# Toxic Charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/toxic-charity/
- Published: 2012-10-25T12:34:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It)**

Veteran urban activist Robert Lupton reveals the shockingly toxic effects that modern
charity has upon the very people meant to benefit from it.

Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help—
not sabotage—those whom they desire to serve.

Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta,
the voice of the _Urban Perspectives _newsletter, and the author of _Compassion,
Justice and the Christian Life_, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism
for forty years. Now, in the vein of Jeffrey Sachs’s _The End of Poverty_, Richard
Stearns’s _The Hole in Our Gospel_, and Gregory Boyle’s _Tattoos on the Heart_, 
his groundbreaking_ Toxic Charity _shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished
members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

In _Toxic Charity_, Lupton urges individuals, churches, and organisations to step
away from these spontaneous, often destructive acts of compassion toward thoughtful
paths to community development. He delivers proven strategies for moving from toxic
charity to transformative charity.
[](https://fundraising.co.uk/books/toxic-charity/void(0))

## Reviews

“[Lupton’s] new book, Toxic Charity, draws on his 40 years’ experience as an urban
activist in Atlanta, and he argues that most charitable work is ineffective or actually
harmful to those it is supposed to help.” **Washington Post**

“In Toxic Charity, Lupton reminds us that being materialistically poor does not 
mean that there is no capacity, no voice, and no dignity within a person. If we 
truly love the poor, we will want to educate ourselves on how best to serve. Let
our charity be transformative not toxic.”
**Roger Sandberg**, Executive Director
of Medair International