Author/Economist: Many Charities Unintentionally Hurt The Poor

11 May 2011

Economist and author Brian Fikkert told an audience assembled at Christ Episcopal Church in Tyler to guard against doing so much for the poor that it disempowers them.
                                 Photo By Patrick Butler/Resonate NewsBy Raymond Billy with Patrick Butler and Jo Meadow | ResonateNews.com

Economist Brian Fikkert told a Tyler audience on Tuesday that many benevolence programs intended to help the poor are demoralizing them.

Event organizers estimated about 100 nonprofit leaders, professional ministerial  and lay leaders assembled at Christ Episcopal Church were told that effective anti-poverty programs are those that invest in the human resources existing within impoverished communities. The biggest hurdle, Fikkert said, is getting the poor to realize that those resources are resident — both in their neighborhoods and in themselves.

Fikkert — a professor of economics at Covenant College and director of The Chalmers Center for Economic Development, which seeks to empower those living in poverty — said reaching out to underprivileged people is a Christian imperative.

“What's at stake here is not just poor people; what's at stake here is the integrity of the Gospel,” Fikkert said, referencing Deuteronomy 15:7 which admonishes followers of God to “not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.”

But, Fikkert also said that well-meaning people must recalibrate the way they think of poverty in order to deal with the problem from a systemic standpoint.

“We tend to define poverty in America as a lack of material means,” said Fikkert, who co-authored “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor … and Yourself” with Steve Corbett. When it comes to alleviating poverty “getting a proper diagnoses is fundamental to getting effective treatment,” Fikkert said.

“If we misdiagnose the problem, our efforts” to help the poor “might hurt them.” The core of world problems are broken relationships with God and each other, he said.

Citing a recent World Bank survey asking people living in poverty how they characterized their conditions, Fikkert, a Yale-educated economist, said most of the world's poor think of poverty in terms more likely to be defined by a psychologist rather than an economist.

One Moldovan woman responded to the survey saying, “We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of,” while a Latvian woman described “a sense of low self-esteem.”

Those sentiments reflect the challenge in marshaling intrinsic means that poor people must use to broker positive changes in their lives and their habitats, Fikkert said. At one point, Fikkert drew upon his Christian outlook on mankind, saying humans were created in the image and likeness of God. With this in mind, he said Christians should be particularly troubled by the loathsome attitudes that many poor people internalize.“The image of God is lying in the gutter,” he said of the way indigent people disregard the concept of a caring deity.

“You can't solve this with money,” Fikkert said, referring to what he called people's broken relationship with God and lack of understanding of the value with which he created them. “Material poverty is rooted in things far more profound” than the material, he said.

The Rev. Brian Brandt, executive pastor at Grace Community Church, said he throughly enjoyed the two-hour talk brought to Tyler by the Fourth Partner Foundation.

“There were ideas presented representing revolutionary cutting-edge approaches, coupled with ideas currently being talked about in the American church,” Brandt said.

One of those cutting-edge ideas is the definition of poverty itself, he said, and a possible underlying attitude of superiority accompanying it.

“The idea that we (the American church) can come into any world community with an attitude of superiority is simply silly when you think about it,” Brandt said. Fikkert's ideas “challenges our perceptions of what makes a successful believer. We definitely need to change our approach.”

Travis White, missions pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church, said Fikkert's message resonated with him.

“This is the way the church should operate,” he said. “Once we realize we're all broken and in need of a savior, we should work from that perspective as we seek to meet the needs of those less fortunate.”

Linda Lesniewski, woman's pastor at Green Acres Baptist Church, said Fikkert's perspective on “giving more — with the right perspective” — was welcome.

“He was saying the hard things for American Christians to hear,” Lesniewski said. “It was challenging to listen to because it’s hard not to feel guilty for the wealth we have. We have to be very careful how we steward what we have. At Christian Women's Job Corps, we want to empower women in a way that builds self-esteem.”

Dan Bolin, president of Christian Camping Internationa, said “I was really pleased with the deep and serious discussion about new methodologies that can significantly help the poor.”

Fikkert said that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is needed to regenerate poor people emotionally and psychologically as well as spiritually. After that regeneration has begun, the poor should be helped in a way that does not cause them to feel dependent on those offering assistance. Help should unlock potential that poor people and communities have within them. This can be done, Fikkert said, by training the poor to hone their skills and by using financial programs that teach people how to save and lend their own capital and foster development. The Chalmers Center — a Christian organization supported by the like-minded Covenant College — conducts training in these practices.

Dewayne Manning, an elder at Glenwood Church of Christ, said he was impressed by Fikkert's holistic approach to tackling neediness.

“It's a different take on poverty amelioration. I'm glad to have heard his insights,” Manning said.

Fikkert also stressed that for anti-poverty programs to flourish, a change of heart is needed from many of the humanitarians who run them.

“The first step in poverty alleviation is repentance” he said of those who believe that their financial resources, alone, can lift people from destitution. “It is Jesus Christ who reconciles people to right relationship with God, self and others.”

Visit www.whenhelpinghurts.org for more information