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DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  108 
 

 

Compelling, Consistent, and Credible: 

Tearfund’s Experience of Measuring the 

Impact of the Church on Holistic Wellbeing 

through Church and Community 

Transformation (CCT) in Low- and Middle-

Income Contexts 

 

Catriona Dejean, Charlotte Flowers, Kyle Hanna, Harrison Manyumwa, 

Rebecca Middleton, Emmanuel Murangira, Rachel Paton, Bethany Sikes 
 

 
 

In 2022 Tearfund worked with an independent evaluation and social value specialist, State of Life, to 

measure the impact of the participatory church and community transformation (CCT) process across 

four countries in Africa, using a holistic wellbeing survey and pioneering an application of the 

WELLBY (wellbeing-adjusted life year) social value methodology in Africa for the first time. The 

cross-national study of almost 8,000 community members generated robust evidence of the positive 

and sustained impact of the CCT process, offering valuable insights for development actors and 

reinforcing the role of local churches as catalysts for community transformation. The study provides 

valuable insights for the development sector, showcasing the potential of locally-owned and church-

driven initiatives in bringing about transformative and lasting change. 

 

 
 

Christian international development charity 

Tearfund works with local churches around the world 

to address poverty and bring transformation to 

communities. Tearfund’s participatory church and 

community mobilisation process is a Bible-based 

guided training approach that a local church can use 

with its community. Through this approach, churches 

and communities identify the resources they have and 

work together to create long-lasting, whole-life change, 

referred to as church and community transformation 

(CCT). As local churches and communities work 

through this process together, they decide what 

outcomes and activities work best in their situation 

(Tearfund 2021).  

Over the last fifty years Tearfund has grappled with 

the challenge of measuring and aggregating the impact 

of decentralised and locally-owned development 

initiatives such as CCT. This article discusses how the 

recently published Local Church, Lasting 

Transformation study (Fawcett et al. 2023) presents 

robust quantitative evidence of the impact of working 

with the local church in a way that addresses these 

measurement and aggregation challenges. 

Published in March 2023, it is Tearfund’s largest 

ever impact study. Almost 8,000 people across Rwanda, 

Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe participated in 

this research. In order to generate rigorous quantitative 

evidence, Tearfund engaged UK-based independent 

evaluation and social value specialist State of Life to 

lead the study. State of Life are named advisors on the 

UK HM Treasury 2021 Green Book supplementary 

guidance on wellbeing. Tearfund also engaged a peer 

reviewer with experience of using wellbeing 

methodologies within the UK government.  

The study tested the hypothesis that Tearfund’s 

church and community mobilisation process (referred 

to for simplicity in this article as the “CCT process”) 

leads to improved wellbeing and reduced poverty for 

https://www.tearfund.org/
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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  109 
 

individuals, church congregations, and communities. 

The multi-year study, which will incorporate an 

additional four countries in its second year, also 

includes a calculation of social value based on 

wellbeing.  

The evaluators, State of Life, described the study 

as having a “pioneering and robust design,” producing 

positive results that are “compelling, consistent and 

credible,” indicating that CCT brings positive whole-life 

transformation, which is sustained and far-reaching, and 

is value for money (Fawcett et al. 2023, 4). This article 

outlines how the methodology of the study supports this 

conclusion, and the lessons Tearfund has learned from 

carrying out this study. This is of particular relevance to 

other development actors seeking to evaluate the 

impact of highly decentralised and community-owned 

interventions in low-income settings.  

 

Introduction to Tearfund and CCT 
Tearfund recognises that poverty is the result of a 

social and structural legacy of four broken relationships: 

with God, damaged understanding of self, unjust 

relationships between people, and exploitative 

relationships with the environment (Tearfund 2019). 

Tearfund believes that local churches have a special 

place in society and play a unique role at local and 

global levels. This understanding of the church reflects 

Tearfund’s understanding of poverty, and is inspired by 

an “integral mission” theology
1

 that recognises the role 

and responsibility of the church to focus not only on 

spiritual matters but also to alleviate other forms of 

poverty and pursue justice.  

Tearfund’s vision is therefore to see local churches 

actively responding to the holistic needs of their 

communities in practical and sustainable ways, using 

their own resources. Tearfund does this through the 

CCT process, which takes between two and five years 

for an individual church and community to reach the 

final stage. The aim of this process is to envision local 

churches to mobilise communities and individuals to 

achieve holistic church and community transformation, 

in which these broken relationships are restored and 

people flourish in all aspects of life: physically, 

emotionally, and spiritually.  

Tearfund's role is to catalyse this journey by 

helping churches recognise that they can play an active 

role in bringing about the change they long to see. The 

envisioning and equipping process of CCT aims to 

inspire the church to mobilise the whole community to 

identify and respond to their own needs. First, a church 

 
1 For Tearfund, “integral mission…understands that God is working to restore broken relationships by responding 

holistically to people’s needs, including economic, emotional, spiritual and physical ones. The church, as the body of 

Christ, therefore has a vital and distinctive role to play in fulfilling this mission” (Tearfund 2019). For more on 

Tearfund’s view of mission, see Tearfund 2023. See also Padilla 2002. 

member or leader is identified to act as a CCT 

facilitator, who is then equipped with the knowledge of 

the process and skills to adapt it to their own context. 

