Serving People in Poverty With Wisdom and Compassion – by Nathan Mayo

Serving people in need requires more than good intentions. It requires understanding, relationships, thoughtful planning, and a willingness to continually evaluate whether our efforts are actually helping.

During the 2026 FCFI Conference, Nathan Mayo shared practical principles for churches, nonprofits, and ministries seeking to serve people experiencing poverty in meaningful and lasting ways.

Mayo spent nine years in the U.S. Army before earning a degree in economics from West Point and moving to Haiti to work with a network of churches and schools. Through those experiences, he developed a passion for helping ministries become more effective in serving others.

Today, through True Charity, Mayo works with churches and nonprofits to equip them with practical approaches to poverty alleviation. The organization works with a growing network of ministries across the country, learning from practitioners who are serving people in their own communities.

Moving Beyond the Ministry Struggle

Mayo described what he calls the “ministry struggle bus”—the reality many small churches and nonprofits face when they are managing numerous responsibilities at once.

Fundraising, programs, volunteers, administration, and urgent needs can easily consume an organization’s time and attention. Meanwhile, important questions about whether programs are actually working may be pushed aside because they do not seem urgent.

Mayo’s goal is to help ministries address those important questions and develop programs that genuinely contribute to people’s well-being.

He emphasized that these principles are not limited to the United States. Whether a ministry is serving in a local community or internationally, the underlying principles can be applied across different settings.

Understanding Poverty More Deeply

Mayo used homelessness as one example for understanding poverty. Although homelessness represents only a portion of people experiencing poverty, he described it as an extreme situation that can reveal how people become disconnected from the resources and relationships that provide stability.

He encouraged ministries to look beyond financial circumstances and consider the broader relationships and support systems surrounding an individual.

A person may need housing, employment, food, transportation, or financial assistance. But those needs are often connected to deeper issues involving family, friendships, church involvement, work, personal responsibility, and community.

Providing a physical need may be necessary, but it does not necessarily address the reasons someone reached that situation in the first place.

For Mayo, this leads to an important distinction: poverty is not only about material deprivation. It can also involve significant relational and social isolation.

Six Principles for Effective Ministry

Mayo outlined six principles that can help churches and ministries develop stronger approaches to serving people in poverty.

1. Take a W’Holistic Perspective

People are more than their immediate physical needs.

Mayo emphasized that human beings are created in the image of God and have social, physical, emotional, moral, and spiritual dimensions.

This means ministries should look beyond simply providing food, clothing, housing, or other material assistance. They should seek to understand the whole person and identify the underlying circumstances contributing to their situation.

Instead of asking only, “What does this person need today?” ministries can also ask, “What is happening in this person’s life, and what is contributing to this situation?”

Mayo encouraged ministries to use broader assessments, develop partnerships with other organizations, and track people’s progress over time.

2. Engage the Right People

The second principle is to involve the people who are closest to the situation.

Mayo described this concept as solving problems at the most local level possible. Before an institution steps in, ministries should consider what the individual can do, what family members can do, and what friends, churches, or community members can contribute.

He shared the story of a man named John who entered a rescue mission after years of being disconnected from his family. During the intake process, John mentioned that he had a mother but had not spoken with her in many years.

A staff member helped locate her and made the phone call.

John’s mother had believed that he was dead. Reconnecting with her became an important step in his journey out of homelessness.

The story demonstrated how easily existing relationships can be overlooked when organizations immediately assume that professional or institutional assistance is the only solution.

Mayo also emphasized that everyone has something to contribute.

He shared an example of a woman who could not afford vegetables from a community garden. When asked what she could contribute, she initially said she had nothing. But she eventually explained that she served as the prayer coordinator at her church.

The ministry invited her to pray for them in exchange for the vegetables.

The lesson was simple: people experiencing poverty should not be viewed only as recipients. They have gifts, abilities, relationships, and experiences that can contribute to their communities.

3. Build Genuine Relationships

Mayo’s third principle is relational.

