The Cost of Poverty Experience: Faith Edition
An immersive training that is designed to give faith-based communities a glimpse into the lives of low-income individuals and their families that are living in poverty.
For Faith Communities and Non-Profit Ministries
More than 40% of U.S. households struggle to afford essential needs, pushing them to make difficult decisions and take significant risks every day.
The Church is called by God to be a source of healing for wounded lives, restoration for broken relationships and systems, and hope where economic hardship exists. Yet many churches struggle to move beyond short-term assistance toward responses to poverty that are truly relational, holistic, and lasting.
The Cost of Poverty Experience: Faith Edition is a powerful 2.5-hour immersive training that equips congregations to respond more faithfully and effectively. Through this hands-on experience, participants step into the lived realities of low-income individuals in their own communities and ministries—gaining insight, empathy, and practical understanding that transforms how the church engages poverty. COPE: Faith Edition empowers churches to deepen relationships, strengthen ministries, and take meaningful action that leads to lasting impact.
COPE is a tool that will help your church:
Deepen its understanding and urgency around poverty in America.
Develop practices and approaches that have a lasting impact on poverty.
Engage in meaningful ways to bring about restoration to your community.
“What’s so powerful about the COPE is that it’s intense and it offers an emotional taste of the weight of poverty. And there’s something about that that opens up our willingness to understand poverty differently, to consider, ‘Maybe I’ve been thinking wrongly about this, or not thoroughly enough about this,’ that’s really powerful. When you feel it, suddenly you might be willing to rethink it... I can’t tell you how many times we’ve referenced back to COPE as we’ve talked about how we’re going to engage with poverty in our community”
Want to know more about our College COPE?
An Experience For Everyone.
The Cost of Poverty Experience has been adapted to reflect the experience of poverty in various contexts. Please click on one of the sectors below that best describes the organization that you are affiliated with to find out how COPE can help you have greater impact.