CCT processes then begin with Bible studies that are 

facilitated, not taught. This enables those who are on 

the journey to read the Bible in a new way. After the 

initial Bible studies, the CCT processes empower 

church members to reach out to their communities and 

invite them to work together to mobilise, and then use, 

local resources to overcome the issues in their 

communities. The processes are full of participatory 

tools and activities that help people better understand 

their communities and their potential to transform 

them (Tearfund 2021). By encouraging community 

members to work together to understand their own 

context, capabilities, and agency and, subsequently, to 

self-develop through community-led and -resourced 

activities, churches facilitate holistic development that 

positively impacts the wellbeing of the community, 

based on the community’s self-determined priorities. 

As a result of being a locally-owned and -led 

process, in keeping with Tearfund’s aim to work in a 

decolonised way, the outcomes of CCT can be 

challenging to measure and aggregate, particularly at a 

national or even cross-national or global level. The 

initiatives undertaken by churches and communities 

can be very diverse, even within similar contexts, 

ranging from rebuilding bridges physically to rebuilding 

relationships within communities. As a result, the 

outcomes relate to a broad range of aspects of 

wellbeing, from economic and material prosperity to 

improved relationships in society and greater care for 

the environment.  

 

About the Study 
In order to evaluate this flexible and participatory 

approach to working with churches, the Local Church, 

Lasting Transformation study adopted Tearfund’s 

holistic wellbeing framework, the Light Wheel, which 

defines nine “spokes” of holistic wellbeing and is used 

by churches as part of the CCT process, as well as 

providing a measurement framework for outcomes. 

The large -n quantitative ex-post design used a cross-

sectional and cross-national approach to measure 23 

indicators of wellbeing, covering seven out of nine 

“spokes” or aspects of wellbeing defined by the Light 

Wheel. The study combined measurement of a broad 

range of aspects of wellbeing with an approach to social 

value measurement focused on subjective life 

satisfaction, allowing diverse impacts on wellbeing 

(whether social/relational, spiritual, economic, or 

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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  110 
 

personal) to be effectively summarised, aggregated, and 

compared with the costs of the CCT process. It was, to 

the authors’ knowledge, the first study to adapt the 

WELLBY (wellbeing-adjusted life year) (HM Treasury 

2021) in lower-income contexts outside the UK to 

measure the social value of an initiative, in this case, the 

CCT process. The next section outlines 

methodological considerations involved in this design, 

and why this study is characterised as robust, 

pioneering, credible, consistent, and compelling.  

 

Choosing an Appropriate, Robust Study Design  

One of the challenges Tearfund confronted in 

implementing this study is the methodological 

challenge of impact attribution. Attributing observed 

changes, in this case wellbeing, to a particular 

intervention or approach, in this case the CCT process, 

is often difficult due to the absence of a true 

counterfactual for comparison, i.e., “what the situation 

would have been had the intervention not taken place.”  

One way of coming up with a true counterfactual is 

adopting a purely experimental approach such as a 

randomised control trial, where individuals are 

randomly assigned between treatment and control, i.e., 

participation and non-participation. This approach 

presents numerous limitations (Deaton and Cartwright 

2018) such as the ethical implications of excluding 

participants or communities from an intervention on a 

random basis, where there is existing evidence of 

positive impact (Ogden 2016, xx-xxi). The study 

compares participants of the CCT process with non-

participants within the same communities, as well as 

those in CCT communities with those in communities 

which had not started CCT; randomly excluding 

participants from participating within communities 

would have been extremely difficult and counter to the 

approach taken by CCT.  

Another limitation of a purely experimental 

approach is that of compromised external validity, i.e., 

conducting a development intervention as an 

experiment can be more intensive and controlled than 

usual, to the extent that when the same interventions are 

repeated or scaled, they do not always work as well (de 

Souza Leão and Eyal 2019). Lastly, experimental 

approaches are very costly, and the value for money can 

be debatable, especially when the cost of research 

outweighs that of the development investment (de 

Souza Leão and Eyal 2019).  

Quasi-experimental approaches that mimic 

random assignment by statistical design are a widely 

accepted alternative to more resource intensive and 

 
2 “The propensity score allows one to design and analyse an observational (nonrandomized) study so that it mimics 

some of the particular characteristics of a randomised controlled trial. In particular, the propensity score is a balancing 

score: conditional on the propensity score, the distribution of observed baseline covariates will be similar between 

treated and untreated subjects” (Austin 2011, 399). 

practically challenging experimental designs (Rogers 

and Revesz 2019, Handley et al., 2018). The aim is to 

find a suitable substitute for the true counterfactual, or 

what would have happened in the absence of CCT, and 

account for and reduce as much as possible the 

phenomenon of heterogeneity/selection bias, i.e., 

differences in outcomes attributable to other observable 

and/or unobservable factors. Nonetheless, quasi-

experimental techniques such as propensity score 

matching (PSM) can also be relatively resource 

intensive. For instance, in PSM comparison between 

treatment and non-treatment only happens between 

those observations that “balance” in terms of their 

propensity score,
2

 based on observable characteristics 

(which may not be the only relevant characteristics). 

