The 2024 Annual Report

Uh, and for you video watchers out there, we have, uh, the, the report actually pulled up so that you can see it. Um, but if you can't see it, go to all Access International slash annual reports slash 2024 and you'll be able to see it there.

So they know the state is coming. We agree upon what data we're. Gonna be asking for, uh, I checked with them. I usually check with 'em halfway through the year and go, okay, how are these outputs coming along? Um, we look at that together. And so then at the end of 2024, usually in mid-January, uh, after their teams have already started compiling their data and, and reviewing it internally, that's when I start meeting with them and, uh, reviewing it in real time with them.

And so they, the programs provide this data. We review it with them, and then if we have any questions or concerns, we meet with them or we get others to, uh, take a look at and go, Hey, does this look like right to you? All of it is just trying to make sure it's accurate and, and real. And luckily we have strategic plans that we can, uh, compare it to to say, Hey, water for Good said they were gonna. Do this by these dates. We look at what they did in 2024.

Are they making progress towards that? If not, why. And um, yeah, so that's the, that's the process.

And the kind of impact that they've had because it is their dollars at work. And so I really love that kind of combination where you've got this, this story driven and analytical nature to the report, but also this emphasis on the members. 'cause, 'cause after all, I mean it is the members who are, are driving all this impact. So it's, it's really cool to see both of those come together.

I mean, there's just so much information that I doubt, I really doubt most donors read all of it. I, I mean, even just starting with the whole letter from the, the CEO at the beginning, Brandon, I don't know if you read those, but I, I just start skipping those because it just, I'm trying to get down to. What did they actually do? What did they do that year?

And so we, we designed this and knowing most, a lot of our members, uh, are millennial, gen Z, just to be able to get the information they wanna learn as fast they can, and a really enjoyable experience. So this is a very different annual report. I mean, report is even a stretch in that it's, uh, not a PDF, it's a webpage. You experience it, you can do it really quickly, and it's really. I think I hope enjoyable. Lots of videos, lots of stories you can find, any information you wanna find.

Uh, you know, even just the podcast episodes we had last year, articles we wrote that we thought were, that we liked, and, uh, just sharing those. So we had a lot of fun with it. Uh, we've gotten a lot of great feedback from members saying they enjoy it. So if you haven't experienced it yet, uh. Go experience it. We'll, we'll dive into some, some of it today on the podcast, but, uh, go take a look and, and just, uh, yeah, dive into the stories.

So talk to me a little bit about, um, the, the numbers that you guys collated here. So, 153 members over half a million dollars, granting $502,000 to nine of the top PRO programs in 14 of the most unreached and impoverished countries in the world.

Um, you know, really anybody can, can give to the fund. You can give $20 one time to it, but a member is someone who, you know, someone or a family. A business or even a foundation, uh, as we have, or like an entity that gives at least a thousand dollars a year and gives regularly. So year to year, that's what we really qualify as a member, and we encourage that. Uh, a is because it's up to us how much we pull together. Again, we're not a fundraising org, but we're, it's member driven.

We drive these numbers, 591,000. Um, but we also want people to, um, to take ownership of, of this and, and run with it. And, and a thousand dollars a year. I mean, we did the math and.

Any donor, any giving level can participate at that level, but we want people to take it seriously as well as I'm, I often travel and I'm in these contexts that sometimes are very dangerous and, uh, you know, we want people to take that seriously of, Hey, we're, we're in this, uh, we're trying to accomplish these big goals, and so we want people to take it seriously.

Boomers, gen X families as well. We have, uh, a few businesses. So, uh, like I love the guys over at Spires Engineering here in Plano. It's a civil engineering firm. They do a lot of fun stuff, but they, you know, they're members of the fund. They, uh, did a campaign in the fall and raised a bunch of money for. Our program with Water for Good. And so we have corporate members like that who do like a profit sharing style. Um, so we're really here.

I mean, like I said, any donor, any giving level we want to serve, uh, from even the largest foundations out there, um, to, Hey, I just, you know, graduated college and I wanna start giving 90 bucks a month. Um, we love it.

