Beyond Relief: The Church's Role in Ending Local Poverty

Will Acuff is the co-founder of Corner to Corner, a Nashville nonprofit that has helped more than 1,800 entrepreneurs plan, start, and grow small businesses in low-income neighborhoods. He's also the architect of Kingdom Founders, a program designed to bring that model into any church in America. He recently sat down with Preston Sprinkle on Theology in the Raw to talk about what the church can do now that, as Will puts it, "the ball is in its court."

Preston: So tell me, how did you get into the work you're doing now? Poverty relief — would that be the broadest category, or how would you describe it?

Will: I'd probably say poverty transformation. The highlight reel is that I'm a pastor's kid. My dad was a church planter outside Boston — planted a church in the office of a gas station in 1985. So I grew up with this sense of, man, what God is doing is on the move. Fast forward, I went to college, felt a call into ministry, but ended up falling in love with being in a rock and roll band.

Preston: A rock star.

Will: A wannabe rock star. We opened for Better Than Ezra, played with Wilco one time. By day I was a research analyst in health policy at Duke. But I met an epidemiologist who's an expert on the AIDS pandemic, and he led a small group of us to Nairobi. I stayed with a Kenyan family on the edge of one of the worst slums in sub-Saharan Africa, and my worldview just got destroyed. I don't even think I was aware I had a worldview. It was something like, "If you just try hard, it'll all work out." I came home really disoriented in my soul.

I tried to ignore that, honestly. The band was so good at hitting my ego. But on our honeymoon, my wife and I had a health crisis that ended in the emergency room, and everything I thought I was going to build my life around got bulldozed. What we kept hearing from God was: I've made you to set your gaze on the margins, and I want you to walk in that direction. So we moved into a low-income neighborhood in East Nashville, off Dickerson Road.

Preston: Not because you couldn't afford a better one — intentionally.

Will: Intentionally. This was 20 years ago, way before the coffee shops. My wife got a full-time job at the men's prison as a job training specialist. We had an open front door, started doing life with these amazing neighbors, and what we saw over and over again was that we had image-bearers with God-given creativity and drive — but no bridge of opportunity to express it in the marketplace in a way that would launch them out of poverty.

Preston: And that's what became Corner to Corner.

Will: That started in 2011. Our core thing is we help underestimated neighbors plan, start, and grow their own small business so they can become the economic engines of their families, and then their wider community. To date we've graduated about 1,800 entrepreneurs. In 2025, we put $46.7 million back into the neighborhood economy through the revenue they're generating.

Preston: Whenever I hear that, it makes me think of When Helping Hurts. The basic gist being that charity is often unhelpful when what people need is development.

Will: Brian Fikkert. Great book. The way I describe it: there's poverty, stability, and then thriving. The church has dedicated a lot of energy to relief — programs that move someone from crisis to the bare stability line. But we live in a moment where 59% of Americans can't put their hands on $1,000 in emergency cash. So if you have a bad doctor's bill and a flat tire in the same week, you're going right back into the poverty cycle.

Because we're a nonprofit, you don't have to give a neighbor what God already gave them. You're only surfacing it — and then giving them the education, the mentorship, and the access to capital to turn it into a living thing.

Preston: Can anybody start a business?

Will: I'm a human optimist. Part of me says, absolutely yes. The other part says, without the right education, mentorship, and capital, this is really hard. Some studies show that if you just go out and start a business cold, about 23% of those still exist after five years. In a supportive ecosystem like ours, that number is around 73%. At Corner to Corner, we're trending at 81%.

Preston: Tell me about a graduate.

Will: One of my favorites is Adrienne Bowling. She started A1 Mobile Notary on her own, because she realized you can never find a notary when you need one. She got to $35,000 and stalled out. A friend told her she had to come to Corner to Corner. She came through the 10-week program and the next 12 months did over $85,000. Today she's over $200,000. I asked her what it's meant for her family. She said, "We're in a new neighborhood, my kids are in a new school, I'm getting my son his passport. Poverty told me my life had to be small. What I'm learning is that I can build this bigger thing."

Preston: And the church — how is the church involved in this?

Will: Heavily. Financial support, obviously — you're singing and dancing for your dinner every year as a nonprofit. But also exposing the program to business leaders in their congregations to come and be mentors and guest speakers. Because here's the thing: your average church in America has business leaders who are often their biggest donors. And then the pastor has them doing parking lot duty.

There's a way we can utilize those people's skill sets for a much larger kingdom impact. Locally we've done that with Crosspoint and Church of the City here in Nashville. And more recently, we launched something called Kingdom Founders, which is meant to be used by churches around the nation.

Preston: What's the pitch?

Will: Hey, American church — we just had the federal government do a trillion dollars in poverty alleviation cuts. And many of my conservative Christian brothers and sisters said, "Government, get out of poverty, we want to do it locally." I love the heartbeat of that. But when I talk to pastors and ask, "What's your plan now that the ball is in your court?" — they go, "Ah, we don't really have a plan. Maybe more jackets this winter. More turkeys at Thanksgiving." And y'all, if that's the church's response, we will miss this moment. Because the pain of our neighbors has not gone away.

Preston: Are those things — turkeys, Christmas boxes — even helpful?

Will: Yes, if they're the first step in a journey. Relief builds trust. When someone's in crisis, their cortisol is flooded — they're not asking you for a 25-step plan. But if you show up, hand them a meal, a bus pass, and then say, "I'm going to keep showing up, and as your life stabilizes, we'll get you into this longer-term plan" — then your love isn't just theory. That's classic James. You can't say, "Be warm and well-fed," and walk away.

Preston: What would you say to a pastor listening who says, "This sounds great, but I don't know anything about business — and I don't know anybody in my church who does"?

Will: Neither did I when I started. And I'll tell you — on your elder board, there's a business person. Guaranteed.

The other thing is, this isn't just for low-income neighborhoods. A well-to-do church could host this, get a couple of people from their own congregation who feel uncertain about their careers in an AI world, plus some of the lower-income neighbors who are the service staff in their community. Those folks end up in the same cohort. We had a young woman who had just finished her PhD in speech pathology sitting next to a teen mom bringing her two-year-old to class. They became friends. The PhD gave free counsel on the kid; the teen mom designed her logo and company T-shirts. They never would have crossed paths otherwise.

Preston: I love that. In our highly politicized world, we're so busy arguing over which government policy will or won't help people, that we forget the church has the gifts and the economic power to actually do this work.

Will: Right. And we live in such a binary society — either-or. I actually think it's an and. Pursue good government programs. And while that's happening — because the government's not exactly known for moving fast — church, let's do this. If Christians are meant to be the best at love, practically and holistically, then we should be on the forefront of these discussions.

Preston: And the side benefit is that you're discipling business leaders who often feel like the most underused people in the pews.

Will: These high-capacity leaders tell me all the time: "If you can make me useful in this, I will keep showing up." It lights them on fire. And the stats back this up. If someone volunteers at your church even twice, they're 95% more likely to still be there a year from now. Kingdom Founders also creates a new front door to the church — one that's further out in the community. If your only front door is the one connected to your parking lot, you're missing people.

Preston: So if a pastor is listening to this and says, "I want to do this" — what's the first step?

Will: Call me. I'm so convinced this isn't magical — we didn't figure out something nobody else can. To graduate 40 people a year — that's running two classes — you'll have a million dollars of economic impact in the lowest-income neighborhoods around you.

If we get our orthodoxy and our orthopraxy right, but miss what I'd call our orthocardia — the right heart in action — I think we're missing it. Gospel word and gospel deed have to go together.

Learn more about Kingdom Founders at kingdomfounders.co/program.