This means collecting a reasonable amount of data that 

might not be related to the actual intervention to create 

the matching score. In addition, it is a requirement to 

oversample non-treatment respondents to compensate 

for the redundancy of observations that fail to meet the 

“matching criteria.” Again, this creates an ethical 

dilemma by engaging participants to spend time 

providing data that may not be used. 

There are alternatives to PSM such as regression 

discontinuity designs, but these require the predictor 

variable to be continuous, which unfortunately is not 

the case for the key explanatory variable in this study, 

i.e., CCT participation. Based on a consideration of the 

various methodological options, as well as the unique 

attributes of the CCT process, the Local Church, 

Lasting Transformation study explores flexible and 

practical ways of assessing impact, taking into account 

potential selection bias by (1) identifying comparable 

treatment and non-treatment respondents based on 

consistent selection criteria, and accounting for 

observable factors such as socioeconomic and 

demographic variables, (2) applying a multi-stage 

statistically and practically representative sampling 

technique, and (3) using multiple linear regression 

analysis with variable selection anchored in a large 

diverse sample, and supporting theory and evidence 

related to the determinants of wellbeing. Each of these 

is explained further below. 

While the study could not adopt an experimental 

or quasi-experimental design, a number of factors 

allowed for claims of association between various 

variables to be made with a high level of confidence. 

These include achievement of a large sample size across 

countries and regions, and the use of multiple linear 

regression analysis that allowed for influence of other 

factors to be accounted for on the basis of supporting 

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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  111 
 

theory and evidence, e.g., from previous qualitative 

studies.  

   

1. Identifying Comparable Treatment and Non-

treatment Respondents Based on Consistent Selection 

Criteria, and Accounting for Observable Factors such 

as Socioeconomic and Demographic Variables: The 

main comparison group in the study were respondents 

from communities with similar demographic and 

socioeconomic characteristics, including development 

initiatives, identified using the same approach as CCT 

communities, but where CCT activities had not been 

launched. These communities needed to be sufficiently 

spaced from the treatment communities to avoid 

potential spillover or “contamination” from CCT. 

These were referred to as non-CCT communities. 

Given practical challenges with community entry, those 

communities where Tearfund partners had made some 

contact with local authorities or were otherwise well-

placed to access communities were prioritised, as long 

as they had comparable attributes. This non-CCT 

community identification process was participatory, 

involving Tearfund staff, partners, local leaders, and the 

research team. A total of 29 non-CCT communities 

(five in Sierra Leone, five in Rwanda, six in Zimbabwe, 

and thirteen in Tanzania) across the four study 

countries were selected.  

The comparability of these communities is key to 

the research design. Whilst observable individual and 

community level characteristics that may determine 

wellbeing can be controlled for in the regression 

analysis, the comparator communities might not have 

yet engaged in CCT due to potential unobservable 

factors distinguishing them from the treatment group, 

affecting their ability to offer a good counterfactual to 

what would have happened in the absence of CCT. As 

explored in section 6 of the research report on 

limitations, selection of communities to implement 

CCT is based on three criteria: level of need, level of 

engagement of church leaders, and geographical 

accessibility. The relative importance of these three 

factors varies by partner and between countries, and 

could introduce selection bias in either a positive or 

negative direction. To the extent that current CCT 

communities are participating in the process because of 

greater need relative to non-participating communities, 

any observed impact of CCT would more likely be an 

underestimation rather than an overestimation of 

impact, whilst differences in level of engagement by 

leaders and geographical accessibility may work in the 

opposite direction. Selection bias was minimised by 

requesting Tearfund country teams to select 

communities that could start CCT in the next two years, 

both to address the ethical challenges of engaging these 

communities in research only, and to ensure 

comparability by applying the same selection 

approaches. 

A decision was taken to focus on comparing 

communities actively participating in CCT rather than 

attempting to trace every community that had ever 

started CCT. Recording the names of every community 

that had ever started CCT in the sampling frame was 

logistically challenging, as in some countries this 

involved going back more than ten years, and Tearfund 

was particularly interested in the impact of an active 

CCT process. Focusing on communities actively 

participating in CCT could have introduced a related 

source of selection bias. If continuing with or dropping 

out of the CCT process is dependent on characteristics 

of churches or communities that cannot easily be 

identified or measured, CCT churches or communities 

might be systematically different from churches and 

communities that have not yet started CCT in 

unobservable ways. This latter group is likely to contain 

a mix of these unobservable characteristics; until these 

churches and communities start CCT, it will not be 

possible to know which ones will continue with the 

process. But this was not anticipated to be a major 

concern, because the “dropout” rate for churches and 

communities stopping CCT is estimated to be fairly 

low, and at least one of the factors that Tearfund has 

observed to be associated with communities stopping 

the CCT process—trained CCT facilitators moving to a 

different church—is not necessarily due to church or 

community level characteristics, but could plausibly 

result from individual circumstances related to the 

facilitators or to decisions by governance structures 

overseeing churches.  

