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Jeff Rutt is a Christian advocate for the poor and founder of HOPE International, a global faith-based microfinance organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, serving entrepreneurs throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. Rutt and his wife, Sue, have three children, and live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Biography
Rutt was born and raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. For 10 years, Jeff Rutt and his wife owned and operated a 200-acre dairy farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After years of 100 hour weeks, Jeff decided to change careers and found his start in the home building industry and nonprofit sector.

Rutt put his homebuilding success to work in promoting housing and economic opportunity around the globe, by dedicating his time and money on aid in impoverished countries. Rutt is referred to as a “half-timer,” a term Bob Buford, retired entrepreneur, coined to describe business owners who "trade in money for meaning" in their mid-lives and spent some their time performing humanitarian acts. In 1997, Rutt founded HOPE International, a Christian-centered non-profit charitable network of microfinance institutions that started in Ukraine and now operates in 16 countries worldwide with a budget of 11 million dollars, and for which Rutt currently serves as Board Chair. After years of philanthropy in the Ukraine, Rutt learned his philanthropy was creating dependence on aid, and doing more harm than good; and that what would really help impoverished communities was to help individuals become financially literate. Today, the organization has assisted more than 400,000 entrepreneurs through its micro-loans and savings programs for impoverished individuals, and is run by president, Peter Greer.

Jeff Rutt also established Homes for HOPE in 1998, an affiliate program of HOPE International. Through Homes for HOPE, home builders and trade partners are able to build benefit homes on a pro bono basis. To date, the organization has raised more than $10,000,0000 in support of HOPE International, and is currently operating in nine states in the United States. In 2008, Rutt was awarded the Hearthstone Builder Humanitarian Award for his humanitarian efforts.