The Hope Building Model

“Healthy guidelines and frameworks guide most of our living, but what about our giving?”

Developing policies is not my favorite pastime, and yet so imperative to ensure that an NPO has guidelines and frameworks within which to operate, from our child protection policy to our finance policy. The same would be true in my parenting. I would happily have let my children do what they liked when they were young if I knew it was in their best interests. However, I knew that firm, healthy boundaries were needed. As they have grown, they have absorbed much of what they have been taught along the way (hopefully!) to enable them to be accountable as good stewards of what they have.

Healthy guidelines and frameworks guide most of our living, but what about our giving?

So often giving ends up a purely emotional response to a need, a lack. We give with our hearts and not our heads. We need to be reminded that it is a life we are dealing with. A big smile from the person does not mean that we have given in a healthy, transformative way.

Over the last 17 years of operating as the Bhambayi Project and now with growth, the ReStory Foundation, we have developed and refined our H.O.P.E. Building Model, a framework to help all charitable givers, whether NPOs, businesses, organisations or individuals, give in a healthy way.

A way that increases dignity, agency and long-term transformation. The letters stand for Honour, Outcomes, Potential and Empower. While we run thought-provoking workshops unpacking this framework through compelling story-telling and interactive learning, over the next 4 weeks I will be giving a taste of the meaning behind each of these letters. I do hope you find this helpful and empowering in your journey to give in a way that transforms lives- your own included.