 

2. Applying a Multi-stage Statistically and Practically 

Representative Sampling Technique: The study 

adopted a multistage sampling technique, coupling 

randomised and purposive selection at different levels 

to ensure a both statistically and practically 

representative sample. By identifying a CCT 

participating church as a community, a complete 

sampling frame of 2,112 communities actively engaging 

in the CCT process from the four study countries was 

established, though the number of communities in the 

sampling frame in each country ranged from as few as 

97 in Sierra Leone to as many as 1,217 in Rwanda. 

Using a cluster sampling approach, about fifty 

communities from each country were randomly 

selected to produce a sample of 201 communities 

engaged in CCT. At a 95% confidence interval and a 

margin of error of approximately 6.5%, this can be 

considered a statistically representative sample size in 

terms of communities. The randomly sampled 

communities were evaluated for practical 

representativeness by assessing the following: (1) the 

geographical spread of the sampled communities, and, 

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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  112 
 

(2) sufficient spread across various levels of CCT 

maturity. Using an ex-post approach allowed the study 

to include communities that had been engaged in CCT 

for considerably more than five years, allowing the 

sustainability of the initial training to be explored. 

Accessibility restrictions were also considered in the 

review of the random sample, and, where necessary, 

appropriately similar accessible replacements were 

made.  

Once communities were sampled, church leaders 

were requested to mobilise around thirty respondents 

in CCT communities and one hundred in non-CCT 

communities, representing a mix of ages, genders, 

members of the sampled church, others who were not 

members, and in CCT communities, a mix of 

participants and non-participants. 

 

3. Using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis with 

Variable Selection Anchored on a Large Diverse 

Sample, and Supporting Theory and Evidence Related 

to the Determinants of Wellbeing: In order to compare 

wellbeing outcomes such as life satisfaction, 

expectations for the future, or satisfaction with close 

relationships between CCT participants and non-

participants, or any other comparator group, it is 

important to account for the influence of other factors 

such as age, gender, marital status, or employment, as 

these could also explain the outcomes and tend to be 

significant in determining levels of wellbeing (Vassilev 

and Manclossi 2019, Joshanloo and Jovanovic 2020, 

Blanchflower 2021). To achieve this, the study used 

multiple linear regression analysis. Like all other 

regression techniques, the direction and strength of the 

relationship between two variables, a dependent or 

predictor variable (in our case the wellbeing outcomes) 

and independent or explanatory variable, for instance 

CCT participation, is expressed using a coefficient. 

The degree to which we can be confident in these 

coefficients depends on a number of factors related to 

the research design. As well as increasing the likelihood 

of detecting statistically significant differences in 

wellbeing between the CCT and comparison group, in 

the absence of experimental or quasi-experimental 

designs, achieving a large sample size derived from 

multiple regions and countries is likely to lead to robust 

estimates and to be representative of the impact of CCT 

more broadly, reducing the likelihood of systematic 

differences between comparison and CCT 

communities not due to CCT as an explanatory 

variable. In addition, if the relationship between 

dependent and independent variables is backed by a 

well-developed theory of change and triangulated using 

existing evidence, this also adds to the robustness of the 

findings. State of Life was able to draw upon Tearfund’s 

existing literature and theory of change about CCT to 

inform their interpretation of the findings.  

It has already been highlighted how an 

experimental or quasi-experimental research design 

would have been ethically and practically challenging. 

As a result, the study does not infer causation, but 

instead makes claims about association supported by a 

large and diverse sample and existing theory and 

evidence, such as advanced qualitative studies on how 

CCT influences wellbeing, adding to the degree of 

confidence in the findings. As such, the study draws 

conclusions on whether and the extent to which various 

wellbeing outcomes are associated with CCT 

participation (in particular, related to the adoption of 

Tearfund’s CCT process in a Sub-Saharan African 

context), while controlling for observable factors. 

 

A Pioneering Approach to Calculating Social Value: 

Building on this robust design and analytical approach, 

the study sought to measure the social value associated 

with CCT by pioneering an application of the 

WELLBY (wellbeing-adjusted life year) in lower-

income contexts outside of the UK for the first time.  

Social value measurement seeks to monetise 

wellbeing costs and benefits, including those for which 

there is no market price (such as the social benefit we 

experience from increased self-worth, improved trust in 

our community or the social cost of poor mental health) 

so that they can be compared in a social cost-benefit 

analysis. The resulting net benefit indicates the value of 

an intervention to society in monetary terms. Taking a 

social value approach enabled Tearfund to understand 

the monetary value of the “holistic transformation” 

hypothesised as a result of CCT, and to compare this to 

the costs. 

The WELLBY is a newly-defined, standardised 

unit of measurement used “to consistently measure and 

value improvements in wellbeing, first introduced in 

2020” (Fawcett, 2023). To its proponents it provides “at 

last a common currency with which to compare the 

outcomes of all policies,” which can be used as part of 

a social cost benefit analysis (Layard and Oparina 

2021). Although this methodology does not have its 

origins in faith-based organisations, Tearfund 

nevertheless considers this to be a valuable approach to 

assessing the social value of its work with churches.  

