2012 Winner: The WorkFaith Connection in Houston, Texas

WORLD Magazine and the American Bible Society are pleased to announce the national winner of the 2012 Hope Award for Effective Compassion: The WorkFaith Connection. The Houston, Texas, ministry received the most votes from WORLD readers in an online poll conducted in September. WorkFaith CEO Sandy Schultz (pictured at right) accepted the award on behalf of the ministry at a ceremony on Oct. 19 at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa. (see "A winning combination: Work and faith," by Marvin Olasky).

WorkFaith was WORLD’s South Region winner. Other regional winners this year, chosen from about 200 nominees, were Fathers in the Field, a Wyoming-based ministry that pairs fatherless kids with men who take them hunting, fishing, and bonding; The Root Cellar, a Maine group that shows refugees how to make it in America; Hope Academy, a classical Christian school in inner-city Minneapolis; and Samaritan Strategy Africa, which in Ghana and other African countries shows how a Christian worldview leads to economic development.

As the winner of the 2012 Hope Award, The WorkFaith Connection won a $25,000 grand prize. The four other regional winners received a check for $4,000.

In its Effective Compassion competition, WORLD looks for Christian, nongovernmental poverty-fighting programs that are not just evangelical and not just economic, but unite body and soul. We started this year with 200 recommendations from readers and initial research by internet and phone, and followed with journalistic visits that allowed us to eyeball 10 programs. Then we turned it over to you, our readers, who during the month of September voted for the program that moved them the most.

We encourage you to read the profiles and watch the videos of the five finalists. You may get ideas about what you can start or help in your own communities. You'll surely get a sense of how God is using His people.

WORLD looks forward to spotlighting more deserving ministries in 2013.

2013 Hope Award for Effective Compassion

WORLD is now taking nominations for poverty-fighting ministries to be considered for our eighth annual Hope Award for Effective Compassion. Please email June McGraw (jmcgraw@worldmag.com) by Feb. 14, 2013, with basic information about your nominee: Name, address, and web address, with a sentence or two explaining why you love it. Our staffers will then do extensive checking. Note: Last year’s nominees are in our database and eligible for reconsideration. Criteria: Ministries need to be explicitly Christian, local rather than national, and dependent on donations rather than government grants. The national winner receives a check for $25,000, and regional winners receive $4,000 each. To get a sense of what we're looking for, read profiles of previous years' winners and finalists. Also read how local groups that connect work and faith to charity provide lasting relief in "Hope for the poor," by Jamie Dean, from the Nov. 17, 2012, issue of WORLD Magazine.