Who we are

Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town, once said, "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." With three decades of experience, Xcelerant has learned how to navigate the nuances of getting upstream and confront what we find.

At Xcelerant, we see God’s design in all creation and believe that people and conditions can change and be made whole in Christ. Upstream is where we identify the best opportunities for transformational impact, or what we like to call Transformation+. Transformation+ is deep, lasting change that fundamentally reshapes systems, mindsets or conditions in a way that goes beyond surface-level improvements. Unlike incremental or temporary progress, Transformation+ creates sustainable shifts in how people, organizations or societies operate, often leading to new standards of success, behavior or opportunity.

In this way, Xcelerant has established itself as the most innovative accelerator of transformational impact in Haiti.

Where we started

The genesis of Xcelerant goes back to 1998, when a group of students from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, working with CAM International and Samaritan’s Purse, was among the first responders to the town of Morolica, Honduras, in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch.

Residents clung to trees as the Choluteca River flooded the town. When the rains stopped, Morolica was buried beneath mud. The group from Moody helped residents build the very first building, a church, to serve as a storage warehouse during the reconstruction of “New Morolica” relocated on higher ground.

Relationships from the Moody group over 25-years ago, still provide encouragement, guidance, oversight and financial backing for Xcelerant today.

How we evolved

The Talmud—the Hebrew commentary on the Torah—describes four ways of helping the poor, an insight shared by sociologist Tony Campolo: four levels of charity.

The highest level is to create real jobs for people in need without their knowing.
Second, is to give someone work to avoid giving a handout.
Next is to give an anonymous gift to meet an immediate need.
The least effective way to help people, to be avoided if at all possible, is to give to someone in need with their full knowledge of who this giver is.

Serving in the most complex environments, Xcelerant goes upstream to understand the factors really causing the problems. From there, discreetly as possible, we work is to create real, lasting and profitable opportunities for people to empower themselves and their communities, as the dream-makers and change agents, taking the lead in Transformation+ and stepping into who they were created to be.

Eliminating the Gaps - 2018

How We Do It - 2019

Meet the team

Matt McCormick

Partner

MA Wheaton College

BA Moody Bible Institute

Renaud Cherenfant

PDG of Côte Brillante