This is because of its potential to measure and aggregate 

improvements in wellbeing resulting from a wide range 

of initiatives and sources, through the summary 

measure of life satisfaction, and to do so in a way 

recognised by “secular” organisations and can thus be 

compared with ways of working that are not faith-based. 

Tearfund understands church and community 

transformation in terms of holistic wellbeing, 

incorporating spiritual, social/relational, economic, and 

personal domains that are defined by the Light Wheel 

Framework. Tearfund finds this approach to social 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  113 
 

value calculation has particular resonance with its 

organisational focus on holistic wellbeing. 

The method utilises a life satisfaction survey 

question, one of four standard questions recommended 

by the UK Office for National Statistics for measuring 

subjective wellbeing.
3

 One WELLBY is defined as an 

increase in life satisfaction of one point on a scale from 

0 to 10, affecting one person for one year, and caused 

by the intervention being assessed.
4

 Life satisfaction as 

a measure of subjective wellbeing has the advantage of 

being simple, easy to understand, and highly predictive 

of diverse outcomes related to jobs, relationships, and 

even voting behaviour (Layard and de Neve 2023). 

Wider research has shown that faith, or “religiosity,” 

tends to be positively correlated with life satisfaction 

(see Sholihin et al. 2022; ten Kate et al. 2017; Pew 

Research Center 2019). This subjective wellbeing 

approach allows community members to self-report, 

rather than outside researchers making assumptions 

about what matters to them. Its use is based on some 

key assumptions, as noted by Layard and Oparina (in 

the World Happiness Report 2021), including that a 

one point difference at any point between 0 and 10 on 

the life satisfaction scale is equivalent, and that there is 

no extra weight given to the prevalence of “misery.” 

In the past three years, the WELLBY has been 

adopted for use by the UK government and by the 

Treasury in New Zealand. For policy appraisal and 

evaluation in the UK, government guidance states: “the 

change in life satisfaction [shown to result from an 

intervention] can be converted to a monetary value by 

multiplying by £13,000 (HM Treasury 2021, 30), which 

signifies a value of £13,000 per WELLBY. This is 

based on two valuation methods that are sensitive to the 

target population’s income levels. Both methods utilise 

UK data. The value of £13,000 is therefore appropriate 

for use in the UK, or countries with similar income 

levels.  

In Tearfund’s African study countries with 

significantly lower income levels, the value needs to be 

converted to a more appropriate figure. In the absence 

of an equivalent WELLBY valuation for any of the 

study countries, this was achieved by making 

comparisons to median income in the UK and scaling 

accordingly for countries in the CCT study (Fawcett 

2023). The strengths and limitations of this pragmatic 

approach to converting the WELLBY have been 

discussed by State of Life in a blog post on the What 

Works Centre for Wellbeing website (Fawcett 2023). 

While the WELLBY was used to monetise 

wellbeing benefits associated with CCT, principles of 

social value measurement were also applied to capture 

the costs of CCT, including non-market or in-kind 

contributions as well as financial contributions. 

Notably, this included the value of the time and 

resources that community members mobilise and 

contribute towards their own church and community 

transformation. Using this approach, all of this could be 

fed into a social cost-benefit analysis sensitive to the 

community-led and -owned nature of CCT, and to the 

holistic nature of its impact.  

 

Measuring Wellbeing Beyond Life Satisfaction: 

Though life satisfaction as a measure of subjective 

wellbeing was sufficient for social value measurement, 

the study also integrated the Light Wheel, Tearfund’s 

own tool for measuring holistic wellbeing. A key tenet 

of Tearfund’s approach to wellbeing measurement is to 

incorporate multiple aspects of wellbeing, not just one 

single measure of subjective wellbeing. Developed from 

internal evaluations, evidence, and published research, 

and with input from colleagues and partners globally, 

the Light Wheel, shown below in figure 1, visualises 

how nine different aspects (or “spokes of the wheel”)—

a mix of economic, personal, social/relational, and 

spiritual factors—add up to whole-life wellbeing 

(Tearfund 2016). The Light Wheel has been tested, 

validated, and refined over the last ten years through 

use by communities Tearfund works with across the 

world. 

The study collected data on 22 aspects of wellbeing 

in addition to life satisfaction, such as hope for the 

future, year on year change in income, trust in 

neighbours, and participation in household and 

community-level decision-making. These metrics were 

informed by the Light Wheel, collected using survey 

questions from validated question sources, and 

analysed via multilinear regression analysis. To the 

authors’ knowledge, this is one of few studies to 

measure life satisfaction and social value alongside a 

range of specific, tangible aspects of holistic wellbeing.  

 

 
 
 
 

 
3 Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Please answer on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). 
4  This individual value can then be applied to the number of individuals who have been or will be reached by an 

intervention within a defined timeframe and does not normally include any considerations related to life expectancy. 

https://whatworkswellbeing.org/blog/converting-the-wellby/
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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  114 
 

 
Figure 1:  Tearfund’s Light Wheel Framework 

Compelling, Consistent, and Credible Results 
The study found that, compared to non-CCT 

communities, all 23 measured aspects of wellbeing were 

significantly higher in communities that had engaged in 

CCT. According to the regression analysis, people in 

CCT communities had +1.185 higher life satisfaction 

and were, on average, 13.9 percentage points more 

likely to report positive outcomes across the other 22 

aspects of wellbeing (see Figure 2). Moreover, those 

within CCT communities who participated in CCT 

activities reported significantly higher life satisfaction 

and were more likely to report positive wellbeing 

outcomes than those who did not participate. Even so, 

those who lived in communities engaged in CCT but 

did not participate still reported higher wellbeing in 

terms of life satisfaction and in 20 of the 22 other 

wellbeing measures compared with those living in 

communities that had not yet started CCT.
 

