June 17, 2025
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?
During its first 17 years or so “Feed My Starving Children” (FMSC) assembled and distributed a total of 3 million meals. During its next 17 years that number ballooned last year to a total of 4.8 billion meals. What happened?
FMSC’s mission is, as the name suggests, to feed starving children. And the organization does that around the world in some of the most dangerous, desolate places on Earth. They do that with individual, highly nutritious meals with long shelf lives and a remarkable distribution system.
At his recent retirement celebration, the CEO for those 17 high-growth years shared what he believes drove the dramatic turnaround. Having been actively involved in FMSC’s efforts as an on the-ground-volunteer and having had FMSC as a client, I’ll share my observations and perspective as well.
At a recent retirement celebration the CEO pointed out that 18 years ago, (before he was brought in to lead FMSC), the board of directors made a critical decision. Always a faith-based
Christian organization whose mission was to feed starving children, FMSC rededicated itself to Jesus Christ. The mission became serving the Lord—by serving his children.
The CEO gave several examples of how he and others have seen evidence of Divine Providence at work in what they do.
It begins with prayer, especially prayer said by volunteers—and there are hundreds at any one session—after they have packed the nutritious, life-saving meals but before the meals are
shipped. They especially pray for safe delivery of the meals to myriad local partners. Their record is, in fact, remarkable: 99.8 percent of all their shipments arrive intact and, for the most
part, on time.
To appreciate this accomplishment, you have to picture not only the routes but also the delivery locations. These shipments go around the world to some of the most difficult
situations: war zones, areas with chronic food insecurity, locations damaged by major weather systems, areas where the government has broken down and there is chaos in the streets,
territories where criminal gangs are routinely looking for profit in whatever comes their way.
“I don’t think companies could ship from Chicago to Cleveland over 17 years,” joked the retiree, “and have 99.8 percent of the shipments arrive successfully.”
He also told of a planned meeting with a Christian bishop at the Kibera ghetto in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss feeding kids. (I have visited these slums, and they are brutal. Life expectancy is 30 years; about 20 percent of children die before they’re five years old.)
At the last minute, the bishop had to cancel.
Just as the CEO was about to get into his car to drive away something made him turn around. He saw a nun standing there, just looking at him. He closed the car door, walked over, and introduced himself. She asked, why are you here? He told her about the cancelled meeting with the bishop and what it was all about. “The nuns were just praying over how we were going to get food to the kids in this slum,” she said, “and here you are.”
Are business success and religious beliefs related?
Clearly, religious faith doesn’t guarantee business success. However, over the past 30 years or so of helping companies grow, I have noticed that a high percentage of the leaders of companies we’ve worked with have strong religious beliefs. It doesn’t seem to matter what the religion is. In addition, from my interactions with business leaders, my impression is that the percentage of those business leaders who express their beliefs is higher than the estimated percentage of the population that attends religious services regularly.
What have I seen that has made Feed My Starving Children so successful in the face of some truly formidable obstacles?
My observations—not in any particular order—also correlate well with what makes just about any business successful:
In summary I can say that this level of growth is virtually unheard of for any type of organization, for-profit or not-for-profit. Perhaps the key takeaway is that your company or organization can benefit by defining its mission so clearly that people will know exactly what they’re working for and toward. Companies or charities can use that to attract not only the best employees, but also the best customers and the support of good companies.
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