NGO Strategies by Christians to Change the World

Committed Christians often wonder what they can do to “change the world”—to help make a difference in people’s lives and families, particularly in poor regions and in developing nations. NGO Strategies by Christians to Change the World offers a number of effective, “do-able” strategies that Christians can adopt to make a real difference in other people’s lives—“one village, one family, one person at a time.” Over four decades, its author, Dr. Warner Woodworth, a noted professor with a PhD from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has taught thousands of students with his social innovation courses at numerous universities around the globe. He has designed a number of new, nonprofit organizations, often called NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), through which Christian volunteers, whether they be students or working families, whether moderately well-off folks or the very wealthy, can use the hearts and souls and brains with which God has endowed them to help improve other people’s lives—to offer a “hand-up,” not a mere “handout.” Many of his university initiatives that started in Utah have led to hundreds of other schools’ developing similarly effective programs, including those at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, Southern Methodist University, Wharton, Harvard, University of Southern California, and Cornell. In turn, they have developed creative programs in social entrepreneurship, microfinance, and other strategies to counter human suffering in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He and the thousands of volunteers he has mobilized, working far afield from India to Peru to Native American tribes, as well as in Mozambique, Nepal, and the Caribbean, have helped local peoples to rebuild their villages, homes, schools, or medical clinics devastated by natural disasters; have shown needy families how to launch or grow small businesses to improve their living conditions over several generations (and often have loaned them seed money, or “microcredit,” which they almost always pay back); and have radically transformed traditional finance methods in some regions so as to maximize programs’ social benefits. In their life’s work, such associates show their commitment to God’s teaching that we seek to become our sister’s and brother’s “keeper” and “therefore, strengthen your [our] feeble arms and weak knees” (Hebrews 12:12). Professor Woodworth, as author and global change agent, takes readers on seat-of-the-pants adventures through on-the-ground work by a number of the 41 NGOs he has founded or grown on five continents. He proposes that many people need to adopt a fresh mindset; to acquire a new vision of how they can help their fellow humans, across town or across oceans; and to visualize a richer, more fulfilling alternative to their current life philosophy (a work that he calls “Imaginization”). Chapters include high-impact programs for international development such as building schools and creating employment for India’s leper colonies near Chennai, the faith to rebuild Thai villages after the 2004 Asian tsunami, a program to provide nutritious Grameen Danone products for malnourished Bangladeshi children, building an innovative Family Preservation Program to strengthen households in southern Africa after a civil war, alternative technologies for reducing human suffering in impoverished nations, Oglala Sioux tribal development using Circle Banking on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, Christian and Muslim microfinance strategies in Kenya… and much more. The book concludes with a “Call to Action” for all believers in Jesus to practicing their faith using Biblical scriptures to improve the world. It also features vivid photographs of village poverty and ultimate emancipation efforts through which volunteers work with the families whose lives they are helping to improve, as well as stirring personal stories that will inspire readers to take up this challenge to help others in need. Dr. Woodworth quotes luminaries in philosophy and religious studies whom he admires, including Albert Schweitzer: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found out how to serve.” He also liberally quotes apt biblical commandments that inspire and motivate readers to join this worldwide movement, in ways large or small, like this admonition in Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.” The book concludes with a stirring commitment from the courageous Apostle Paul, who declared, in II Timothy 1:7: “the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” This new volume prompts believers to demonstrate courageous love for others, especially for the world’s have-nots. A variety of international experts have described Professor Warner Woodworth as an influencer, social innovator, chief strategist, disruptor, renegade, visionary, community transformer, prophet to the poor, catalyst, and mover and shaker. He concludes his exciting new book, whose full title is NGO Strategies by Christians to Change the World: Making a Difference One Village, One Family, One Person at a Time, with this challenge: “We should never be afraid of changing the world. You and I—along with our families and friends, our neighbors and congregations—can draw on the powers of heaven to optimistically build a better world.”