A promise that turned into a movement
Let’s Make THE Difference funds underserved refugee-led programs across eleven countries in Africa, run by the people who live in the communities they serve. This is the story of how it started, the Difference Makers doing the work, and where every dollar goes.
Love, loss, hope, and the heart of a Difference Maker
Wendy Huffman had built a successful life by every measure that’s supposed to count. Career. Family. The kind of résumé people are proud of.
And underneath it, a hunger for something more.
Not more success. More meaning.
Around fifty, she took the Landmark Forum and met Bill Spalthoff. Bill had survived a devastating stroke and lived with the effects of it every day. He was also one of the most joyful, unstoppable people she’d ever met. He’d traveled to 27 countries and was going to reach 100.
Together they spent two years traveling through South America, living simply and seeking out ordinary people quietly helping their neighbors.
It lit something up in both of them.
The same thought kept finding Wendy on those trips: if more people could see this, they’d want to be part of it.
She also noticed something about people like her. People who had built successful lives and careers. So many of them were carrying the same question she was: How do I make it mean something?
Bill and Wendy decided to build a spotlight for the good being done where no one was looking, and a community of people ready to fund it.
In 2019, Bill traveled to Africa and mentored teachers in a rural community in Zambia.
Days later, on his birthday, he suffered a fatal stroke and died there.
He died doing the work he loved. In the place he chose to be.
And Wendy made him a promise that she has kept it every day since.
That promise became Let’s Make THE Difference. A movement now spanning eleven countries, hundreds of leaders, and thousands of lives changed.
And Wendy is the heart of LMTD, and our Chief Difference Maker. She responds when you have a question about your gift. She connects with you when you join The Collective. She travels to the camps to stand in the work herself.
That’s what the heart of a Difference Maker looks like. It turns love and loss into hope, and hope into a life of generosity.
Our Mission
To equip and empower Difference Makers to create lasting impact in the world.
LMTD funds programs that serve refugee and under-resourced communities all over Africa and connects the people who fund the work to the people doing it. Together we create communities of Difference Makers.
Community Leaders
run the programs and are paid a living wage to lead them.
Donors
get a relationship with real people and real outcomes, and a place to put the question so many of them are already carrying: what do I do with what I've been given?
What we believe
People don't need rescuing. They need partnership.
The conviction underneath everything LMTD does is that the most capable leaders already exist inside the communities the rest of the world has overlooked. Teachers, entrepreneurs, peacemakers, visionaries. Already doing the work. They don’t need someone to ride in and save them. They need partnership, visibility, education, mentorship, and the resources to lead what they’re already building. At LMTD, they’re the ones leading the work. What they build belongs to them.
People are generous. Being a Difference Maker gives their generosity a direction.
We all need connection, transparency, trust, and the opportunity to see real people and real change rather than writing a check.
LMTD connects generosity and action. We help leaders to transform their communities, and the contributors who want to fund work they can see happen.
LMTD connects and creates Difference Makers.
How the difference gets Made
Local Leadership
We partner with leaders already serving inside refugee and underserved communities. They know the culture, the realities, and the needs. Our role is to strengthen and scale what they’ve already built.
Education that builds independence
Leadership, entrepreneurship, wellness, and peacebuilding courses, many developed and taught by refugees and community leaders themselves.
Partnership, not charity
Our Difference making creates real opportunities: employment, entrepreneurship, food security, community stability. Built to be carried forward by the local communities.
Collaboration over competition
We’re building a network where partner organizations share resources and amplify each other instead of competing for the same scarce dollars.
Transparency & human connection
Live calls with the team on the ground. Field updates with names and faces. The option to travel to the communities you’re funding. Our Difference Makers don’t just write checks. They witness the work and become part of it.
We are an inclusive community of Difference Makers
We don’t operate on a single religious platform — all faiths are welcome. And we don’t tell communities what they need. We support the solutions they design themselves.
We Are Difference Makers.
Let’s Make THE Difference programs are organized and sometimes led by refugees and grassroots leaders living in the communities they serve. We also create opportunities for sponsored programs and personal and professional development. Our Africa-based executive team runs them day to day and a small Nashville-based team handles strategy, communications, and operations.
We Are Difference Makers.
Let’s Make THE Difference programs are organized and sometimes led by refugees and grassroots leaders living in the communities they serve. We also create opportunities for sponsored programs and personal and professional development. Our Africa-based executive team runs them day to day and a small Nashville-based team handles strategy, communications, and operations.
From one promise in Zambia to eleven countries.
The work started in Zambia in 2019. Today, we are most active in the Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee settlements in Kenya, with recent expansion to the Adagom refugee settlement in Nigeria. Program participants reach across eleven countries.
Kenya — Kakuma & Kalobeyei settlements
Bakery, peace circles, leadership cohorts
Nigeria — Adagom settlement
Personal development and entrepreneurial leadership programs
Zambia — Livingstone
Teacher mentoring, personal development courses, where the promise was made
+ 8 more
Program participants across the continent
From one promise in Zambia to eleven countries.
The work started in Zambia in 2019. Today, we are most active in the Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee settlements in Kenya, with recent expansion to the Adagom refugee settlement in Nigeria. Program participants reach across eleven countries.
Kenya — Kakuma & Kalobeyei settlements
Bakery, peace circles, leadership cohorts
Nigeria — Adagom settlement
Personal development and entrepreneurial leadership programs
Zambia — Livingstone
Teacher mentoring, personal development courses, where the promise was made
+ 8 more
Program participants across the continent
Our Values
The code our Difference Makers Choose to live by
Resilience
We train everyone connected to LMTD, refugees, leaders, donors, and team, to be unstoppable in pursuit of their purpose.
Solution-oriented
We hand people the confidence and the tools to solve their own problems, then back the solutions they design.
Acknowledgment
We connect donors, partners, and participants to the impact they’re creating, and we name it out loud.
Integrity
We operate by a code of ethics, openly, so trust is something a contributor can verify rather than assume.
You don't have to take our word for it
LMTD is a registered 501(c)(3) and is recognized by Candid for verified financial and operational transparency. The status, the numbers, and the reporting are all meant to be easy to find, because the people who fund this work have every right to check it.
501(c)(3) · EIN 84-1728140 · Founded 2019 · Verified by Candid, Silver Transparency Seal 2026 Between 75 and 90 cents of every dollar reaches the communities.
Put your generosity where you can see it work.
Be a difference maker.
Every contribution lands directly in the work: verified, accounted for, and put to use by the people closest to the need. Give once or give monthly, and watch what it does on the ground.