Lupton Center
Here are our top 10 insights in how to avoid Toxic Charity. We’ve learned these lessons in the 10 years since Toxic Charity first came out! FCS Founder Bob Lupton shined a light on the ways that traditional philanthropic models were failing to have a lasting...
The Lupton Center exists with one goal in mind: equipping others to do holistic, place-based development work. Today, we want to give you an in-depth look at how one Change-Maker radically transformed the nonprofit she was working. Alongside her team, she swapped out...
Hey Change-Maker! You’ve come to this page because you love your neighbor and you want to make an impact. We want to affirm that. And we know that you want to avoid causing harm to your neighbors and your neighborhoods. That means avoiding Toxic Charity. If you’ve...
Our founder Bob Lupton published Toxic Charity ten years ago. After years of working alongside neighbors in Atlanta, he realized the ways that well-meaning people who wanted to help ended up causing harm to the very people they wanted to serve. His passion to help...
In October 2011, a transformative book hit the scene. Bob Lupton had penned Toxic Charity: How the Churches and Charities Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It. The book shined a light on the ways traditional charity models typically failed to alleviate poverty,...
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” ~ Desmond Tutu When I first ran into this quote, I laughed out loud. I didn’t laugh because the quote is funny, but rather...
“Program is our native tongue,” the missions pastor told me. Her words caused the gears in my brain to realign and click together. After meeting with countless groups who deeply desire to love and serve their neighbors, but struggle in many ways to do so, the metaphor...
Charity is often the result of, well, charitable feelings prompting someone to act on behalf of someone else. It seems obvious: Someone needs something. I have that something. I give them that something, and they now have what they need. Problem solved. What we are...
Every community of faith we have ever worked with knows, without a doubt, THAT the Bible calls us to respond to poverty, but very few of them have much clarity on what it says about HOW. Let me explain. The Good Samaritanization of Poverty Alleviation I never would...
How Neighborhood Development Disrupts Chronic Poverty Let’s get right to it: humanitarian organizations exist for the sake of… humans. Whether you’re doing nonprofit work, faith-based ministry, philanthropy, or volunteer work, your work is all about making life better...