And our philosophy is to work in the most unreached and most impoverished places and work backwards from there. And so that's, the map kind of shows that. So what's interesting is for spiritual poverty, it mostly takes us to, you know, south and Central Asia, Southeast Asia. Um, and then for extreme physical poverty, it takes you to the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa, kind of East Africa. So you can just clearly, uh, see that that divide there.

Um, and that's where we, why we've ended up where we are. And you know, I get asked, Hey, do you guys do anything in the United States? And no. Um, and I hope we never do because of that. Uh, hopefully we're never in a spot where we have to. Um, so.

And then we also have a story where we reach daughters like Sonya on the spiritual poverty side. And she says, my parents are stuck working at the brick kilns and couldn't afford school. But one day, one of these teams from Big Life started a school near us that I could go to, and it was there that I learned about Jesus for the first time. So you get to hear more of her story. Pretty amazing.

And what's cool about this section is it's got a, a list, like an accordion list, if you will, of each of the portfolio partners into which you can click and get the all the details like really, you know, detailed numbers about how much money these organizations, you know, you know, received and spent. And then the impact that that money had over the course of the year. And so the top one seed effect with physical poverty, they're working in Uganda and South Sudan. And granted, uh, $98,590.

And then it has a bunch of metrics about what that accomplished over the year, uh, as well as some stories from individuals, which is really, really cool. And we've got several more here. So if we scroll down the page, we've just got a ton on the, uh, in the portfolio, and you can click in and see all their stories and just the amazing impact. It's really, really cool.

You know, a Hindu priest who are now, uh, church planters in South Asia. We have interviews from them. And, um, yeah, just some, some incredible pictures there. But, uh, we do a lot, you know, with the, the numbers to the top. You know, we look into, okay, what did these programs spend? What were their activities? What were their outputs, uh, this year? Making sure they're on track with everything. And so a lot of, lot of time went into.

All of these paragraphs and a lot of it, you know, is contextualization as well. I mean, we, a lot of this is, gets pretty technical, you know, Brandon, so it's kind of our job to, for the everyday, you know, if you're a account at EY in Dallas, how do we convey this information? A really accurate, but a really easy to comprehend way. And that takes a lot of time to boil it down, uh, in a. You know, a few sentences.

So, um, but that was the hope here is anybody can click in and see what they wanna see and find the information they wanna find.

But then you get the summary paragraph of all the data and you get a really beautiful video and imagery and things like that. So you can, you could spend probably two hours, you know, reading this report and watching all the videos and reading all the articles and podcasts that are associated with it and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's really neat.

I don't know how many organizations do that, but I think it's really neat that you literally can like, click in and see all of the itemized operational expenses, financial statements, the fiscal year form nine 90. I mean, you just get this like a huge volume of information. If you really wanted to vet what you and the team are doing at all access, it's, it's pretty cool.

Impactful giving and things like that. So you can check out all the different podcasts that you've had throughout the year, some of the most, you know, uh, I guess, popular ones that you've had, which are, are really cool.

I wrote my, uh, white paper in grad school on this, and there was this author out there who kept popping up as a subject matter expert on it, and it was, uh, Dr. Kroto. So I was very honored, very, very honored to have him on the podcast. And then, uh, jd, who's a dear friend, you know, EA for Christians, Christians for Impact, man, effective altruism, and. How it works in this space. Very fascinating conversation. Uh, love J D's perspective there.

These are just really fun, insightful conversations, and to be honest, a lot more entertaining, uh, podcasts guests than I am.

So tell me, just, I've never asked you this, but I've always been curious like, where did that come from and, and why is this, this speech so meaningful for you?

But in that speech he says that the, you know, mission to the moon, the space race is the greatest adventure of all time, and it deserves the best of all mankind. And I've always thought, no, he's wrong. Um. It as a believer, you know, making disciples of all nations and loving our neighbors around the world, um, joining Jesus and redeeming the world to God and to others. That's the greatest mission of all time, and it does deserve the best of all mankind.

