About Us

Providing those in need with opportunity, dignity, and hope so they can possess the tools for change in themselves, their family and their community.

Our Mission

World Hope International (WHI) is a Christian relief and development organization working with vulnerable and exploited communities to alleviate poverty, suffering, and injustice.

Organizational Goals and Objectives

Our vision is to provide those in need with opportunity, dignity, and hope so they can possess the tools for change in themselves, their family, and their community. WHI supports all people regardless of ethnicity, gender, race, or religion.

WHI uses market-based and community-driven enterprise solutions to empower, protect, and build resiliency through innovative, environmentally conscious, and transformative projects. We deliver our programming through strategic local and global partnerships to create a maximal, sustainable impact.

Core Values

WHI programs are developed within the framework of four core values:

  • Transformation: Individuals and communities are transformed into ones with dignity and wholeness through a spiritual, social, economic, and physical change.
  • Sustainability: Lasting impact is realized through locally sustainable programs.
  • Empowerment: Development occurs to the extent local communities, leaders, and individuals are empowered to affect change.
  • Collaboration: The means of development are demonstrated through partnering with the local community, like-minded organizations, and individuals.

The needs present in today’s world are complex and deeply interconnected. Our program areas complement one another and act as a comprehensive response to poverty.

Accepting the opportunity to invest in others

Our Story

The roots of World Hope International (WHI) can be traced back to the vision and heart of our dynamic founder, Jo Anne Lyon. From a humble start in 1996, God has blessed Jo Anne’s journey to serve those crippled by poverty. Her hope:

To empower the poorest of the poor around the world so they can become agents of change within their communities.

What began in the back bedroom of her home, grew into a leading-edge Christian relief and development organization, recognized by partners and governments alike as a successful service model for those in need. For more than 10 years, Jo Anne entered into war-torn regions, abandoned communities and dark pockets of the world teeming with forced labor and prostitution. She looked at the bleakness and despair and saw how she could bring glimmers of light through opportunity, dignity, and hope.

Today, WHI continues its mission as a voice for the silent, an opportunity for the oppressed and water for those who thirst. WHI helps provide the dignity that comes from an educated mind, a healthy body, an honest day’s wage and a safe place to heal. WHI is the one who comes alongside those gripped by poverty to offer a hand up instead of a handout. But more than anything, WHI is the reflection of Jesus Christ’s compassion for all who suffer.