This organization takes a unique approach to community development work by sharply focusing their efforts in the area of leadership development through intentional discipling – with the express goal of empowering poor communities to transform themselves instead of relying upon outside help to do it.
(Updated October 2018)
Discipling for Development (DforD) teams work to identify, disciple, and train leaders among the rural poor to be catalysts for community-wide transformation. At present, DforD teams are at work throughout Central Africa, with a new effort to expand their work into Southeast Asia underway. Drawing upon “asset mapping” programs and materials developed by the Chalmers Center (among others), DforD teams train community leaders in development skills such as collective visioning, identification of resources (both within the community and the region), discovery of underlying problems, anticipating and overcoming obstacles, project prioritization, shared responsibility for implementation, as well as for ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment. The end result is that each community’s capacity for self-generated, sustainable improvement in basic living conditions is built and strengthened. This approach is strongly relational, as opposed to ineffective quick-fix, a mass production models for community development.
Believing that leadership development is best done in the context of biblically grounded holistic discipling, DforD works through (and strengthens) the local church where one already exists, and plants the seeds of future churches in areas where the church does not yet exist. A further objective of DforD indigenous leadership development programs is for these new leaders to reproduce the process in neighboring communities for a ripple effect. This organization’s foundationally and functionally empowering work has the potential for significant transformative effect in a region at serious risk for being left behind.
(Discipling for Development became a ministry of The Navigators in 2007.)
Primary Sector: Comprehensive Community Development
Organization (DforD) Size: Small — programs are supported by cash contributions totaling
$1,000,000 to $3,000,000 annually
Key Webpages:
Approach: http://www.disciplingfordevelopment.org/About-Us/Our-Approach
For more on DforD’s approach, scroll to the “Five Phases” section of the document at http://www.disciplingfordevelopment.org/www_disciplingfordevelopment_org/media/Documents/What-is-D4D-May-2010.pdf?ext=.pdf
Financial, Transparency, and Accountability Information at ECFA (Navigators): http://www.ecfa.org/MemberProfile.aspx?ID=9894&Type=Member
Accord Network: Discipling for Development is a full member
ECFA: The Navigators is a Charter Member
Contact Information: visit http://www.disciplingfordevelopment.org/Home, contact http://www.disciplingfordevelopment.org/Contact-Us