language and I had to learn how to advocate and articulate in a way that John could understand. And I was getting really frustrated that he couldn't understand my own language and would want to short circuit. Why are we just not connecting on this? And I think it was Paul John who was, who was like, you need to really take the time and the patience to learn how to communicate in other people's languages because you will be far more effective if you're able to do that. And I think hopefully that's gotten better over, over the years. But I think that's also an important piece to the atimacy of, especially if you feel in your core and like, you know, feel really strongly about something and it just won't go away. But it's not clicking just yet. It could be on the side of the person that's also trying to articulate that of, okay, how can I speak in a language that they can really understand and resonate with? [01:04:42] Speaker A: That's really good, Hannah. [01:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it felt like love justice would have been built with all my blindnesses reflected throughout it. And so people are going to come along who are made differently than me and they're just, that they're going to have different perspectives on things. But remember, on all the ways that I'm wrong, I won't be able to see that I'm wrong. In fact, I've noticed if someone makes a valid, compelling argument against my own current position, my first the what happens is I don't understand it. And even though it's valid and it's compelling, it's like it's something in my psyche or maybe it's in human psyche that just fail to understand whatever. Understand what you're saying. What do you, I don't get it. You know, it doesn't make sense, you know, to say it doesn't make sense or feel it doesn't make sense. But yeah, I think we need to, we need to be very careful, especially when people that you trust are saying something that, that making a point that you don't happen to agree with. It's, that's time to really pay attention, I think, and slow down and really. Yeah, think carefully about, and seek hard to understand what they're saying. [01:05:48] Speaker D: So another off script question I have for you, John and David, feel free to chime in here too, is on the other hand, or maybe on the other hand of this conversation of hearing feedback, something that we've talked about, particularly in the expat culture, is someone coming in, poo, pooing the work and then getting out, coming in, who has this expertise that has this background, comes in, says this is not how I would do it, maybe give that feedback and then, you know, a year in or two years in, they're done. John, how do you reconcile that with then like receiving wise critical feedback? Can you unpack that a little bit? [01:06:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean again, you can't just go with or just simply believe everything that anybody says. But the thing that actually is ridiculous and the thing that is actually right, but I think it's ridiculous because my view is my blindness is involved. They look identical to me. So you just have to give time to people's views and of course, but I mean, obviously you have a limited amount of time, but part of it has to do with the trust that you build in people and sort of the, their believability on the topic and their experience with it. And Hannah, I think you, you had at that time you'd earned a lot of, a lot of credit, you know, but by your just, just by your character and your performance. And I think that was part of why we really paused to try to understand what you're getting. And you felt really strongly about it because I think it had to do with, I think it had to do with the way that you were made. That is particularly different than the way that I am made, you know, and, and so that was a particularly hard one for me to see and for you to articulate and live with and, and, but I think out of that, I think a lot of, I mean honestly changes came to love justice that really, really accelerated and significantly increased our impact. [01:07:45] Speaker A: You know what this brings to mind and it's just great to hear that that conversation that you all are having is that I think we are still operating under a framework where the default expertise lies in the expatriate. Whereas I would like to argue that default expertise should be regarded as lying with the locals and start have that as a starting point because, you know, it, I mean, it's hard to imagine, right, A local come to the United States and poo pooing everything that's coming under. But that's what it would be, you know, that's what it would be like. [01:08:21] Speaker E: Right. [01:08:21] Speaker A: And so just the same way that I think that in certain situations the default is, oh, they're poor, so they're spiritually poor. [01:08:29] Speaker E: Right. [01:08:29] Speaker A: I mean that, I mean really the default situation according to scriptures should be they're poor, therefore they're closer to God than we are. [01:08:36] Speaker E: Right. [01:08:37] Speaker A: So I think there, there needs to be a little bit of shift in the mindset. And so if what I would probably my default assumption would be that if an expatriate comes in and automatically kind of starts poo pooing, whichever way we define poo poo. [01:08:51] Speaker E: Right. [01:08:52] Speaker A: Poo pooing