And, you know, we had a gathering here in Dallas with a bunch of members of our fund last November. And so I just shared, uh, that. Vision with them of, hey, we are not just, this isn't just like a little thing we give a little donations to, to feel better about ourselves or feel, I don't know, something. But this is an incredible mission. I mean, we're literally joining Jesus and what he's doing and by God's grace, he's using people like us to be a part of what he's doing.

And so this is the greatest adventure of all time. And, uh, we shared a video at that gathering.

But I, I think about this mission we're on, when I listen to that, not, not the moon, not the touch, you know, some rocking space before the Soviets, you know, we think, um, but this mission that we're on, so there's my, my, uh, answer to why, why that article.

And then it's an actively managed account, if you will. Um, so where you monitor these programs and report everything. Back every 90 days. And if you want to download the 2025 strategy to explain that, uh, in more detail, there's a little form there to fill out and get a download. And that concludes the report.

But we sat down in January and said, how do we make the most. Robust, highest level due diligence process in this space for using charitable dollars to accomplish this mission. You know, ending spiritual and physical poverty, accomplishing the great commission, great commandment. And, uh, like we got pretty far. I feel like we, we uh, we built a great process and, uh, so it's in that PDF, anybody can go and read it. Again, we're open source.

So even our, you know, the firms that get paid to do this kind of stuff for major donors take, you know, take and use our stuff. Um, but I feel, uh, more confident ever in our process. I mean, we're already finding areas to improve. I mean, this is a very complicated space, a lot of nuances, but we're, we're navigating those and, uh, so right now we are.

Reaching out to more organizations and, uh, even once we have looked at before, encouraging 'em to, to go through our analytical process this year and say, Hey, if there's, even if we looked at you last year, maybe they updated programs or they have a new program and a new place, um, to. You know, let us look under the hood, if you will, and, and we are, you know, we're looking at our own portfolio itself as we always do, and just saying, Hey, we're loyal to whoever can best help those in need.

And if, you know, we're going to spend the next few months reviewing all this and then making a decision in the fall about updating our portfolio for. In 2026. So we've got a great portfolio right now. We've got eight programs in there. Um, but we're always looking to grow and, uh, so we're, we're really excited about it.

You know, have an opportunity to participate in the market, invest or even take loans for businesses. So this year, uh, need to learn more about education, about healthcare, specifically health, uh, in these spaces, nutrition, access to healthcare. I was just looking before this about you, the indexes out there that measure access to healthcare. Uh, and then continue to grow in spiritual poverty.

You know, unreached people groups, better ways to measure that with, um, you know, mapping where churches are, where they aren't, where do people have practical access to the gospel? So I can nerd out a while about all of this, but, but that's where we're headed. And, uh, I just encourage people to go experience, and I use that word, um. Specifically experience the annual report. Enjoy it man.

If you're a member and you gave with us, uh, I pray that it's a really enjoyable and rewarding experience for you and what you did. I mean, you can calculate kind of what the per person impact that you personally made. Um, we just had a member of our fund pass away, uh, last week, uh, by God's Grace at the age of 95. And, uh, yeah, and several of his member, uh, his family members are members of our fund.

And so, uh, I just shot him a text, said, Hey, just to encourage you, I just wanna tell you what Ken accomplished, you know, the last few years as a part of our fund and personally planted about, uh, I think it was 35 churches himself as far as what he, uh, gave. And, uh, hopefully that was encouragement to him, but. Uh, but yeah, enjoy the report that's for you. Let us know how we can improve it, uh, what you wanna see next year, and, uh, what you wanna see on our quarterly reports as well.

So, lane, thank you for all your hard work and the team's work on putting this together. Um, I know you guys spend a ton of time pouring through this data, you know, adjusting and improving the analytical rigor and working on your partnerships and things like that, so I know it's a ton of work and, uh, I, I am very grateful and I know a lot of members are as well, so thank you.