Our Programs

Our Aim

Elevate’s compassionate care programs focus on select relief and development initiatives that meet both critical, immediate and longstanding, systemic needs within vulnerable communities.  Our strategic commitment to transformational development ensures we extend aid and assistance only in a manner that leads to, and is connected with, a longer-term transformational development strategy embraced by the partner agency who distributes and the local community who receives our assistance.

These opportunities and programs are adopted based upon the principles and practices of effective compassion. We are not interested in extending compassion in ways that encourage dependency or require ongoing relief assistance.

Our programs also are designed to nurture a greater passion for and commitment to service among those for whom this is an initial volunteer experience and to provide an ongoing, highly accessible venue for those who desire to actively engage in a lifestyle of service with a global impact.

Where We Work

Elevate’s commitment to serve the most vulnerable leads us to work in the “hard places” and among “the least of these” – those who are most often forgotten or neglected because of the nature of the challenges facing them or where they reside.  We recognize that many in our world are in need and that, regrettably, poverty abounds. But our calling and commitment is to transformational change among the most vulnerable in our world.

This leads us to serve beyond natural disasters and even the “familiar places” of need to those places where longstanding, systemic poverty, injustice and hunger exist.

We also choose only to serve in those places where we have identified and entered into partnership with a locally-based, long-established, well trusted non-governmental organization that possesses a mature understanding of the community it serves, has credible relationships and partnership agreements with local leaders and is fully invested in transformational development strategies that build local capacity to achieve self-sufficiency.

Initially, our work focuses on serving vulnerable communities in the following countries:

Afghanistan
Democratic Republic of Congo
Ethiopia
India
South Sudan
Sudan
Syrian refugees

Our Approach  

Elevate pursues a three-fold approach to its program development designed to mobilize and engage local volunteers and global partnerships to foster vibrant communities among the most vulnerable. Our highly intentional three-tiered approach allows for a progressive level of engagement offering a variety of avenues for tens of thousands of local volunteers to meaningfully engage in community service that has a transformational impact – at home and around the globe. 

Highly Motivating and Easily Accessible Opportunities for Volunteers of All Ages – Tier One

Do you and your corporate team, civic organization or church group have a few hours you would like to invest to help change the world?  Are you looking for a fun-filled, high-impact, team-building community service opportunity for your group of 10 – 1,000 volunteers?

If so, Elevate is ready to engage your group in a fun, high-energy, truly memorable, team-building community service opportunity.

We invite you to sponsor one of our highly popular meal packaging events to feed the hungry at home and abroad, partner with our school back pack program or join the Bucket Brigade to serve families devastated by natural disasters right here in the Midwest.

These programs are designed to encourage a widely diverse population to engage in fun, meaningful, memorable and easy volunteer service opportunities that provide direct relief benefit to vulnerable communities.  These opportunities require minimal levels of time commitment and skill and no ongoing responsibility. As such, these programs offer a front door for volunteers as individuals, small groups or large corporate teams to engage in local service that has a global impact.

Global Partnership Engagement Programs – Tier Two

 Do you want the thrill of empowering widows, orphans and the marginalized to emerge from poverty, hunger and hopelessness?  

Are you looking for an opportunity for your company, organization or family to become more directly engaged with serving vulnerable communities as they move along the path to self-sufficiency?  

If so, Elevate encourages you to adopt and help resource one of our transformational development initiatives that provide clean water, food security, business enterprise, improved health and education.

Elevate’s global engagement programs invite volunteers – organizations and individuals – to a deeper level of commitment by adopting and resourcing projects and initiatives that require ongoing, sustained engagement with vulnerable communities and partners working alongside them to build the indigenous population’s capacity.

These are not “one and done” projects, but rather opportunities for volunteers to engage and remain engaged in helping to marshal the relationships and resources to bolster the capacity of the local population to move along the transformational development path to sustainability.

These opportunities allow for more direct engagement by learning something about the specific communities being served, their challenges and needs and directly engaging in service at home and abroad that mobilizes partnerships and resources to advance projects that aid vulnerable communities in resolving key challenges critical to achieving sustainability and self-sufficiency.

Practically speaking, this may involve resourcing the provision of a new well for clean water, providing seedlings, fisheries, heifers or chickens to promote food security or providing support for microfinance initiatives designed to spur business development for vulnerable families.

The opportunities are endless and highly customizable to community’s needs. Elevate’s goal is simply to establish connections and relationships between volunteers here and the vulnerable abroad – and to facilitate great things happening when transformational development partnerships emerge.

Advancing Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship – Tier Three 

Do you and your team enjoy thinking outside of the box?  Do you dare to tackle big problems with creative and daring solutions – solutions that truly change the lives of entire communities?

If you are motivated to find innovative solutions to persisting social problems, then Elevate wants to engage your social entrepreneurship talent on behalf of the vulnerable communities we serve.

Our most strategic, transformational opportunities focus on identifying and engaging social entrepreneurs (both indigenous and international) who lead social innovation discoveries and strategies that directly enhance the capacity of vulnerable communities, on a large scale, to address and resolve persisting community challenges.  These programs engage professional experts who bring professional competency and technical expertise as they provide hands on training to build local capacity.

Elevate’s focus on innovation and social entrepreneurship especially seeks to capitalize on the growing number of corporate volunteer service programs that deploy their talented teams to redress global challenges and advance shared values.