Human Needs Network began its work in the communities of the greater Charleston area in 1995 as Charleston Outreach through the support of a local association of churches. For over 15 years we have facilitated over 27,000 volunteers from around the USA to positively impact communities of the greater Charleston, South Carolina area. Our most visible success in this approach has been found through the utilization of over $1.1 million in grant funding on over 1,100 home repairs in partnership with the cities of Charleston and North Charleston. Most of this work has taken place within Spring and Summer each year – basically 3 of every 12 months.

In May of 2003 what was then Charleston Outreach began a major shift toward becoming an engager of local churches to more effectively respond to community needs across the entire Tri-County throughout the year. As a step toward this end the organization became a 501(c)(3) non-profit in June of 2005. Through this journey our mission came to focus upon creating and cultivating innovative, compassionate and sustainable collaboratives for the good of people and communities in need. A key driver in this transition was that we believed creating a local community impact movement of churches in their context could have a broader, deeper, sustained and restorative influence. 

The question to answer was, “how?”  To understand long-term engagement in the city our Executive Director began to insert himself into every community-concerned board, council, and conversation that he could.  The goal was to gain an understanding of as much of the community dynamic possible, and to discern how churches could fit into the gaps in service that existed amidst all the good that was already being accomplished by agencies in our community, government and public sector at-large. Two consistent themes emerged from the hours of conversations and meetings - the need for increased collaborative response to basic human needs, and restorative case management for those receiving assistance.  As a result, in May 2008 Human Needs Network was launched as an initiative.  This initiative has increasingly served to strengthen community capacity for response to human needs and enhance individual involvement in achieving a better quality of life.

The growth and effectiveness of Human Needs Network was so significant that an official name change took place January 1, 2011 – Charleston Outreach became Human Needs Network. 

The Human Needs Network serves as a catalyst for cultivating community-wide conditions that lead to breaking poverty’s grip. These conditions include jobs, transportation, housing, ending varieties of violence, food and nutrition, healthcare, access, quality education and so much more. Responding to the complexity of poverty is extremely overwhelming. When we are overwhelmed we tend to turn away or do enough to get by, neither of which is helpful. Human Needs Network is choosing to stay in the mix in order to constantly learn, challenge unhealthy and unsuccessful response systems, and foster collaborative response amongst all sectors of the community.

Probably the most difficult conditions that need to change are the perspectives and resulting attitudes of people responding to human needs as well as those of persons in need. This seems to have become our greatest focus over the course of this year. The place to start these changes is with the responders – those who are meeting the needs of their neighbors. There are several venues where the cultivation of restorative attitudes and behaviors are being catalyzed.

Human Needs Network serves as co-facilitator of the Safety Net Assistance Network, a large gathering of leaders and front-lines servants from churches, agencies, education, healthcare, business, and government.  This is one of the groups with whom teaching and training takes place every other month. The focus of these times has been to foster collaboration and a shift in focus from outputs (what you do) to outcomes (what happens as a result of what you do). 

Another regular cultivating venue is our Human Needs Response training for churches, helping to shift from benevolence committee approach to a Human Needs Response Team framework.  In a three and one-half year time frame, HNN has trained nearly 400 followers of Jesus through these sessions!

The “classroom” is not the only place of teaching and training, however. We are also working with varieties of leaders within communities to help facilitate community-wide collaboration in response to specific issues. For instance, we have been working with churches, agencies and business leaders in the John’s & Wadmalaw Islands area (Sea Island Hope) to develop a sustainable response to food and nutrition needs among vulnerable populations – seniors, disabled and children.We encourage all to remain teachable and highly observant throughout the process of developing and enacting these community responses. As a result, people change and communities are strengthened.