 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  115 
 

Participating in CCT activities for longer periods or 

more frequently was also associated with higher life 

satisfaction. These differences are, as far as possible 

within the design, attributable to CCT and not to other 

factors controlled for in the regression models. The 

high level of consistency in the findings across the 

different aspects of wellbeing and different 

communities supports this conclusion.  

Considering the length of time churches have been 

engaged in CCT, even those engaged for less than two 

years had higher life satisfaction and better wellbeing in 

their communities when compared with people in non-

CCT communities. This was the case across all 

measured aspects of wellbeing. Meanwhile, those living 

in communities where churches had engaged in CCT 

for 3-5 years, and for 5+ years, also showed increased 

levels of wellbeing. Again, these differences are 

associated with CCT, implying that CCT had an impact 

upon people’s wellbeing quickly (within the first two 

years of a church’s involvement), but also that this 

impact is sustained for 5+ years. Notwithstanding, the 

effect size varies with the length of time engaged in 

CCT, and between different aspects of wellbeing. For 

life satisfaction, the largest impact was observed in 

communities where the church has been engaged in 

CCT for 3-5 years, implying “optimum” impact during 

this period. It makes intuitive sense that more 

“visionary” outcomes (such as people reporting that 

they have sometimes or often raised an issue to 

decision-makers in the last 12 months) show the largest 

impact where churches have been engaged for more 

than five years. 

The study also explored how the relationship 

between life satisfaction and length of church 

involvement in CCT varies for different groups of 

respondents. In Tearfund’s experience, the impact of 

CCT often starts with facilitators as they experience 

holistic transformation in their own lives.
5

 The study 

found that facilitators have significantly higher life 

satisfaction than people in non-CCT communities, and 

the impact is greatest for facilitators during the first few 

years (0-2) of CCT. Whole-life transformation is soon 

experienced as well by church members, who are the 

most likely to attend and take part in CCT activities 

from the outset. The study found that for church 

members, the greatest impact occurs once their church 

has been engaged in CCT for 3-5 years. And then, as 

church members with facilitators progress through the 

stages of CCT and reach out to their communities, non-

church members become more likely to participate and 

benefit. Indeed, the study found that non-church 

members experience the greatest uplift in life 

satisfaction when CCT has been happening for 3-5 and 

5+ years. 

After a thorough accounting of the costs of CCT, 

and monetisation of the social benefits, the social cost-

benefit ratio of CCT is between 1:18 and 1:38 (with a 

midpoint of 1:28). This means that for every £1 

invested in CCT by Tearfund and communities, 

approximately £28 may be created in social value. Time 

and resources invested by communities account for a 

substantial proportion of the inputs to the CCT 

process. For every £1 invested in the CCT process by 

Tearfund, communities mobilise £7.10 worth of time, 

money, and resources for projects and initiatives to 

bring about the change they desire to see. In Tearfund’s 

experience, these initiatives range from installing a new 

water pump, to establishing a school scholarship 

scheme, to repairing a local bridge or road, and they 

help to explain how the impact of CCT might spread 

from participants to non-participants in CCT 

communities, one of the findings of the study.
6

 

Considering again the cost-benefit ratio, the value of the 

higher life satisfaction observed in CCT communities, 

compared to non-CCT communities, substantially 

exceeds all of these costs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
5

  Facilitators play a critical role in CCT; they are responsible for guiding churches and their wider communities 

through the CCT process. Many are pastors/leaders of the participating churches; all are church members. Tearfund 

trains and invests in facilitators, equipping them with the knowledge of the process and skills to adapt it to their own 

context, and they commit to implementing it in their local church and community. 
6

 Nine in every ten CCT facilitators whose communities took part in the study reported that their communities have 

new or improved community assets due to CCT. These are descriptive data not based on regression analysis. 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  116 
 

Figure 2: Differences between CCT communities and control communities for wellbeing measures (excluding 

numeric variables) 

 

 
 

Lessons for Tearfund from  

Conducting the Study 
Reflecting on both the research process and the 

results, Tearfund has drawn a number of lessons from 

carrying out this study. First, the evidence from the 

study supporting the positive impact of CCT in these 

four countries for both church members and those in 

the wider community supports Tearfund’s 

understanding of churches as potential transformation 

centres, highlighting that faith-based organisations, and 

in particular churches, have an important role to play in 

community development. The findings of the impact 

study offer compelling evidence for the effectiveness of 

the CCT approach in promoting community wellbeing 

in Africa, and contribute to the academic understanding 

of the church’s potential in promoting wellbeing and 

improved economic outcomes for the poor, countering 

scepticism even within some Christian organisations 

about the ability of churches to play such a role.
7

  

These results come at an unprecedented time in 

the history of human development, when the gains of 

the past six or more decades of community 

development could be undone by the devastating 

effects of climate change or the increasing threat of 

pandemics and conflict. They underscore the 

 
7

 The results do not indicate that the impact of the church on community development is always or necessarily 

positive, nor that the CCT process has this same positive impact in all contexts. 

importance of holistic and participatory interventions 

that empower communities and foster sustainable 

change. Indeed, these results have prompted Tearfund 

to focus on scaling up the number of CCT churches 

across the world, with an ambitious target of a ten-fold 

increase from around 25,000 currently to 250,000. 

