Love Must Act exists to do what its name implies — to act on love — in the belief that acting on love brings people together in a spiritually transforming way. It is in acting on love that we find love. It is in acting on love that we find life.
OUR MISSION
We bring together communities in North America and communities overseas to build schools where they are most needed and least accessible. Employing a holistic approach to educational excellence, our projects empower local communities rather than fostering dependence. Our model is the Holy Cross School in Grahamstown, South Africa, and our aim is for each of our projects to be transparent, measurable by objective standards, and sustainable into the future. Explore our site to learn more about our unique model and how you can get involved.
What makes us different is the how of our plan. Other groups with similar goals raise money to build schools. We build partnership first and partnerships then build schools. That is the Love Must Act "value add" — moving beyond altruism to love. We are about education, but we are about more than education. We are about being transformed by love and transforming the world through love. It’s all about relationships. As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has said, “Everything is built on relationships — real relationships where people actually get to know each other. And then shared ministry and programmatic kinds of things emerge out of that relationship."
The end is love among human beings.
Our IDENTITY AND relationships
Love Must Act is a program operating under the auspices of Hands in Healing, a California non-profit corporation with 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status. Donations to Love Must Act are tax deductible. Our roots are in The Episcopal Church, a United States-based religious denomination with a presence in 17 countries around the world and an even wider global footprint through the 80-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, of which The Episcopal Church is part. The Episcopal Church has a strong record of supporting its international partners in many ways including through its international development agency, Episcopal Relief & Development. The Episcopal Church also has a remarkable network of schools, both in the United States and abroad, with a reputation of excellence, which provides a readymade community of common interest having significant gifts and experience to offer. Our founder and president, Bishop Stacy Sauls, served from 2011-16 as Chief Operating Officer of The Episcopal Church.
In building relationships between communities in the North America and those overseas, we partner with other Churches of the Anglican Communion, including the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. These churches have deep presences in their communities and extensive social-service footprints, including those areas most in need of educational opportunity. Their credibility is built on a foundation of trust established over generations. And, unlike many outside institutions that engage in development work, churches continue to have a presence in communities long beyond the time at which most development projects end and their sponsors depart, which provides the opportunity for long-term sustainability
We also have relationships with a variety of other Christian denominations and religious and secular organizations with global networks. As a result, we enjoy a broad reach into the communities we serve, built on a foundation of trust and respect established over generations.
HOW IT WORKS
Our partnerships for sustainable education begin with relationship. Working through The Episcopal Church and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion, we recruit and prepare a community in North America — a congregation, diocese, or another group — to form a relationship with a similar community overseas. We bring the communities together to get to know each other, including in person, investing time and effort to build genuine friendship and trust around the principle that each community has riches to share with the other, be they spiritual, financial, or something else. Everyone brings something others need.
Working with the partnered communities, we then identify and develop a project, normally the building and operation of a school in the overseas partner community, that will be the focus of sustainable-education partnership. We assist the American partner community with raising the necessary funds to complete the project, and provide technical expertise to carry out the project through an asset-based approach, which uses the pre-existing skills and strengths of the communities in order to foster local ownership, self sustainability, and freedom from poverty. In all aspects of the work, we emphasize measurable deliverables for programmatic success and spiritual transformation in both of the partnership communities. Click here to learn more about the specifics of our project model and how our partnerships work.