When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself

by Steve Corbett

If you have relationships with the materially poor in your target community, conduct a focus group discussion to determine their assets and needs. Try to discern if relief, rehabilitation, or development is most needed in this community. What specific services are lacking?

BEGINNING WITH ASSETS, NOT NEEDS

many Christian community-development experts have discovered the benefits of using “asset-based community development” (ABCD) as they seek to foster reconciliation of people’s relationships with God, self, others, and creation.

ABCD puts the emphasis on what materially poor people already have and asks them to consider from the outset, “What is right with you? What gifts has God given you that you can use to improve your life and that of your neighbors? How can the individuals and organizations in your community work together to improve your community?”

ABCD starts by asking the materially poor how they can be stewards of their own gifts and resources, seeking to restore individuals and communities to being what God has created them to be from the very start of the relationship. Indeed, the very nature of the question—What gifts do you have?—affirms people’s dignity and contributes to the process of overcoming their poverty of being. And as they tell us of their gifts and abilities, we can start to see them as God does, helping us to overcome our sense of superiority; that is, our own poverty of being.

Churches and ministries using a needs-based approach are often quick to provide food, clothes, shelter, and money to meet the perceived, immediate needs of low-income people, who are often viewed as “clients” or “beneficiaries” of the program.

Once the assets have been identified, it is appropriate to then ask the poor individual or community the questions: “What needs can you identify that must be addressed? What problems do you see that must be solved? How can you use your assets to address those needs and to solve those problems?”

Of course, as the process proceeds, it may become clear that the individual or community does not have sufficient assets to address all of the needs. If and when such needs become pressing, it is then appropriate to bring in outside resources to augment local assets.

poverty alleviation is about reconciling people’s relationships, not about putting bandages over particular manifestations of the underlying brokenness.

discussed a small-business class that I helped to initiate in a slum in Kampala. Why did people come to this class? Was it because they really valued the training, or was it because they believed that jumping through this hoop would increase their likelihood of getting some sort of financial assistance from me? I believe some people sincerely valued the training, but I also know that a number of the participants stopped coming when they became convinced that I was not going to give them any money. Their initial, enthusiastic attendance at the classes masked their true motivation: they wanted money, not training.

lost. Colossians 1:16–17 teaches that Christ is holding all things together. He does not allow the effects of sin to completely destroy the inherent goodness of the assets that He created. In the midst of the decay, the assets persist—albeit in distorted fashion—because the Creator of the universe makes them persist.

And finally, the good news of the gospel of the kingdom is that Christ is not just sustaining all things, but He is reconciling all things. One day all of the assets—natural resources, individuals, neighborhood associations, schools, businesses, governments, etc.—will be liberated from their “bondage to decay” (Rom. 8:21). Jesus Christ created, sustains, and is redeeming assets in poor communities. As the body of Christ, the church should seek to do the same.

The message of the gospel was so freeing and empowering to them. For the first time they understood that they were created in the image of God and had inherent value and worth. Even if others saw them as being from an inferior tribe, the Creator of heaven and earth did not see them this way. They had gifts and abilities and could be stewards over their lives and communities, and in doing so they could glorify God Himself!

We need to look for ways to give money that builds up local organizations and that truly empowers the poor. My eight-dollar gift failed to meet this standard.

Asset Mapping Made popular by John Kretzmann and John McKnight of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, Asset Mapping has become a common approach to community development work in the United States.1 A better term for this approach might be “asset inventorying,” since the strategy primarily uses individual or group-based interviews to catalogue the assets in a particular community.