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

I’m going on a mission trip to Belize and this book is very helpful. Great read

When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is a book I set my sites on some time ago but thinking it may be a load of tosh I put off reading it. That is, until I received a verbal recommendation from a trusted relative I then decided it was time to dig in. As it turns out it is not a load of rubbish but rather a well thought out analysis of how we as individual Christians, churches, and parachurch organizations have failed, often miserably, at assisting the poor and alleviating poverty and how to address these issues.From the back cover we learn what we can expect from the book Foundation Concepts – Who are the poor? Principles – Should we do relief, rehabilitation or development? Strategies – How can we help people here and abroad?And that is the thrust of the work. These three points are fleshed out by the authors.The book begins with a short history of how we, primarily North American Christians, got to where we are now. What happened between 1900 and 1930 that changed how we address poverty alleviation and why we are failing miserably at addressing it? Why is a Biblical world view important to the methodology of helping the poor?Next we find out what the poor think of our efforts to help them. Its entirely possible we fail as we have no clue how other cultures, even sub-cultures within our own culture, think emotionally and politically of their plight. Failure to recognize these distinctions cause our failures in assisting the poor and therefore our evangelism. From our North American point of view are we really helping the poor or just making ourselves feel better by thinking we have? Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, with God and each other, not in financial or material wealth. Only Jesus can fix that.In chapter 4 we begin to get into the real meat of the work. Help comes in three forms according to the authors: Relief, rehabilitation, and development. Failure to recognize these three and implement them as needed or in correct order can do more harm than good. Many churches and organizations, for example, start and stop with relief. That is, providing immediate help for a need. Though necessary it falls short of providing for the long term needs of the person or persons in need. The authors flesh this out clearly and define what steps, relief, rehabilitation, and development, to take at appropriate times.Of chapter 7 I took special note. Short term mission trips (STM) have always left me wondering how effective they can be. How can a group of people who blow into town for only a week or two expect to provide any long lasting good? Indeed, they can be helpful as the authors explain however they are often not for several reasons the authors lay out. If only relief is provided the STM is doomed to failure. Development is often what is needed and that can’t be done in a two week STM. In helping the poor we must be in it for the long haul by helping the local churches and organizations in the area as necessary.The authors continue and conclude with concrete strategies to help the poor in numerous ways and especially spiritually. The issue is often, "Finding armies of people to volunteer one Saturday to paint dilapidated houses is easy. Finding people to love the people who live in those houses is extremely difficult" (pg. 210). We must take the time to walk and love these folks for the long term. Are you ready? Am I ready?This is a justifiable read. The authors are intelligent and experienced. Expert analysis, true life accounts, and clear strategies are provided. I wholeheartedly commend When Helping Hurts .

As someone who has participated in numerous short-term missions, served long-term in various capacities and also participated in several types of church-based ministries to the poor, this book was a true treasure-find!I now understand why I was so frustrated at the meager impact of much of what we have done.I especially liked the emphasis on helping people from the perspective of improving our 4 fundamental relationships: with God, with oneself, with others and with creation and the call to correctly discern between relief, rehabilitation and development as the the appropriate context.There are also plenty of practical hints and suggestions, and one of them I intend to experiment with next year is the 'circle of life', where several 'allies' accompany the person in need in their efforts to advance to the next level of flourishing.In short, I recommend the book wholeheartedly to anyone serious about helping others and especially those who would like to do so from a Christian perspective.

