Missions

Objective One:

Through interaction with Together for Hope (TFH) and community-based organizations, those living in poverty in the focal counties/parishes will be able to deal more effectively with critical issues identified by the local community.

Measurable Goals

 

A. By 2008 CBF Global Missions and/or a CBF state/regional organization will have initiated relationships with individuals and groups that are recognized as agents of change within each of the focal counties/parishes. TFH will offer partnership and resource development support as appropriate (including local asset development.)

B. When ‘Goal A’ above has been accomplished in each of the focal counties/parishes, the following goals will be in effect for that particular county/parish:

1. Approach 

• Learning from the poorest counties in the country; changing with sensitivity our vision of alleviating poverty and relating to those in poverty, honoring them as persons of worth. 
• Building community through relationships between local community members and TFH.
• With direction from the related communities, TFH’s becoming a resource to engage churches and individuals in alleviating poverty. 
• Churches, organizations, mission groups, and individuals will make long-term commitments to these focal counties/parishes.

2. What We Hope Happens 

•  Within one to two years TFH and/or a local organization will start a capacity inventory, creating an asset map, and beginning to build bridges between the community members and available assets present. It includes getting to know the community. 
• Within three years identified community leadership will name as many as three goals based on the direction of the greater community, not a select group within the community. These goals will play a primary role in thhe way TFH collaborates with the community. 
• Within three years an organization within each of the focal counties/parishes will have a website (linked to CBF, TFH, CBF-related organizations, and others) that gives a detailed, county-wide list of desired resources and promising practices to implement a high quality TFH effort over time. 
• Within twenty years each of the focal counties/parishes will have two or more effective leaders or leadership groups who will facilitate ongoing efforts in harmony with TFH principles.

                     3. Long-term Hoped-for Byproducts

• Advocates in the focal counties/parishes will have identified goals for issues such as economic development, good education, medical services, adult education, and infrastructures (sewer and water systems, fire and police protection); and within twenty years will have achieved those identified goals. 
• Each of the focal counties/parishes will show improvements in such developmental areas as per capita average income, literacy rate, mortality rate, high school graduation rate, and/or other selected standards appropriate for the individual counties.
• Each of the focal counties/parishes will have a lower percentage of its citizens living at or below the poverty level.

Objective Two:

Churches, organizations, mission groups, and individual volunteers who participate in TFH efforts in the focal counties will gain a greater awareness of our biblical mandate with the poor and will be able and willing to implement what they have learned with the poor in their home communities.

Measurable Goals

1. By 2006 CBF will be continually identifying, producing, and distributing effective educational materials and learning opportunities that result in informed activity with the poor.  This will help partnering churches, other organizations, and individual Christians to develop awareness of rural poverty and its root causes and to engage these issues based on the biblical mandate of serving the poor. 
2. By 2006 CBF will help to build a communications network that will provide appropriate communication tools that will provide access to educational resources and volunteer opportunities related to Partners in Hope 
3. By 2011 500 churches and 15,000 individuals will have participated in ‘hands on’ volunteer/partnership activities in the focal counties.  These volunteer and/or partnership activities will provide opportunities for all participants to be transformed by their mutual engagement in the challenge of rural poverty and to experience a changed worldview and a changed view of God that will prompt them to implement what they have learned in their respective communities.
4. Churches, organizations, mission groups, and individuals will make long-term commitments to a community near them.