By Wendy Fehr, CAUSE Canada

Last year, a major donor to our small project, Mi Small Wef No More, roughly translated as I am Not a Small (Young) Wife Anymore, a project focused on ending early, child and forced marriage (CEFM), told me that they had been very skeptical of what the project might accomplish. (Thank you, Lord, they took the risk!) One of the lead health officers in Sierra Leone admitted that he laughed openly when he first heard the goal of this project.

Aimed at working with men to stop CEFM, our local team led the design and was galvanized by the project objective while everyone else remained dubious. That small, short 11-month project radically changed behaviours toward CEFM in 20 rural communities in Sierra Leone – decreasing the rate by 92%-95%. Follow-up evaluations conducted one year and then 18 months after the project ended indicated that CEFM was no longer widely accepted in these communities. Local government agencies were no longer laughing, but were instead eager to partner with us to help solve one of the most stubborn problems contributing to extremely high maternal mortality rates, among other issues, in rural regions of Sierra Leone.

What precipitated this significant change when other approaches had already failed? Clearly a convergence of right time, right place, and a new approach to solving a development challenge, among other variables, all contributed to this transformation. However, effective innovation—which necessitates a willingness to listen and learn—was not only critical to the project’s success, but is also crucial to remaining faithful and effective in our mission as a Christian faith-based organization committed to breaking the cycles of extreme poverty.

Through the Lens of Jesus’ Teachings (or why Jesus requires innovation in development work)

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus’ teachings exemplify empowerment, equality, community, collaboration and inclusion. Jesus is consistently drawn to society’s marginalized—women, people living in poverty, people who are sick. He befriends, serves and empowers them to address their challenges but also to lead, serve, and build the capacity of others.

As Christian development practitioners, we have no doubt that Jesus called us to serve the poor. As part of this mission, Jesus clearly models the need to serve and build the capacity of local communities to become agents of change. This is at the heart of most Christian faith-based NGOs. But, as part of this, we must consider how to recognize the uniqueness of each marginalized community, and how to incorporate these specific needs and capacities to enable each community to build solutions that are their own.

As good development practitioners—and especially as Jesus followers—we must actively include stakeholders who have historically been marginalized, ensuring they are heard with a spirit of solidarity and equality. The woman sitting across from us may not be able to write her name, but she understands better than anyone the forces that drive or prevent change in her community. While the current terminology for this is locally led development, it also necessitates us to practice innovation.

When we think of innovation, we often jump to thoughts of smartphones or life-changing vaccines. However, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, innovation can also be a change to something existing—a product, an idea, or a field. If our model for development is one of community and collaboration, as featured strongly in Jesus’ mission to change lives, then we must also be passionate about ongoing listening and learning – adaptive thinking – to help truly meet the distinctive needs and build the capacity of communities which is the very definition of innovation. 

Innovation requires a Christ-like Organizational Culture

I remember when we first conceived of the approach to ending CEFM in Sierra Leone. It went something like, “he read this and had this little idea and discussed it with some team members”. The truth is that everyone on our team – in Canada and our partner in Sierra Leone – has taken credit for critical parts of the ideation. It is amazing to listen to people recounting the project’s development and evolution. It is also incredible because the people who were involved in developing the initial project clearly feel they meaningfully contributed to the design. Throughout the project, this ideation continued as it launched, new stakeholders became involved, and the project continued to evolve through listening to various stakeholders. Everyone, in CAUSE Canada, Sierra Leone, and in local communities, contributed.

Jesus welcomed all—tax collectors, fishermen, and women—and all were valued for their diverse perspectives and contributions. The incorporation of different perspectives in development work makes it stronger. At the same time, humility, patience and servant leadership are critical, particularly as the power dynamics between being a Canadian organization with the ability to raise funding looms large over locally led teams with lived experience of the development challenges but no funding to help solve the challenges and then there are the power dynamics between the implementing partner and the potential beneficiaries. As development practitioners, we must actively and consciously seek to be servant leaders. Innovative organizational cultures thrive when leaders practice humility and empower teams that are comprised of a variety of stakeholders who all feel responsible and valued.

Innovation also requires an organizational culture of learning and willingness to iterate. It is encouraging to review successes, but painful to examine gaps. Our desire for transparency and the pressure from donors particularly, can make us reluctant to incorporate areas of weakness into our monitoring and evaluations. But when we look closely at gaps and problems, we also create opportunities to listen to the people closest to the challenge and to learn. This can lead to iteration that make us more effective. Like Jesus, we must fully value the contributions of the people we are serving – both the positive and the negative.

Innovation with a Purpose: Compassion, Justice, and Love

Some time ago, a colleague complained to me that in for-profit companies, innovation is a constant, ongoing process with expected failures on the way to having success and ultimately (or ideally) making the company a lot of money.

In non-profit work, organizations shy away from the risk that innovation and the potential for failure include. No doubt, it is also difficult to convince donors that they should be willing to take risks and, when we need to make changes to a project because we are learning, it is even more difficult to tell a donor, “That wasn’t working”. Yet, when the end goal is not to make money, but rather to act with deep compassion and a drive for justice, innovation is anchored in organizational values and provides an opportunity to better serve people with dignity and love. Jesus’ love disrupted the status quo and created new ways to engage people and empower them to be agents of change themselves. In this way, Jesus’ love provides a model of love that is dynamic and constantly seeking new and better ways to serve people with dignity.

Innovation can also serve to help safeguard us as development practitioners. Perhaps more now than ever, we are stuck in the gulf between what we want the world to be and what we see happening around us. Seeking innovation that is rooted in our values helps us hold onto hope and continue to see and seek a future where the suffering caused by extreme poverty no longer exists. Innovation is an opportunity to change what we have always done, to be responsive to the current situation, and rise to meet the challenge and have hope.

As a Christian faith-based development and relief organization, there is so much in Jesus’ teaching about how we should practice our faith in action. Approaching persistent development challenges through innovation not only helps come closer to solving them but also strengthens our faith-driven mission. Jesus does not just call us to compassion but to transformative action—action that demands we continually innovate, listen, and respond to the real and changing needs of those we serve.