The consistency of the findings across the aspects 

or indicators of wellbeing studied, including subjective 

assessments of wellbeing such as life satisfaction and 

more objective aspects such as recent investment in 

assets, has confirmed the value of measuring wellbeing 

in low and middle-income contexts, like those of the 

four countries studied, and in incorporating a range of 

dimensions of wellbeing. Wellbeing policy-making has 

been growing in prominence in UK policy circles over 

recent years, but is much less developed in the 

international development sector, where “wellbeing” 

has tended to be used to refer to the outcome of mental 

health interventions, rather than the broader 

understanding adopted by Tearfund and highlighted by 

Amartya Sen’s work on capabilities (Sen 1999). The 

wellbeing measures included in the study speak to a 

number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as 

more conventional development indicators, and there 

is evidence that achievement of the SDGs is closely 

related to wellbeing. A study by De Neve and Sachs 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  117 
 

(2020) notes that “looking at how each SDG relates to 

wellbeing shows, in most cases, a strong positive 

correlation” (De Neve and Sachs 2020). 

The team leading the study consulted with 

colleagues in the four participating countries to ensure 

the approach taken to the study was both appropriate 

for their ways of working and robust. Throughout the 

design of the study tools, the team from Tearfund and 

State of Life navigated the challenge of achieving the 

necessary consistency across countries alongside the 

impetus to contextualise the wellbeing measures used. 

Validated survey items used in cross-national surveys 

were prioritised for inclusion, along with survey 

questions developed specifically by Tearfund to 

measure the nine “spokes” of the Light Wheel. These 

were simplified where necessary, and enumerators were 

trained to hold the tension between asking the survey 

questions consistently based on a pre-agreed 

translation, and providing country-specific examples or 

guidance for respondents where necessary. 

Investing in a quantitative study, the largest 

Tearfund has ever commissioned, has been significant 

at this juncture, building as it has on a strong existing, 

largely qualitative evidence base and a well-developed 

theory of change (Tearfund 2022). Before embarking 

on this study, Tearfund had strong evidence from a 

robust four-country qualitative study using Qualitative 

Impact Protocol (QUIP) methodology (Tearfund 

2021b) that CCT was having a positive impact on 

individuals participating, and from this and previous 

qualitative evidence, how and why CCT was making a 

difference in communities. This quantitative study 

enabled Tearfund to increase the level of confidence 

that these positive differences were associated with 

CCT and not other factors, and to quantify the size of 

the impact on wellbeing for those in CCT communities. 

Indeed, the countries selected to take part in the 

study were those with a well-developed existing 

evidence base for their CCT process, and this existing 

evidence has been crucial for several reasons. First, it 

justified the investment in a large-scale, rigorous, and 

therefore costly, study of this nature, and it informed 

the research questions explored by the study. Second, 

as noted above, it provided triangulation for the results 

of the study, addressing potential limitations. Third, 

when combined with the wide range of wellbeing 

measures and comparisons explored in the study, it has 

enabled Tearfund to interpret the results confidently 

and learn from the findings. Finally, it has facilitated 

social value measurement, which has proved a powerful 

 
8

 As noted above, State of Life is a UK-based consultancy that helps organisations to evaluate and measure the social 

impact and economic value of their activity or project. State of Life’s expertise lies in quantitative analysis, particularly 

in measurement and evaluation of wellbeing outcomes, in line with the H M Treasury 2021 Green Book, in which 

State of Life is a named advisor in the Supplementary Guidance on wellbeing. 

way to understand and communicate the value of 

churches taking part in CCT.  

Furthermore, the finding that CCT is very good 

value for money, as suggested by the social value 

calculation, is important not only to inform Tearfund’s 

strategy and to convince potential funders of the value 

of investing in CCT, but also for existing and potential 

CCT churches considering whether to invest their time 

and resources into the process. It is important to point 

out that a large proportion of the costs of CCT are 

borne by church members themselves (£7 out of every 

£8 of resources invested in CCT), highlighting the 

importance of this study in Tearfund’s accountability to 

participating communities.  

