How do you tackle a social issue as immense as poverty? A miraculous chance meeting between four powerhouse social innovators helped change the trajectory of preexisting poverty solutions and is continuing to make waves across the world for reducing poverty.
Joseph Grenny, author of Influencer, and Todd Manwaring, Ballard Center founder and director, were at a mountain resort in Utah discussing what more could be done to address poverty when they happened to run into Martín Burt, founder of Fundación Paraguaya—a microfinance organization committed to helping people get out of poverty—and Dave Peery, Peery Foundation President, who was there working with Burt.
Burt had recently created a revolutionary program that helped a rural school become self-sufficient by running its own agricultural business. Students at the school alternate between working in the business and attending class, learning how to effectively apply skills learned in class to real life and empowering them to break out of cycles of poverty.
Burt began thinking about what he could do to not only alleviate poverty but to help people move into the middle class. Burt was pondering this when he ran into Grenny and Manwaring. This sparked what would become a valuable partnership for the Ballard Center and Fundación Paraguaya. With the help of Ballard Center students, Burt and his team at Fundación Paraguaya launched Poverty Stoplight, a program using 50 indicators that help individuals evaluate their current situations and then set measurable goals for key areas such as health, income, and housing.
Participants in the program are shown three images for each indicator that demonstrate the difference between extreme poverty, poverty, and non-poverty.They can then mark which best represents their current situation with a corresponding red, yellow or green dot to help visualize their starting point.
Families can recognize areas of improvement and feel motivated and guided on how to take the next steps themselves, developing economic self-reliance over time. Manwaring and BYU students worked for several years on Poverty Stoplight and even traveled to Paraguay, helping Burt and Fundación Paraguaya develop this system. Now, more than 200organizations have implemented Poverty Stoplight in over 20 countries.
"Experience has taught us that once the family decides to leave poverty, all we have to do is help them channel that energy because the solutions are within the human spirit and within the potential of every poor family in every country of the world,” says Burt.