Generally, I found this book interesting and informative, although I did not agree with everything. I should start off by saying that there is a fair bit of theology wrapped up in the authors' arguments so if you're not already a Christian, this book probably isn't for you (or at least skip the first few chapters, which are pretty heavy on theology). At the same time, they don't have a lot of good information that would be applicable whether or not you accept the premise. I'm a Christian, and I didn't agree with it entirely, but still felt I learned a lot. The authors are economists with years of real-world experience in relief and development organizations. Plus, scanning the books notes/references, relatively few seem to be theological works or biblical studies. They're mostly economic studies or articles, some sociological works. So there is a lot of good, scholarly information that they present here that's worth exploring if you're interested in poverty relief efforts that actually work. You just have to wade through some theological reasoning that you may (or may not) fully agree with.So with that being said, I generally appreciated the authors' perspective and focus on what works rather than what suits a particular agenda. Let's be honest, poverty aid is a very politicized topic. The authors challenge some points of many different approaches to poverty relief and economic development. They don't talk much about government aid at all. Their focus is on what we as individuals and communities (specifically church communities) can and should be doing. That's fine for what it is. There is a tinge of anti-government sentiment. They don't come out and say directly that government relief efforts are uniformly harmful, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that they believed that. And I wouldn't agree there. But, as I said, they generally don't talk much about government aid at all, so just don't get this book expecting to learn about the most effective policy solutions. Get a different book for that and read this one for what it is.While the authors don't seem to be fans of government-driven solutions, they are definitely not the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type either. They do argue that the poor have some responsibility in participating in poverty solutions and occasionally, they seem to be somewhat patronizing (this is the main reason for giving four stars instead of five). But overall, I think their goal is actually the exact opposite: I think they want to challenge some of the widespread, generally well-meaning, but ultimately very patronizing and condescending views some of us have of the poor. Specifically, this idea that they are helpless and need us to come in fix their lives. In truth, what they need is multifaceted and complex, but a lot of it is just more powerful people and systems getting out of their way so they can access the resources they need to flourish. There's a lot more to it than I can sum up in a comment, but that was my general takeaway and I think the authors do a good job of pushing us rich people to see poor people as, well, people. People every bit as capable as we are of doing good things and being strong and self-sufficient. They don't lionize poor people. Nobody is perfect of course. They just argue (convincingly) that poverty is not solely or even mostly a result of just some people making bad choices. That's just not the reality.So they are not pro-government and not pro-individualism. They are also not entirely pro-charity. They are pro-the-right-kind-of-charity, as in, the kind that actually works. And this is where I found the most value in the book. I think they could have dived into more program evaluation research to support their points (based on my understanding of the research literature, there is strong evidence to support most of their points; they just didn't always reference it, relying more on stories from their personal experiences in relief and development work to illustrate their points), but I assume they knew that wasn't was going to be compelling to their main audience. Most people are not economic, sociological, or political scholars who want to know the ins and outs of how this all works. They're just people who want to help. And to that end, this book gives them tools to do that. Readers will walk away knowing a lot of things that works and things that don't. There is a lot of practical knowledge that people can implement. Mostly for program directors and people like that, but even just for people who want to volunteer a few hours a week or have some money to donate, what they learn from this book can help them make wise choices on where to do that.So I definitely recommend this book to any Christian interested in contributing to poverty relief. And even if you're not a Christian, you will still learn a lot and I don't think you would regret reading this book, even though you wouldn't agree with everything. Whatever your religious inclinations, definitely don't leave your critical thinking at the door (though that would apply to literally every book, not just this one) and expect to find things here that you don't agree with. Don't take everything at face value, but do let yourself be challenged.

I read this book some years ago and had forgotten I had it. I moved from Michigan to Louisiana and got involved with the homeless in our city. I am using When Helping Hurts as a learning tool for my coalition of dedicated volunteers so that we can be more effective in our work.

An excellent book for many reasons but two primary categories:1. Help personally to understand that some of the traditional ways of “helping others” doesn’t necessarily help and often hinders.2. Help organizations and groups to orchestrate an effective strategy for truly helping others both close and far.

This guidebook is very helpful for struggling churches trying to help struggling people.

Das Buch würde ich jedem empfehlen, der/die überlegt ein Hilfsangebot zu starten. Es hinterfragt die Motivation und Hervorgehensweise und gibt sehr gute Denkanstöße, wie Hilfe nachhaltig sein kann.

helpers feel cheated at last

This book has really challenged and changed the way I have thought about the poor not only in other countries but also my own. This book takes you to the thinking and feeling level of the poor, and really helps you understand where they are coming from. It gives you practical tools to work alongside and encourage the poor people in the community that you are working in. This book does not label people as projects, but instead encourages relational growth. The purpose is not about getting to the end goal, but building relationships and making them main participants in achieving that goal. I highly recommend anyone that is interested in helping the poor read this book!

I approached this book with some trepidation, having read other (secular) books recently that were quite critical of western aid and had left me a little disheartened about our efforts. I needn't have worried though as there is a consistent positive spin on every aspect of the authors' advice. It is true that there are times where the book draws one's attention to the negative impact of aid but in every case it provides a better alternative approach for the future.The book builds in a logical manner from their basic three-stage view of ministry (Relief, Rehabilitation & Development) and develops practical ideas alongside examples from the authors' own experience.If I had any criticism it would be that it is written entirely with a North American reader in mind and hence some sections, especially those focusing on practical examples within the local community, are not particularly (if at all) relevant to a UK audience. In general this is not a major problem, but I do find it a shame that they did not try to make it more widely applicable for the European/Australasian church (for example) as part of the recent re-issue.But that aside, if you are involved in any capacity (but especially leadership) of any church ministry to the poor, either locally or internationally, then I would sincerely recommend this as formative reading.

Great resource for short term missions.