Investing appropriately in using and commu-

nicating the findings beyond the production of the 

comprehensive research report has been key to 

Tearfund making the most of this study. Having the 

appropriate staff in post—for Tearfund, an Evidence 

Communication Officer embedded across Impact and 

Fundraising teams, working closely with the research 

team—has been a major factor in ensuring effective 

research uptake within the organisation and external 

sharing. The global dissemination process was project-

managed by a colleague outside of the main research 

team; this external perspective and particular focus on 

dissemination was extremely valuable to enable the 

production of research products that have included 

written summaries, blog posts, infographics, and an 

animated video, combined with launch events in the 

UK and in the study countries. This dissemination 

process required an appropriate budget to ensure the 

value of the research was maximised; in studies of this 

scale, there is a need to budget adequately for 

dissemination, including to communities taking part in 

the study and decision-makers, a requirement of 

Tearfund’s research ethics approach and a very 

important aspect of dissemination for this study 

(Daehnhardt and Bollaert 2021). 

The process of undertaking the study has 

underlined the value for Tearfund of working with 

external experts such as State of Life.
8

 As well as 

providing an impartial external perspective and 

credibility, State of Life’s expertise on social value and 

evaluation has provided invaluable insight, married with 

Tearfund’s experience of working in low- and middle-

income contexts, including rural, hard-to-reach 

communities across the four African countries studied, 

and established thinking on wellbeing measurement. 

State of Life’s experience of contributing to UK 

Government guidance on and training civil servants in 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  118 
 

using the WELLBY methodology placed them 

perfectly to provide such expertise, and both 

organisations have learned from working together to 

carry out the study, applying this methodology to new 

contexts. The report on the findings was further 

strengthened by a peer review from a UK government-

based economist with extensive experience of applying 

the WELLBY methodology. 

 

Conclusion 
Tearfund's Local Church, Lasting Transformation 

study provides robust evidence of the positive and 

sustained impact of the CCT process across four 

contexts in Africa, offering valuable insights for 

development actors and reinforcing the role of local 

churches as catalysts for community transformation. In 

a world facing unprecedented challenges such as 

climate change, disasters, and conflict, the study 

reaffirms the importance of holistic, participatory 

interventions that empower local communities to foster 

sustainable change. 

As a result of the success of the study in 2022, 

Tearfund is continuing the study in 2023/2024, 

expanding data collection to an additional four 

countries, including one non-African country, adding to 

an already large dataset to generate further rich insights 

about wellbeing in low resource contexts and the role 

of the church, and exploring the impact of CCT beyond 

Africa, including in contexts where Christians represent 

a very small minority. 

The study also makes a significant contribution to 

the field of development evaluation by pioneering the 

application of the WELLBY methodology in lower-

income contexts outside of the UK. This methodology 

has proven to be a powerful tool for measuring and 

communicating the social value of CCT, and has the 

potential to be applied to other development 

interventions in the future. Furthermore, the integration 

of wellbeing measures in low and middle-income 

contexts aligns with emerging trends in wellbeing policy-

making (see Hoekstra 2020, Layard and de Neve 

2023b), contributing to the understanding of 

development beyond traditional indicators. 

In conclusion, Tearfund's experience, as 

demonstrated by this study, provides valuable insights 

for the development sector, showcasing the potential of 

locally-owned and church-driven initiatives in bringing 

about transformative and lasting change. 

 

 

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Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  

DeJean, et al., Compelling, Consistent and Credible…  120 
 

 

 

Catriona Dejean is Tearfund’s Chief Impact Officer, 

leading the Strategy and Impact Unit. Catriona is 

a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and a 

Fellow at St George's House, Windsor Castle, 

Society of Leadership Fellows. 

 

Charlotte Flowers is Church and Community 

Transformation Corporate Priority Strategic 

Coordinator at Tearfund. She has an MSc in 

social development practice from University 

College London, and a degree in theology from 

the University of Oxford. 

 

Kyle Hanna is Head of Impact and Effectiveness at 

Tearfund. He has an MSc in global development 

from the Open University, and experience 

working for an indigenous NGO in Uganda, as 

well as various UK and European organisations 

working for social justice and community 

regeneration. 

 

Harrison Manyumwa, formerly the Regional Design, 

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor for 

Southern and East Africa at Tearfund, is now 

Program Quality Lead for Oxfam in Southern 

Africa. He has a master’s degree from the 

University of Zimbabwe in agricultural and 

applied economics. 

 

Rebecca Middleton is Tearfund's Global Impact and 

Research Lead. Rebecca has an MSc in 

development studies (research) from the London 

School of Economics and Political Science and 

completed an ODI fellowship in Ghana. 

 

Emmanuel Murangira is Tearfund's Country Director 

in Rwanda. He is an economist and theologian, 

working towards a PhD by publication in 

Economics at Martin Luther University Halle-

Wittenberg and a PhD in Theology. 

 

Rachel Paton is Research and Learning Analyst at 

Tearfund. She has a geography degree from the 

University of Oxford, started her career in Nepal, 

and has experience across humanitarian and 

development sectors. 

 

Bethany Sikes is Evidence and Communications 

Officer at Tearfund. Prior to joining Tearfund, 

she managed large mixed-method evaluations and 

research studies and has a master’s degree in 

development practice from Emory University. 

 

 

 

Author emails: Email communication can go through 

either of the following: 

Catriona Dejean: catriona.dejean@tearfund.org 

Rebecca Middleton: rebecca.middleton@tearfund.org  
 

 

 

mailto:catriona.dejean@tearfund.org
mailto:rebecca.middleton@tearfund.org

