Heifer encourages its participants to focus on fulfilling one’s accountability rather than to demand for one’s rights. Valuing what you can do for the community rather than focusing on the reverse creates a favorable environment to initiate social and economic change.

Heifer believes that global problems can be solved if all people are committed to sharing what they have and caring about others. Heifer promotes sharing and caring to aide in solving hunger and poverty and caring for the earth.

Heifer’s projects aim to make communities socially and economically self-reliant by encouraging the community itself to design and lead project activities. Heifer’s investment in physical inputs, capacity building and technical strengthening strive for sustainability.

Taking rural farm communities from subsistence to resilience means increasing its livestock and agricultural productivity. Heifer does this through inputs, trainings and institution building.

Increased income fosters better nutrition and good nutrition is required to be able to work to gain better income. Heifer works to promote both through its projects and focuses on equitable distribution of income and nutrition amongst family and community.

Heifer is a partner to people who truly need an opportunity to improve the quality of their lives and who can benefit from modest support. Participants are encouraged to understand genuine need while making decisions and ensure that decisions made are just.

Heifer’s projects promote gender equity by choosing women as primary participants through whom project inputs and trainings are given. Men and women share in decision-making, ownership of the Heifer animals, labor and the benefits of projects.

Heifer understands that there can be no sustainability without protecting and improving the environment. This is especially crucial for the families it works with who are largely dependent on natural resources.

Although Heifer works through women, it encourages full participation from the family and community to achieve impacts. Improving social capital to increase full participant is one of the keys to achieving sustainable holistic development.

Heifer uses training as a means of spreading general awareness, providing education, building capacity and empowering communities. Group members share the knowledge received from the trainings with their families and community members leading the way towards holistic community development.

Spirituality is common to all people and groups, regardless of their religion or beliefs. Heifer promotes spirituality through its values, beliefs about the value and meaning of life, a sense of connectedness to the earth and a shared vision of the future.