It’s Good Not To Be Alone: Nonprofit and Ministry Leaders Find Community at the True Charity Summit
COLE EDMONSON
Marketing Specialist
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When Charity Is Lonely
If you’ve been at this very long, you know charity done well can be lonely.
Discouraged by the same clients returning for handout after handout, you may have read books such as When Helping Hurts, Toxic Charity, or The Tragedy of American Compassion and decided it was time to teach people to fish rather than keep handing them fish. You may have even felt the joy of helping them discover dignity and worth as they leave government welfare — and you want to see that kind of development take off across your city.
Or, you may be a philanthropist or policy thinker excited for the opportunity to join with others to amplify resources, focus efforts, and see more and more people flourish.
And yet … no one else in your town or county ‘gets it.’ Other ministries, nonprofits, and leaders around you keep taking the government money and expanding the handouts — and you end up feeling like a minority voice no one listens to about what effective help for the needy really looks like.
I encourage you to take heart. You are not alone. What if I told you there is a growing national collective of practitioners, thinkers, and supporters who are committed to teaching people to fish like you are — and they gather every year to support each other in that kind of charity work?
Come Join Us — and Find Your People
Each spring, hundreds from across the country gather for the True Charity Summit, a national conference of committed, like-minded charity givers (many of whom are True Charity Network members) to encourage and equip each other to embody compassionate charity. The Summit began in 2019 as a local training and networking event in southwest Missouri but has grown to over 250 attendees — and now takes place in larger metropolitan areas for easier attendee access.
Highlights from the 2025 Summit in Huntsville, Alabama included:
- Three days filled with first-rate content and networking
- Five general sessions featuring four keynote speakers
- Six learning tracks featuring 30 breakout sessions
- 20 exhibitors’ booths
- 271 total registrants
- 31 states represented
Our keynote speakers were Brian Fikkert (co-author of When Helping Hurts and Founder of The Chalmers Center), James Whitford (Co-founder and CEO of True Charity), Megan Rose (CEO of Better Together), and Jules Glanzer (Senior Consultant at The Timothy Group).
Breakout sessions included:
- Outcomes identification and measurement, to help quantify your impact and steer needed mid-course corrections
- The implementation of challenge to honor the dignity of those you serve and unleash their capacity
- Program design and examples of innovative models to discover next best steps for your programs
- Fundraising and volunteerism essentials to effectively rally your community to care well for those in need
As True Charity’s Marketing Specialist, I had the personal opportunity to interview over a dozen attendees at this year’s Summit. Over and over again I heard, “It’s so good to not be alone” and that attendees felt they had finally found their people.
“The highlight for me … is the relationships that you form, the access to people, to professionals, and to people who have experience … and then being able to continue those relationships after the Summit.”
Nancy Eckhardt
Executive Director of Christian Job Corps of Madison County
Huntsville, AL
“The Summit has been for us just like a shot in the arm, a rejuvenation of energy of new ideas, of new connections, of new relationships that we can call on in a week or a month, of different organizations around the country who have been doing it longer than us and that we can learn from.”
John Ramthun
Executive Director of 6:8
Sauk City, WI
Award Recipients
A Summit highlight is the recognition of organizations doing an outstanding job of effective charity work. Specifically, our Waypoint Awards honor True Charity Network organizations that have made significant strides on their path to effective charity through use of True Charity principles. Thus, they serve as worthy examples (or “waypoint markers”) for others on the same journey.
This year’s winners (pictured with True Charity Co-founder and CEO James Whitford) were:
Highland Park Christian Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Good News at Noon, Gainesville, Georgia
The Excellence in Charity Award recognizes an organization with an outstanding commitment to empowering, relational, and results-driven charitable practices. This year’s winner was:
The CARE Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Will You Join Us Next Year?
Summit 2025 was certainly one for the books. And while it has come and gone, network momentum continues to grow — which means real, lasting change is happening for more and more people! Next year, I hope you’ll join us so you can add your voice to the growing number of attendees eager to share how the Summit has had a massive impact on their organization.
“The Summit is a place where you find like-minded people in one place who are doing your work. And it’s not about just dumping information. It’s a network of people who connect. … So you get inspired and go home, still connected because if you join the network, connection is what members do regularly. So come and attend the conference. It’s worth it.”
Lyndon Azcuna
Executive Director of LifePlan
Niles, MI
If you’ve been at it alone and are ready for a turning point, pencil in the True Charity Summit on your calendar for Spring 2026. Already planning to attend? Share this with someone who needs to join you next year. And, don’t forget to remind them they don’t need to wait an entire year to get connected — they can join the True Charity Network today!
