A Movement of Change in Uganda

By Jonathan McFadden  | [email protected]

After spending 10 days making bricks, visiting slums and meeting business owners in Uganda, East Africa, members of Movement Mortgage’s executive team say they want to help create jobs and dispel poverty in the nation known as one of the world's poorest.

The nonprofit Movement Foundation may acquire farmland in Uganda to generate employment opportunities for its citizens, CEO Casey Crawford told a gathering of Movement employees just days after his first trip to Africa. The project falls in line with the mission of the Movement Foundation, which is to invest the company’s profit into efforts that bring light, life and hope to those who are in great need. 

“One of the best investments we’ve seen that we can make...in Uganda is creating jobs,” said Crawford, citing the nation’s troubling 80 percent youth unemployment rate and impoverished standard of living. “They wanted us to talk about entrepreneurship everywhere we went. Everyone’s a small business owner because there are no jobs.”

Uganda has long been ranked among the world’s most destitute countries. And while the country has made notable strides during the past 20 years, its economy remains volatile as its population continues to mushroom, according to the World Bank, a financial institution aiming to end extreme poverty.

Crawford and others on his leadership team — Chief Operating Officer John Third, Chief Talent Officer Chris Allen, Chief Brand Officer David King and Chief Investment Officer Brett McDonough — spent more than a week there in June, meeting with community and church leaders, playing sports with youth and learning the lay of the land.

They returned to America inspired to do more.

Crawford said he wants to offer additional outreach opportunities around the globe to Movement employees, and increase the frequency of those trips to once a month.

“My heart for this community is that we can help facilitate as many people having that life-changing experience as possible,” he said.

He went on: “It’s not specific to Africa. Three or four days in the Dominican Republic or Haiti, that’s a much more realistic trip for a lot of folks. We’re going to organize them corporately, make them available to you and invite you guys to go.”

There are a lot of ways to serve. We want to facilitate that for people.”

That means augmenting Movement’s global influence.

“In Uganda, the deficit is in large corporate structures,” Crawford said. “They have very few well-run scalable businesses.”

King chronicled the trip in more than 2,000 photos, some of which he posted on Facebook. More photos will be added soon. It was difficult for him to sum up the experience.

“Pick a word: Incredible, life-changing, it was all of those things combined,” he said. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what that trip means but I’d go back in a heartbeat and would take my kids back in a heartbeat.”

That’s not to say there weren’t bumps along the way.

Third discussed a close encounter with lions while on safari and, along with Crawford and King, admitted he was a tad apprehensive about venturing so far from home.

But he went anyway, and returned with no regrets. He recounted touring a village a day after listening to a sermon on John 6, the biblical account of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread.

About 200 people in the village gathered to eat a slaughtered goat and four chickens, he said. The guests were served first, and it seemed unlikely there would be enough for everyone.

But the food never ran out. “Not only did they feed all 200 people, they actually had four baskets of food left over,” he said. “When God’s there, He will provide.”

It was McDonough’s sixth trip to Africa. Each time he goes, the rapport he’s built with the people there becomes stronger.

“Even though we’re an eight-hour time difference away and thousands of miles away, we can stay connected,” he said. “We can be a Movement of Change internationally, as well.”

Making an investment in Uganda would expand Movement’s mission to love and value people even farther internationally. Already, the company partners with International Cooperative Missions (ICM) for quarterly trips to Guatemala.

Allen, who had also visited Uganda in years’ past, added, “community, 22 hours away, is still community.” He also offered an important reminder that Movement’s goal should be to serve others, rather than arrogantly fix every problem.

“We, as Americans, don’t go into Third World countries to solve stuff,” he said. “Don’t think we are going to go in and solve everything. They don’t need us. They had so much joy with so little.”