Simplifying Who We Are

After 30 years, we’re retiring the Urban Concern brand

For years, we have co-brand­ed our min­istry as “Ur­ban Con­cern & Haram­bee Chris­t­ian School”. Urban Concern was formed as a 501(c)(3) in 1991. Harambee Christian School was founded in 1998 as a program of Urban Concern.

With in­put from and ap­proval by the board of directors and el­der­ship of Dwell Community Church, our lead­er­ship team has now decid­ed to shift our pri­ma­ry name and brand to Haram­bee Chris­t­ian School. Though we will re­tain the le­gal name of Ur­ban Con­cern, moving forward we will represent our ministry solely under the Harambee banner.

There are a few im­por­tant rea­sons for this change.

First, Ur­ban Con­cern no longer op­er­ates any pro­grams out­side of Haram­bee Chris­t­ian School and what takes place un­der the Haram­bee um­brel­la. The Af­ter School Pro­gram, men­tor­ing and oth­er pro­grams are di­rect­ly as­soci­at­ed with the school. The youth bible stud­ies from el­e­men­tary through high school are now in­te­grat­ed with Stu­dent Min­istries at Dwell.

Sec­ond, many of our stu­dents, fam­i­lies, vol­un­teers and donors in­ter­act only with the Haram­bee name. Many are even con­fused about the name Ur­ban Con­cern. Sim­pli­fy­ing our name to Haram­bee Chris­t­ian School will promote clar­i­ty both in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly.

Third, the word “ur­ban” in to­day’s us­age can be con­fus­ing. Like­wise, the name “Ur­ban Con­cern” has the po­ten­tial to un­der­mine a sense of to­geth­er­ness and com­mu­ni­ty, since it im­plies an “us” that are con­cerned for “them”. Even though the orig­i­nal in­tent of the name was hope­ful and pos­i­tive, it isn’t al­ways per­ceived as such in to­day’s cli­mate.

Fourth, iden­ti­fy­ing sole­ly as Haram­bee Chris­t­ian School will al­low us to main­tain con­sis­ten­cy with our sister school, Ak­ili Chris­t­ian High School, as min­istries un­der the Dwell um­brel­la.

Some of the Urban Concern OGs

Celebrating Our History One thing we are sen­si­tive to in mak­ing this change is the im­por­tance that the name Ur­ban Con­cern holds for many who prayed and la­bored over many years to es­tab­lish and grow the min­istry. Those of us who serve and lead in the min­istry now have great re­spect and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for those who came be­fore us. We don’t want the lega­cy and his­to­ry of the min­istry to be down­played or dis­card­ed. So we are com­mit­ted to shar­ing the sto­ry of Urban Con­cern in years to come, as we embark towards this new season of ministry.