Advancing Stewardship, Social Enterprise, Training

How does ASSET work?

1

One Titus Team supports...

2

Two Mobile Training Center staff members who train...

120

One hundred and twenty Grassroots Churches to start...

360

Three hundred and sixty Savings and Credit Associations that will reach...

People living in poverty every year.

35,000

ASSET Graphical Model Key

Titus Teams

Groups of Christian professionals, business people, and ministry leaders who are trained to encourage and financially support Mobile Training Centers (MTCs) in sustainable, biblically-based Microfinance With Education (MWE) initiatives on the front lines of poverty alleviation.

Mobile Training Centers (MTCs)

Deliver Chalmers Center training and curricula to Grassroots Churches.

Microfinance with Education (MWE)

The Chalmers Center’s cutting-edge, biblically integrated economic development curricula.

Grassroots Churches

Local churches that use Microfinance With Education (MWE) to minister holistically.

Savings & Credits Associations (SCAs)

Through the encouragement and support of Grassroots Churches, groups of poor people save and lend their own money to one another for business, life cycle, and emergency needs. Members also receive small business, financial literacy, and health training.

What is ASSET?

Advancing Stewardship • Social Enterprise • Training (ASSET) is a new strategic initiative designed to scale up Chalmers' international impact and reach in the Majority World.

Since 1999, the Chalmers Center has pioneered the development of holistic, church-centered Microfinance with Education (MWE) in the Majority World. In contrast to the traditional, credit-led approach to microfinance, the Chalmers Center promotes what's now considered a game changer within the microfinance space: the promotion of savings and credit associations (SCAs) in poor communities.

SCAs have become the cutting edge of microfinance because:

Eliminate the need for outside capital

Are user-owned and operated

Build on indigenous operated

Offer finance for emergencies, life cycle needs, and business investment

Are easy to implement; are self-replicating

Can operate in rural areas (where 70% of the world's poor live)

Are lower cost per beneficiary

Can reach the "extreme" poor

The Chalmers Center augments SCAs with biblically based educational training in small business, household financial literacy, and health topics.

To dramatically increase both the scale and depth of its MWE training, ASSET is utilizing a highly innovative distribution strategy: low-overhead Mobile Training Centers that sell MWE curricula, training, and mentoring to grassroots churches.

Each Mobile Training Center is run by two indigenous Christian leaders
whose passion is to equip churches in the farthest corners of their region to use gospel-focused microfinance with education as a means of holistic ministry.

For reasons of dignity, credibility, and ownership, it is crucial that these grassroots churches pay something for the training they receive. However, because these churches cannot afford the full training cost, their payments will be matched by scholarship funds raised and administered by Titus Teams – groups of five to nine Christian professionals, business people, and ministry leaders who will encourage and financially support this social enterprise.

This 3-year project to train churches in biblically based MWE plans to launch eight Mobile Training Centers impacting up to 100,000 households in the Majority World.

The Chalmers Center is presently seeking Christian individuals, groups, and churches interested in forming the first four Titus Teams. The first four teams will each partner with a Mobile Training Center in West Africa for a three-year pilot program.

Learn more

To support ASSET by forming a Titus Team with the Chalmers Center, or to learn more about this opportunity, please contact Gregg Burgess, ASSET Program Director: gregg.burgess@chalmers.org.