Plant With Purpose

Plant With Purpose works at the nexus of poverty and environmental degradation to transform the lives and land of farming communities through environmental restoration, economic empowerment, and spiritual renewal. Founded in 1984, Plant With Purpose is a Christian nonprofit that catalyzes the talent and ingenuity of farming families to transform entire watersheds. Of people living in poverty worldwide, up to 85% live in rural areas (OPHDI, 2014). Most struggle to grow enough food to feed their families and send their children to school. Plant With Purpose equips impoverished farming families to change their circumstances and land and to live with hope. We do this through sustainable agriculture training, land restoration, savings-led microfinance, and local leadership development.

Plant With Purpose is breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and deforestation by transforming it int

Goal One: Expand and scale our organization in each of the countries in which we are currently working AND expand our work into at least 2 additional countries over the next 5 years.

Goal Two: Grow and scale the delivery of "best of class" field-based programs focused on our three overarching global program objectives: Environmental Restoration, Economic Empowerment, and Spiritual Renewal.

Goal Three: Expand new key donor segments. In particular, we anticipate growing our access to donors interested in supporting our global tree-planting initiatives within the subwatersheds we seek to restore.

Plant With Purpose is profoundly committed to building the leadership and capacity of our team worldwide. We set aside resources each year to bring all of our Country Directors together with our Senior Leadership Team to plan, discuss, and transform our ability to fully achieve our mission. During the global COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted strategically with resounding success to a 5-day, 6-hour-per-day global Zoom conference, called our International Partnership Planning Conference with over 75 staff from 9 countries involved. The event was a huge success. Also in the past year, members of the Senior Leadership Team participated in formal D.E.I. training curriculum made available by the Fieldstone Leadership Network. Plant With Purpose also sets aside one hour every week for the entire US-based staff to participate in "Tuesday Training", an organizational commitment to leadership, technical, program, and administrative systems development.

Like many in the U.S. our team transitioned to working from home and meeting on Zoom. Internationally, the families we partner with are some of the most marginalized people in their communities. We launched a Readiness and Resilience campaign to fundraise specifically to help our partnering families during COVID-19. Here are some stories of how communities were poised for resilience and how that continues to sustain them throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In Thailand, many Purpose Group members do not speak or read Thai, which can make it difficult to get information. Our local team has a multi-ethnic staff that can translate information into many local languages and enable community volunteers to share it locally while we cannot travel. - Village loudspeakers play recordings of health messages in tribal languages - Local radio stations share translated messages - Posters are printed and placed in communities Each community will lead their own safety processes, but we support them by making sure that they have accurate and up-to-date information. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, community marketplaces are extremely important for rural communities, as both a source of food items and income for vendors. Since many African countries have enforced lockdowns, the halt in market activity has cut many people off from a vital source of food and income. However, savings-and-loan groups have helped families in DR Congo build an average of 2.5 months expenses in savings. It’s difficult to emphasize just how important an accumulation of savings is during a time of crisis. This greatly reduces the threat and strain of the pandemic on many of our partnering families. In Haiti, through joining Purpose Groups, many of our Haitian partners are able to expand their businesses, including Denis. Denis expanded his tailoring business to create school uniforms. Now, he’s been busy making face masks for his community so they can conduct essential tasks while remaining safe.