the work, it probably to me shows perhaps a little bit of a lack of experience or depth of framework in terms of appreciating the importance of local knowledge, indigenous knowledge, and also probably the importance of having local nationals being co leaders in everything. And that's. That I think is absolutely essential. I'm so glad you brought that up. [01:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And often, often the reason they do poo poo the work is because it's not the way we would do things. You know, in in and, and the reason it's not the way has to do with some really complex nuance. But. But actually very logical reasons have it grounded in local realities. But there's situations where, where we. I have a disagreement with a national about how to do something and what I found is most of the time it is that I don't understand a local reality or a cultural reality. But sometimes it's also because I have insight or there's, you know, that there can be. There's. It can go both ways. And it is a dialogue, it is a relationship and it is a really. I mean that, that love justice was in many ways born out of the 20 year dialogue between me and our Nepali staff and our lovejust staff and our Nepali staff about how to work. And we definitely came to an understanding that there is nothing that we as lovejust international can do better than local nationals. Except the one thing that we define as our core competency, which is our roles, which is searching out the people, places and tools too much. So we focus on developing these core processes and using data and other techniques to find places and people through whom to work. But then once you find those right nationals, and it is key of course, to find the right nationals, they know how to do everything better. And our role is quite limited. And that's been very much a key for us for our work. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really awesome to hear. I think that's so worth sharing as well. Perhaps in another article. That's really a really important insight. [01:11:04] Speaker D: I believe that we have another episode planned to kind of dig into that core competency of ours, John, that you'll just really get to share, share more about that. But as we come to close for today and for this episode, David, what do you see in the next generation of Christian leaders that gives you hope that we might actually see reformation in the field of charity? And what in your opinion would it take? [01:11:32] Speaker A: Thanks. So, so when we're talking about reformation of charity, I'm actually going to take that as defining and measuring kind of a, kind of an impetus towards that and, and wow, Hannah. I, I just see so much that encourages me. I, I think I mentioned I'm blessed to be a part of the Accord Network and I'm also blessed to chair the Accord Research alliance, the ARA Steering Committee. We have pre conference intensives every year and there is a hunger for this and you know, they're well attended. I just see people really wanting to do this well and that involves both organizations that are far along in this path and organizations that are new and just starting out and that have become convicted as John has pointed to, that yes, we actually do need to be doing this. And so where I see kind of for me the most intriguing is John's call to maximize impact and the call to calculate per dollar impact. That's. That's new, right? That's tough and that's quite complex. I think there are probably many organizations that probably need to take a few steps before getting to that per dollar impact. And we could talk more about that perhaps at some other time. But I think I am seeing a commitment by organizations to want to measure just not just outputs. [01:12:56] Speaker E: Right. [01:12:57] Speaker A: If we define it that way, meaning how many meetings you held or, or this or activities. But really wanting to measure kind of ultimately. [01:13:05] Speaker E: Right. [01:13:05] Speaker A: What did this lead to? We're actually engaged in a significant conversation about flourishing right now. How do you measure flourishing and well being, which really when you get down to it is really what this all is about. And the, you know, the Global Flourishing study just released its results. We're discussing, you know, what, from a Christian perspective. How do we take that, learn from it, speak into it. So I think there's a lot going on that I think is so important and John's article, I think is going to be a key piece in continuing to help convict organizations to move more and more towards both defining, measuring and maximizing their impact. So I'm really excited about that. [01:13:49] Speaker D: Yeah. Speaking of someone who's very adamant about an idea that one to permeate into this space is impact on the dollar, John, you end this article by saying that impact for the least of these is the only thing that matters in eternity. What's your vision of what could happen globally if the church fully embraced this idea? [01:14:18] Speaker B: I'd say the main thing that would be different is that millions and millions of people who are currently living under terrible circumstances would not be. And it's, it's kind of funny to say this, but not a lot would be different in the lives of. In our lives are. In the lives of a typical person living in the west if that happened. Those things