What is Economic Peacemaking™?

Years ago, I facilitated monthly community meetings where stakeholders wrestled with an uncomfortable reality: wages had barely budged in a decade while the cost of living skyrocketed. We analyzed housing affordability data, discussed workforce development strategies, and debated long-term solutions to increase housing density. Meanwhile, alarming indicators emerged. High school representatives talked about deteriorating youth mental health. Food bank demand surged with first-time users. Eviction rates climbed. Tent encampments multiplied, prompting anxious calls to police and elected officials.

We were transitioning from workforce retraining to crisis management, from helping people thrive to preventing them from falling through the cracks. Every solution revealed new complications. Every step forward felt harder than it should be.

This is the reality facing communities across America. We're drowning in downstream interventions while the faucet upstream keeps running.

The Downstream Trap

Most community development work operates downstream. We provide food assistance, emergency housing, job training, financial literacy classes. These services matter tremendously. People need immediate help. But we rarely ask the harder question: why do so many people need these services in the first place?

After one community meeting, I listened to residents frustrated about a transitional housing project in their area. An out-of-state investment group had converted rundown apartments into clean, affordable transitional housing with 21 units. Residents would pay only 30% of their income in rent, giving them time to stabilize and move forward.

The project had one critical flaw: no definition of "thriving" or "ready to move on." Managers assumed residents would voluntarily leave when stable. Seven years later, turnover had essentially stopped. The units became permanent affordable housing for the same 21 households, while hundreds more remained on waiting lists with nowhere to go.

This isn't a story about failed generosity. It's a story about treating symptoms without addressing causes. Those 21 households desperately needed affordable housing. But the broader community needed systemic change that would create pathways to economic stability for hundreds of families, not just two dozen.

What Economic Peacemaking Actually Means

Economic peacemaking is about going upstream. It's about creating the conditions where people can earn living wages through dignified, productive work. It's about recognizing that a living wage job is the foundation for nearly every other community goal we pursue.

Without good jobs, communities experience:

• Increased crime and property theft
• Rising food insecurity and dependence on emergency services
• Deteriorating youth mental health
• Higher rates of substance use disorders
• Family instability and increased homelessness
• Declining school performance and graduation rates

These aren't separate problems requiring separate solutions. They're downstream consequences of the same upstream crisis: economic instability caused by insufficient living wage opportunities.

The Living Wage Foundation

A living wage is the minimum income necessary to meet basic needs: housing, food, healthcare, transportation, and modest savings for emergencies. It's not luxury. It's stability. It's the difference between families barely surviving and families beginning to thrive.

When communities lack sufficient living wage jobs, every other intervention becomes more complicated and expensive. Workforce development training becomes crisis intervention. Housing assistance becomes permanent rather than transitional. Mental health services become overwhelmed. Schools struggle with students facing unstable home environments.

Economic peacemaking recognizes this reality and asks: what if we focused our efforts on creating the economic conditions where families can succeed? What if instead of endlessly expanding emergency services, we invested in systemic changes that reduce the need for those services?

Who Should Practice Economic Peacemaking?

Economic peacemaking isn't just for economists or policy experts. It's for:

• Church leaders who want to address economic injustice as an expression of faith
• Nonprofit professionals frustrated with treating symptoms rather than causes
• Community organizers seeking sustainable solutions beyond crisis management
• Business leaders who recognize their role in community prosperity
• Elected officials looking for long term impact rather than short term fixes
• Individuals who see these challenges in their communities and want to help

Effective economic peacemakers are empathetic pragmatists. They build relationships across sectors. They make common sense connections between stakeholders. They're prepared to persuade others and implement high impact projects when opportunities arise. They're not swayed by simplistic narratives or partisan rhetoric. They focus on what actually works.

What Makes This Different?

Traditional poverty alleviation focuses downstream: food banks, emergency housing, crisis intervention. These remain necessary, but they're insufficient.

Economic peacemaking goes upstream: creating living wage jobs, supporting small businesses, developing workforce pipelines, building employer partnerships, addressing systemic barriers, and fostering community wealth building.

It's the difference between pulling drowning people out of the water (necessary) and walking upstream to turn off the faucet (transformative).

Both matter. But we've been so busy pulling people out that we've neglected the upstream work. Economic peacemaking rebalances our efforts.

The Path Forward

Economic peacemaking requires three fundamental shifts:

First, honest assessment. We must acknowledge that many well-intentioned programs produce minimal impact. We've prioritized funding continuation over effectiveness evaluation. We measure outputs (people served) rather than outcomes (lives transformed). We celebrate bigger budgets without asking whether we're achieving better results.

Second, strategic focus. Organizations trying to do everything accomplish little with excellence. Economic peacemakers become excellent at one or two things rather than mediocre at six or seven. They let go of programs that don't align with their core strengths, trusting partners to fill those gaps.

Third, genuine collaboration. Real collaboration means more than sharing office space and writing joint grant proposals. It means leaner organizations that excel in complementary areas, creating a stronger collective impact than any single organization could achieve alone.

Why "Peacemaking"?

The term "peacemaking" is intentional. Biblical peacemaking goes beyond conflict resolution. It addresses systemic injustice. It pursues shalom, the Hebrew concept of wholeness, justice, and flourishing for all.

Economic inequality destroys peace in communities. It creates division, resentment, instability, and desperation. It tears apart the social fabric that holds neighborhoods together. Economic peacemaking works to restore that fabric by addressing the root economic causes of community breakdown.

This isn't political partisanship disguised as ministry. It's recognizing that God cares deeply about economic justice and that followers of Christ should too. Throughout Scripture, from the prophets' calls for justice to Jesus' concern for the poor to the early church's economic sharing, we see consistent attention to economic wellbeing as integral to spiritual faithfulness.

Getting Started

You don't need a PhD or decades of experience to practice economic peacemaking. You need:

• Empathy for those struggling economically
• Willingness to think systemically rather than symptomatically
• Commitment to building relationships across sectors
• Patience for long term change rather than quick fixes
• Courage to challenge ineffective approaches

Start by asking different questions in your community:

• What percentage of jobs in our area pay living wages?
• Which employers are creating those opportunities?
• What barriers prevent residents from accessing those jobs?
• How can our organization support systemic change rather than just crisis management?
• What would it look like to go upstream in our work?

Economic peacemaking doesn't abandon downstream work. It balances immediate needs with long term solutions. It recognizes that pulling people from the water and turning off the upstream faucet aren't mutually exclusive, they're both necessary.

The question is: are we doing both? Or have we become so focused on rescue that we've forgotten to address the source of the crisis?

An Invitation

Our communities face complex economic challenges. Simple solutions don't exist. But effective frameworks do. Economic peacemaking provides one such framework, grounded in decades of community development work, informed by biblical justice principles, and focused on creating sustainable change.

Whether you're a church leader wanting to address economic injustice, a nonprofit professional seeking greater impact, or a concerned citizen looking for ways to help, economic peacemaking offers a path forward.

The work isn't easy. Systemic change never is. But it's necessary. And it's possible. Communities that commit to economic peacemaking principles can create lasting transformation that helps families move from barely surviving to genuinely thriving.

That's the promise of economic peacemaking. Not perfection. Not quick fixes. But real, sustainable progress toward communities where everyone has genuine opportunity to flourish.

Ready to learn more? Explore how you can practice economic peacemaking through certificate training, organizational consulting, or financial coaching. Or dive deeper into these concepts in my book, The Wages of Peace: How to Confront Economic Inequality and Love Your Neighbor Well.