Professor Andreas Discusses Combatting Poverty at National Conference

Serving others is a topic that comes up often in Business Leadership classes with Professor Marc Andreas, and a recent event helped him generate fresh ideas for these discussions.

Rethinking Charity: Building Civil Society was a late-April conference, hosted by the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, that aimed to assist religious and nonprofit leaders in addressing social challenges in their communities.

“The goal was really to start thinking differently about how we do charity,” said Andreas, Kuyper’s associate professor of Business Leadership and the program’s director.

He added that this conversation is important because individuals and organizations often center their charitable efforts around the transfer of goods and resources – food and clothing pantries being some examples – which can sometimes create unintended dependence.

“We often get stuck on giving people material resources instead of finding other alternatives, like more opportunity and support, to help them work their way out of poverty for good,” Andreas noted.

Over two and a half days, attendees from all over the country gathered at the JW Mariott Hotel in Grand Rapids to participate in engaging presentations, hone their leadership capacity and network with accomplished thinkers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines.

Sessions covered themes like economics, philosophy and theology, and provided resources and models for bridging the gap between aspiration and implementation.

Attendees left with a stronger framework for ensuring that their institutions and programs express charity grounded in truth. Andreas said he is looking forward to using concepts from Rethinking Charity with his students, particularly in his course on managing nonprofit organizations.

“It was interesting because I already teach some of the theories we discussed, but I was able to go deeper, and some of the materials we used are going to help me in my classes,” he said.

He also found the conference personally valuable.

“As a treasurer and head deacon at my church, these principles are helping transition our clothing and food pantry to a community relationship building ministry,” he added.

Participating in events like Rethinking Charity is an important part of teaching at a college like Kuyper, he continued, because it better prepares professors to help students cultivate a biblical, Reformed worldview.

“It was a great educational opportunity. It gave us access to national experts who help us bring those ideas into our classrooms,” Andreas said. “These ideas are things that our students can benefit from through us as faculty.”