happen. They're hidden away and we don't. We're not much affected by them. But it would matter enormously to those people. But it also matters to God a lot. He told us that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for. For Him. And whatever matters to God is what matters most in fact. So, you know, we often talk about the scripture in Isaiah 58 that talks about true fasting and it says, isn't it not this the kind of fasting I've chosen to loose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, break every yoke to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, to spend yourself on behalf of the hungry. And then there's these promises that, that follow that says then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear. Your righteousness will go before you. The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Your light will rise in the dark darkness and your night will become like the new day. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs at a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. And, and the last and perhaps most wonderful of all your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age old foundations. You will be called repair of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings. Those are just wonderful promises that in Isaiah that promised if we will engage in the true fasting. So what would that look like in actual practice if the church globally embraces the sacrificial effective love and action of Isaiah 58? Answer I don't know. Those promises, whatever they might mean or look like in practice will be fulfilled in the church and they're too wonderful to speculate. But you know, in the definition of who God is, it will be something more wonderful than any of us are capable of imagining. In a minimum, I think it would be something like the flourishing favor that God speaks of in Isaiah 50 or in Isaiah 61 and then also spending eternity unpacking what life changing impact for millions of millions of people actually consists of. [01:17:02] Speaker A: John, let me. That's beautiful. Let me, let me jump in and I, I might take us off script in the three minutes we have left just to, to. I would hate for there to be any kind of misunderstanding. What you brought to mind was also Matthew 25, right? The importance, right. The sheep and the goats and, and that right, that has eternal impact. We, we. We know right? This, this working to for the least of these at the same time. What about sharing the gospel, bringing people to saving knowledge of Christ? Because at least the way that that question was phrased, right, this is the only thing that matters in eternity. [01:17:41] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:17:41] Speaker A: I just wanted to give you, you know, just give me a chance to say. [01:17:46] Speaker B: I almost said like are you sure I said exactly that? Because it might have been. It's not the only thing matter. The gospel is a part is. Is a. But the love at the, at the back of the gospel at this really the center of the gospel just is not idle in the face of sufferings. It strives to reach out and help those. And it's a, it's an essential component of the gospel. And I think you know, in, in Luke 4, or is it Luke 4? Yeah, Luke 4, when Jesus just was tempted to the desert, he goes in the synagogues and he says for this purpose I have come. And he reads from Isaiah 61, which is the scripture that our, our name comes from. And he talks about the purpose for which he came. That the good news will be preached to the poor, that the captives will be set free, that the blind recovery of sight for the blind. And then he says to set the oppressed free. And all of a sudden he, he misquotes Isaiah 61, he brings in Isaiah 58 and then he says to unleash the year of the Lord's favor. But, and it's like this, the setting the captives free, the loosing the chains of injustice is. It's an essential component of the gospel purpose for which Jesus came. And ultimately I think it unleashes that fifth, that flourishing favor that I think he wants us to walk in. [01:18:59] Speaker A: So can I, can I cite you in saying that Jesus misquoted scripture? Is that okay? [01:19:06] Speaker B: All scholars are kind of agreed about it as far as I understand. [01:19:10] Speaker D: Well thanks guys. I, if anything like I think my prayer just is that this conversation would invoke just some curiosity and just change the way that we think about where we put our donor dollars, what organizations we choose to get involved in. If other organizations like getting inspired to think about the ways that they can do this, even better. I really, really hope that this would bless people in that way and just really thankful for your guys time and your wisdom. [01:19:43] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:19:44] Speaker A: Thanks. I really appreciate all the care and concern that you took for the questions. They were outstanding. A lot of fun to think and pray through. And John as usual, so good to learn from you. Really appreciate it. [01:19:56] Speaker B: Thank you David. So thank so thankful you could come on today and I'll talk to you soon. [01:20:02] Speaker A: We are grateful for the generous support. [01:20:04] Speaker B: Of the Love justice community. Please consider joining our family of donors. Learn more at lovejustice ngo.

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