Tearfund + local church = Transforming Communities impact

So, what are the impacts of Transforming Communities? (Does it really work?)

These are some of the results of our study:

• Building facilities: eight out of ten communities who go through Transforming Communities training, go on to build or improve facilities like schools, health clinics and access to clean water as a result.
• Change at scale: working through more than 57,000 churches (so far), Transforming Communities training is enabling change at scale – resulting in the building of approximately 19,000 roads (giving people vital access to infrastructure and helping keep them safe), 18,000 schools (investing in whole generations), 9,000 health clinics, and 19,000 places to get clean water being improved or created.***
• Empowered for positive change: in places where Transforming Communities training is taking place, 92 per cent of people state that they feel able to create positive change in their own life. And this might sound less tangible as a result, until we stop to realise that people who don’t feel able to do something, generally don’t. Building the confidence, belief, encouragement and strength to make a change is vital to actually making that change happen!
• Excellent return on investment: a small investment goes a long way with Transforming Communities. We’ve worked out that for every £1 invested by Tearfund and partners, with the skills, insights and tools the training provides, communities go on to contribute £7 of their own money, time and materials. Together, this creates up to £154 of value in social return. Watch this short animation for more of an explanation of how Transforming Communities (also known as CCT, which stands for Church and Community Transformation) has a return on investment of 1:21 in social value.
• Sustainable growth: the innovative training helps people develop self-sufficiency, so they become able to stabilise or grow their income year on year. People in communities with Transforming Communities training are more likely to invest in assets (like animals, land, homes or businesses) which can build a foundation for income generation, financial stability and a life beyond poverty.

A few Transforming Communities (CCT) statistics

After Transforming Communities training, people were:

•  59 per cent more likely to have worked on a shared project.
• 34 per cent more likely to have invested in assets
• 10 per cent more likely to take action to care for the environment
• 39 per cent more likely to raise issues with decision-makers

How does Transforming Communities impact the church?

While our focus with Transforming Communities is to support individuals, families and communities to work their way out of material and spiritual poverty, the training, run through local churches, has some encouraging knock-on effects for churches as well.

As communities experience transformation, it’s no surprise that people are drawn to the source of the positive change they see. As a result, a natural outcome of churches actively serving their communities and being the start of practical, visible transformation is that church congregations using the Transforming Communities training often experience growth.

People see the changes happening in their neighbours that they long for too, and they come to find out how to get involved.

In fact, it works so well that over three-quarters of Transforming Communities churches said they had grown in the past year.

In churches running the Transforming Communities training, we found:

• Collaboration and relationship building: more than twice as many Transforming Communities churches (59 per cent) collaborated on community projects with other churches in the past year compared to churches that hadn’t yet started the training (29 per cent). Working together means more can be achieved for the community as a whole.
• Increased generosity: Transforming Communities encourages generosity, with more than 70 per cent of Transforming Communities churches experiencing increased giving over the past year, enabling churches to be better resourced to respond to the needs of their communities.
• Community support: 98 per cent of our Transforming Communities facilitators recommend the programme, saying that it has enabled them to support their wider communities.
• Energy and encouragement: 83 per cent of church leaders involved in Transforming Communities say they feel energised about their ministry.
• Spiritual growth: 80 per cent of church leaders involved in Transforming Communities express that they feel they are experiencing personal spiritual growth.

A personal account of Transforming Communities

For John and Helen in Uganda, Transforming Communities means far more than statistics and impact statements in a web article. For them, the transformation is real.

Read their story here and find out how, inspired by the training, John and Helen have mapped themselves a way out of poverty (literally).

*This content contains findings from a previous study, with a smaller sample of countries included. While the ratio of investment return reflected in this article of 1:28 is true of the findings of that study, the updated ratio from the more extensive findings is 1:21, as reflected below. The percentage difference between CCT and non-CCT communities has also changed in the widened context.

**When all of this research is combined, the study results reflect evidence from: Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Burundi, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, Bolivia and Nepal.

***We asked Transforming Communities facilitators in eight countries what new or improved assets they have in their communities as a result of Transforming Communities. We multiplied the percentage of new and improved assets in these places by the 57,000 churches around the world that have participated in Transforming Communities training since 2018. Read here for a more detailed explanation.

Tearfund is a Christian charity that:

• partners with churches in more than 50 of the world’s poorest countries;
• tackles poverty through sustainable development;
• responds to disasters;
• challenges injustice;
• believes that an end to extreme poverty is possible;
• is a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

You can be a part of people’s stories of transformation.

Our big goal is to see 250,000 churches around the world acting as centres of transformation in their communities. Imagine the millions of lives this would impact?! You can join us in this:

💷 To get involved by donating, follow the link here.

🙏 To get involved by praying, sign up to weekly prayer updates here.