The Belmont Foundation

I met with someone recently who wanted to know how we measure results at the Belmont Foundation. It’s not the first time I’ve fielded the question, in fact, it is being asked more and more in the non-profit world. The question is a marketing question; a production question. It makes one major assumption, that is, that people are products and their quality as people must be measured in order to validate our work.

I struggle with the question because my mind isn’t wired that way. I don’t know how, for instance, to measure things like a kid I worked with who met Jesus, stopped smoking crack cocaine and now lives an amazing life. I also don’t know how to measure a kid I know who died of AIDS on the streets of Hollywood, California. I sat with him a few weeks before he died and kept him company, and told him that I loved him. Then there’s a kid that we work with now who’s dad died last year form the effects of alcoholism. We spent Saturday with him and took him on a hayride and picked pumpkins and talked about school and soccer. That, too, isn’t measurable.

At the Belmont Foundation, we carry around a different measuring tape. The thing about our measuring tape is that it always shows the same result. At every mark it says, “created in the image of God.” Because we know that, we don’t go around measuring people. While we desire to see the quality of our kid’s lives improve, we know that only God has the power to transform hearts and lives and that we are ministers of love and support; signposts pointing to the heavenly father.

So, while we won’t promise that 100 children will meet Jesus this year, or that Zach will get better grades next semester, we do promise that we will do our best to be faithful to minister God’s love to the fatherless. That, we think, leaves a good deal of room for God to work out his vision in a person’s life and it allows us to see Him at work and to follow Him.