Effective ministry is not simply about providing services. It is about building genuine relationships with people.

He encouraged ministry leaders to work toward relationships that become mutually beneficial rather than creating permanent dependence.

One important part of this is building connections across socioeconomic boundaries.

Mayo discussed research on “economic connectedness,” which looks at whether people with lower incomes have meaningful relationships with people from higher-income backgrounds.

Strong connections across socioeconomic lines can create opportunities, relationships, knowledge, employment, mentorship, and other forms of support.

He encouraged Christians to become those bridges.

That requires vulnerability, honesty, and genuine friendship—not simply professional interactions between a service provider and a recipient.

4. Establish Developmental Goals

Mayo distinguished between relief, rehabilitation, and development.

Relief is appropriate when someone is experiencing an immediate crisis. But not every situation is a crisis.

Development requires people to participate actively in their own growth.

Rather than simply doing things for people, ministries can ask questions such as:

Mayo encouraged ministries to help people become active participants in their own transformation.

He also described the principle of “self-selection,” where people are given an opportunity to take a meaningful first step. Those who are ready to participate can then receive deeper investment and support.

This approach does not mean ignoring people who are not ready. Instead, ministries can continue offering a dignified next step without creating long-term dependence.

5. Use Evidence-Based Practices

Good intentions are important, but ministries also need to ask whether their programs are actually producing the desired results.

Mayo challenged ministry leaders to move beyond simply counting how much they distribute.

The number of meals served, beds provided, or supplies distributed can be useful information, but those numbers do not necessarily tell us whether people’s lives are improving.

Ministries should also measure outcomes.

For example, Mayo described a simple way of measuring hope by asking people to place themselves on a ten-rung ladder representing their current quality of life and then asking where they expect to be in five years.

Tracking changes over time can help ministries understand whether their programs are contributing to meaningful progress.

He encouraged ministries to develop a clear theory of change and regularly evaluate whether their methods are producing the outcomes they intended.

6. Think Systemically

The final principle is systemic thinking.

Not every problem exists solely at the individual level. Families, communities, institutions, economic conditions, policies, and cultural patterns can all influence people’s circumstances.

Mayo encouraged ministry leaders to look for patterns affecting multiple people rather than assuming every problem is simply an individual issue.

He used the example of property rights in developing countries and housing policies in American communities to demonstrate how systems can sometimes create barriers to opportunity.

Understanding those systems allows ministries to consider whether there are broader changes that could benefit an entire community.

At the same time, Mayo encouraged humility when attempting to address systemic problems. Solutions should be tested carefully because efforts intended to help can sometimes create unintended consequences.

Serving the Whole Person

Throughout his presentation, Mayo returned to the importance of seeing people as whole individuals created in God’s image.

Effective ministry is not simply about meeting a physical need. It involves relationships, purpose, responsibility, community, work, faith, and hope.

He encouraged churches and ministries to ask not only what they can give people, but also how they can walk alongside them as they develop their own capacity and pursue meaningful change.

This approach can also transform those who serve.

When Christians enter genuine relationships with people who are different from them, they may discover that they have much to learn as well.

Mayo shared that serving others can challenge Christians to consider whether they have truly brought God into every area of everyday life—not only the major decisions, but also work, relationships, finances, communities, and ordinary activities.

Becoming More Like the Kingdom of Heaven

Mayo closed with a reminder from the book Becoming Whole:

“It is not our objective to make Uganda like the United States or to make the inner city like the suburbs. We wanna see all of those places become a little bit more like the Kingdom of Heaven.”

For churches and ministries serving people in poverty, that provides a broader vision.

The goal is not simply to make people more like us or to reproduce one particular culture or way of life. It is to help people experience dignity, meaningful relationships, opportunity, responsibility, hope, and the transforming love of Christ.

By taking a holistic perspective, engaging the right people, building genuine relationships, establishing developmental goals, measuring outcomes, and thinking about the systems around people, ministries can become better equipped to serve others faithfully and effectively.