Courage, Resilience, and Faith: Pursuing Peace and Prosperity in South Sudan

Communities previously in conflict join hands and pray together in Gogrial State.

Communities previously in conflict join hands and pray together in Gogrial State.

Dear friends,

 I hope your week is off to a great start and you are taking some time to reflect on the opportunities for each of us to do good this week.

Pursuing Peace in South Sudan

Earlier this month, church leaders from around the world issued a call to pray for peace in South Sudan, the world’s most fragile state.

Five Talents has been honored to work in Sudan and South Sudan for over ten years. With the support of friends like you, we’ve walked alongside churches and tens of thousands of families to share hope and create new opportunities.

Serving Displaced Communities

Most recently we’ve expanded our programs among displaced communities, serving families who have fled their homes due to conflict. The United Nations has given us permission to do this work in UN camps. The courage, resilience, and faith of these families and new entrepreneurs is incredible.

Please enjoy this short video we prepared with our partner from World Concern:

And please join us in praying for peace, reconciliation, and healing in South Sudan.

Until next Monday, blessings be with you,

Dale Stanton-Hoyle
Executive Director, Five Talents USA

What does it mean that Five Talents just earned a platinum rating?

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I enjoyed meeting Five Talents friends in North Carolina a week ago. They shared important questions about the effectiveness of our work compared to others who work in micro-finance. This made me reflect on how we leverage the gifts of our funding partners like you.

Leveraging Your Charitable Gift

The best way to look at leverage is to look beyond simple percentages and consider cumulative impact. If I give a dollar to an organization I like, and they get 90 cents of that to those I want to help, at first I might think that’s great. But if I learned that a lot of my gifts were going, year after year, to buy basic commodities, and that the people I want to help are just as dependent on subsidized goods as they were ten years ago, I wouldn’t feel too good about that.

By comparison, when my wife, Lynn, and I give to Five Talents, we know most of the money will go to pay trainers who live and work in poor countries around the world. The work of those trainers is leveraged as they teach volunteer facilitators who offer their time to support local savings groups. Then, in each group the members put their own money into “the box”, leveraging local capital, so that their friends and neighbors can take out loans and become new entrepreneurs. When those new business owners pay pack their loans and put their profits into the lives of their family members, they further leverage those profits and improve the livelihood of the whole community.

And when about 80% of participants graduate out of our programs, they break the cycles of poverty and dependence. Now that’s effective leverage.

So, why did GuideStar just give us a platinum rating?

Until next Monday, blessings to you. . .

Dale Stanton-Hoyle,
Executive Director

Read more about what makes a charity great.

A Picture on the Wall

Meet Salome, a Tanzanian Entrepreneur

Meet Salome, a Tanzanian Entrepreneur

We had a guest in our Five Talents office last week. When I asked her what kinds of questions she and her friends might have about what we do, she pointed to this photograph on the wall. She reflected out loud on the woman’s life. “I wonder how she spends her days with her sewing business? Look at those pictures on the wall behind her. I guess she designs clothes for the people who come to her shop. Apparently, she doesn’t just repair clothes that are old and worn out. I wonder how she learned how to design. And I wonder what kind of dresses she makes.”

I was so impressed with the way this young woman in our office was able to instantly connect with the spirit of one of our entrepreneurs. It helped to remind me that each one of these children of God is not just a new business owner. Each person who participates in our programs has a story, a family, and a future.

It made me feel grateful to be a part of these people’s lives, as you are, too.

World Mission Sunday is February 4th

Dear friends,

We have some terrific resources for you.

Feb 4th will be World Mission Sunday in many of your churches, so we’ve prepared free resources you can use in groups or by yourself. These materials include a variety of stories about work around the world with the poor, including both huge challenges and how these people are doing exciting things.

Please take a look at this link for World Mission Sunday.

I can’t take credit for developing any of these great materials; I can only tell you they are worth the time to explore them.

-Dale Stanton-Hoyle

There is Still Time to Give in 2017

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Chairman's Message:

This is the last week to make tax-deductible donations for 2017!

Make a gift to Five Talents today and help promote peace and prosperity in 2018.

Your gift empowers women and men with mentorship, training, access to savings and loans, and business development. As the chairman of Five Talents, I’ve had the chance to travel this year and see how whole communities are transformed by our programs. People truly are moving from dependence to dignity.

There is still time. Make your tax -deductible year end contribution to Five Talents now.

It’s easy to give online, over the phone, or by mail. Click below to learn how:

Thank you for your partnership in ministry. May you find continual joy during this Christmas season. God bless you,

Jim Oakes
Board Chairman