What is the Best Way I Can Help? The Three Pillars of Generosity
Maximize your impact with Many Hands by committing your Time, God-given Talent, and managed Treasure. Discover how your holistic investment fuels measurable, long-term transformation in Haiti and Abaco.
So, you’re ready to jump in?
The best way you can help Many Hands is by engaging the three biblical pillars of generosity: Time, Talent, and Treasure. This is not merely an ask for support; it’s what Henri Nouwen describes as an invitation to ministry and mutuality. We invite you to invest your Treasure not as an expense, but as Randy Alcorn’s Treasure Principle describes: transferring your earthly resources into an eternal investment.
Your unique skills (Talent) and volunteered hours (Time), combined with your finances, create the powerful, lasting, relational infrastructure necessary to drive our mission of “Transforming Together to be Love in Action in a Broken World.”
The Tendency to Get Stuck
Over the past few weeks, we’ve wrestled with some challenging, necessary questions—from rejecting the “lost cause” narrative in Haiti to proving our financial integrity. Now, it’s natural to turn that challenging focus onto ourselves and ask, “With all that complexity, what can I personally do?”
It’s easy to feel like only a massive financial gift or a move to the mission field would actually make a difference. That feeling of paralysis—wanting to help but not seeing a clear, accessible path—is common. We’ve felt it too. That’s why we rely on a time-tested framework that shows every person, no matter where they live or what they do, has a distinct and necessary role to play in the restoration work.
2025: The Fruit of Trust (Your Return on Investment)
We aren’t looking for vague promises; we are asking you to plug your specific resources into an effective, measurable, results-driven mission. The reality of our work is that every hour, every skill, and every dollar has a direct line to transformation.
When we use our Time, Talent, and Treasure in the ways that God has intended, incredible, even miraculous, results can follow. Here are examples of just some of the ways God is moving through Many Hands because of the generosity of our donors.
Ignite Generosity
- Organizational Scale: Our consolidated budget grew to over $9.0 million, reflecting the massive increase in the scale and scope of our work.
- Local Engagement: Our Iowa communities invested over 26,000 volunteer hours in our thrift markets, demonstrating the powerful local involvement that fuels our global reach.
- Strategic Partnership: Developed a new partnership with the T.K. Foundation, providing over $1.1 million for home rebuilds in Abaco.
Build Community
- Holistic Care & Health: Over 33,000 meals consumed, 110 babies born, and 4,234 health checks performed through the First 1,000 Days program.
- Community Restoration: Built 5 new homes, rebuilt 87 homes, and reconstructed 2 church structures, managing over $1.3 million in construction resources.
- Education & Dignity: Assisted with education for over 1,200 at-risk children, maintained a 93% attendance rate at Many Hands school, and graduated 63 adults in literacy programs.
Live Impact
- Economic Stability: Employed 143 international staff and produced 191,300 paper beads for Vi Bella, creating sustainable income.
- Global Connection: Welcomed 509 individuals to Camp Abaco, including 224 Impact Participants to be love in action through community.
- Spiritual Impact: We evangelized to 3,032 people, with 165 accepting or restoring their relationship with Jesus Christ
Personal Commitment in Action: One Couple’s Commitment
The greatest stories of transformation happen when an individual makes a full personal commitment of their Time, Talent, and Treasure. Take the story of one dedicated couple.
It all started with an act of Time. The wife went on an Impact Trip to Abaco in August 2023. She returned later that fall to fill in as a temporary teacher at Central Abaco Primary School, leaving a piece of her heart with the island. In the fall of 2024, she voluntold her husband that he was joining her on the next trip. He was reluctant, having had a difficult experience on a prior mission trip years ago, and went in skeptical. But God was moving from the start. By the end of the week, the husband, too, had left a piece of his heart on Abaco.
Just a month after returning, he answered a strategic call regarding Treasure and Talent. We needed a skid loader for construction projects in Abaco and a heavy-duty truck and trailer to pull it. After one generous donor covered the skid loader, the husband not only offered to purchase a Dodge 2500 himself, but he also leveraged his professional relationships (Talent) to share his “why” for Abaco with a friend. That conversation led to the friend sourcing and donating the specialized trailer.
This generous commitment of Time and Treasure didn’t stop there. Less than a year later, as the “bumpy” road to Camp Abaco required additional transportation, we needed two passenger vans for teams and an SUV for missionary use. We reached out to this same partner for connections. To make a long story short, his introduction, shared from his heart, helped us find the vans and encouraged his professional contact to offer to donate half the cost of the vans. On top of that, the couple decided to donate their personal SUV, a Dodge Durango, to Many Hands. This incredible blessing—a commitment of over $35,000 (Treasure) in vehicles, countless hours of coordination (Time), and leveraged professional connections (Talent)—is the true picture of personal commitment. It shows that generosity is not just writing a check; it is a holistic investment of all that you are.
What This Means for Donors
Your dedication—whether through your Time, Talent, or Treasure—is the personal commitment that secures and advances the Kingdom of God’s work. The needs in places like Haiti and Abaco are not simple, and neither is the solution. Following Henri Nouwen’s vision of mutuality, we don’t view you as a source of funds, but as co-laborers and indispensable partners in ministry. Your gift is your ministry.
This is how your personal commitment works in action:
- Treasure (The Ultimate Investment): As Randy Alcorn taught, giving is the safest and surest way to transfer temporary wealth into eternal, maximized treasure. Your financial gift, supported by our efficient operations, directly funds transformation that produces lasting spiritual and physical results.
- Talent (Professional Skills): When you use your professional consultation (e.g., legal review, construction planning, accounting) to strengthen our internal efficiency, you directly free up Treasure (money) to go directly to the frontline.
- Time (Volunteering): When you invest your time (whether volunteering in a thrift store or on an Impact Trip), you participate in the mutual relationship of service, generating the passion and credible stories that fuel the rest of the mission.
Your holistic investment means you aren’t just sending money; you are securing the entire operational pipeline that delivers Love in Action.
So What is the Best Way to Help?
The most effective way to help Many Hands is to personally commit to integrating the three biblical resources you already possess: your Time, your God-given Talent, and your managed Treasure. Your holistic commitment is the key to countering despair with hope and chaos with Love in Action in Haiti and Abaco.
Give to Sustain the Mission: Provide immediate funds for food, medicine, and education – donate here.
Sign up to Volunteer: Come alongside our team to make a difference locally – sign up.
Join an Impact Trip to Abaco – More Info
Tyler Kamerman
Chief Development Officer, Many Hands
Many Hands is an Iowa-based nonprofit dedicated to transforming together, to be in action, in a broken world. We desire to walk alongside the community and empower individuals and families by focusing on education, agriculture, leadership, safe structures, youth programs, and early childhood development. Together, we can rebuild lives and restore hope, one person, one family, one community, at a time.
