The Total Community Intervention Concept is a major shift in the operation of most international non-profits. This concept will increase not only financial responsibility, but also the productivity of interventions that non-profits initiate in the developing world. This concept was envisioned in late 2008 by Defiant Missions founders Matt Turner and Stephen Dupuis.

Currently, specializations are the preferred method of community interventions throughout the developing world. For example, one non-profit specializing in water will work within a community for a specified time period of several weeks or several months. During this time, the non-profit will install a solution improving a community’s water supply or storage. Soon afterwards, the organization leaves and yet another organization may move into the community to work on women’s rights and teaching local trades. This change of organizations involves new faces, new lines of communication, and new relationships having to earn trust all over again. The same chain of events will happen repeatedly with the multitude of organizations entering the community to build a school or a medical clinic, to start a nutrition program, to harvest an organic coffee farm, to educate on sanitation and hygiene, to launch a microenterprise program, to incorporate a youth empowerment program, to initiate a solar electricity program, to drill a well, etc. In the end, no one in the community knows whom to contact when a problem or a need arises, such as a well pump breaking. Strong relationships were not built during the community’s development process, leaving the people with no real sense of empowerment; only the perception that it took 700 people on 23 different short-term mission trips to teach a community they could not help themselves; they needed someone else to do it for them.

Imagine this:

One Community, one organization, many years. We have a vision of becoming involved in communities for decades as we empower them to lift themselves out of poverty. Rather than specializing in a specific area, we are building a team of specialists in many areas, in order to help a community in all its areas of need rather than just one. Over the course of 20 years, we might do all of the things mentioned earlier, but the community will always have just one contact. They will play an active role, as the community decides what needs to be done. Our role is to provide assistance and knowledge through each community-led project. One of the greatest outcomes of this concept is the development of long-term relationships, as they are incredibly powerful in determining the future of individuals. It only takes one person to care, to encourage, to help and to love. You can be that one person.