Today we’d like to introduce you to Jody Luke.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve always been drawn to people. In seventh grade, when I was asked what I wanted to be, I said a social worker. I was told it may not be the most “practical” choice, that I might burn out and not make much money. So instead, I pursued what I was naturally good at: numbers. I earned a degree in accounting and began my career at PwC in Chicago, then later in San Diego.
But that desire to walk alongside people didn’t go away. I eventually paused my finance career to work with Young Life, mentoring high school students. That’s where I first met Bob Goff, long before the New York Times best-selling books, when Love Does was still more of a belief than an organization.
Life took me back into business for a season while raising three kids and later running my own fractional CFO practice. But when Bob called years later and asked if I would help lead the financial side of the nonprofit he’d recently launched, something clicked. It was the first time I felt my skill set and my calling intersect. Frederick Buechner describes calling as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I didn’t have words for it then, but that’s what it was.
And if you know Bob, you know he doesn’t do anything small, from his contagious belly laugh to his desire for all of us to realize our big dreams. Love Does, the non profit, grew in that same spirit.
A decade later, I became the Executive Director, and this past fall stepped into the role of President, guiding an organization that over doubled in both scale and purpose. Today, Love Does operates in over 15 countries with 24 schools, sends over 1 million meals abroad annually while distributing thousands of pounds of food locally, and creates pathways of hope for single moms, refugees, veterans, and men and women who are incarcerated.
Much of our work takes place in conflict zones or places marked by instability, including Uganda, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, Jordan, Ukraine, and beyond. In many of these communities, education is not just learning, it offers the biggest opportunity for change and a future.
We’ve also embarked on our most ambitious project yet: building a university in Northern Uganda, next to the primary and secondary schools where over 2,000 students are already learning, on the very ground that was once at the center of the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict. What was once a place of deep suffering is becoming a place of learning, leadership, and hope.
If there’s a thread through all of this, it’s simple: Love looks like showing up.
And around here, we try to show up with joy, whimsy, and a little holy mischief.
Bob has always said, “Love doesn’t just think about it. Love does.”
We’re building a worldwide family of friends and organization around that idea.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Meaningful things rarely are.
There have been seasons of laughter and seasons of tears, moments where we’ve celebrated miracles and moments where we’ve sat with heartbreak. Working in places marked by conflict and trauma means that joy and grief often coexist in the same room. The work can be complicated and heavy and also beautiful beyond words.
And honestly, raising three kids into young adulthood has felt a lot like that too. We navigate setbacks and lean heavily into the wins. I’ve found leadership and motherhood to be remarkably similar. They both stretch your heart in ways you didn’t know were possible. Both require patience, courage, humility, and the kind of multitasking that feels a bit like juggling confetti, delightful, chaotic, and somehow still beautiful. And both have drawn me deeper into my faith. I’ve seen God’s faithfulness show up in quiet, ordinary moments and in completely extraordinary ways.
I’m profoundly grateful for our team at Love Does. They make the impossible feel possible through their hard work, joy, and steady belief in what love can do. And I’m even more grateful for my husband and kids, who are my safe place, my greatest joy, and the ones who remind me who I am and what matters when the work feels especially heavy.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Love Does cares for the vulnerable, fights for human rights, and provides education in conflict zones. And we’re aggressive about the doing. When we see a need, we don’t talk about it for a year, we act. We build. We respond. We take the next loving step. And we do the work with excellence and joy, because we believe how we do the work is just as important as what we do.
We believe love looks like something, it’s something practical and tangible.
Sometimes it looks like a classroom filled with new desks and computers.
Sometimes it’s a bag of groceries.
Sometimes it’s a safe bed, a soccer field, a counselor or teacher who listens.
We also believe love can carry whimsy and wonder and that joy is not frivolous, but healing.
We love cutting ribbons with confetti and marching bands at graduation and balloons in classrooms. We believe hope is strengthened by joy.
Our team is courageous, joyful, and deeply collaborative. They are teachers, leaders, scholars, parents, survivors, peacemakers, and neighbors who seek to love people across the street and across the ocean with the same intentionality.
What I’m most grateful for is that Love Does is full of ordinary people choosing to show up with palms up and big hearts, with tremendous generosity and a willingness to do the loving thing, even when it’s costly.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Loving people isn’t a trend, and it never goes out of style. The world will continue to change, but the need for belonging, safety, dignity, and hope remain. The future of this work will be deeply relational, rooted in trusted local leaders, and committed to long-term presence. I don’t think we’re anywhere near our finish line. In many ways, we’re just getting started.
We’re educating the future leaders in Uganda who will shape their nation.
We’re rebuilding childhood for Ukrainian students whose worlds were interrupted by war.
We’re offering second chances and purpose for men and women in prison who are working hard toward what comes next.
We’re helping women caught in prostitution in the Dominican Republic reclaim their dreams, their value, and their future.
We’re offering education wrapped in love for kids in Israel and from Gaza living in Jordan.
We’re creating classrooms of hope and possibility at the largest refugee camp in the Americas, for children and their families awaiting asylum in Tijuana, Mexico.
We’re walking alongside women and children in Somalia who are searching for a new beginning.
We’re building opportunity and vocational hope in Nepal where choices have been limited for too long.
We’re providing safe housing for single moms pursuing education reminding them that their story does not end where it became difficult.
We’re offering a lifeline through education and a daily meal in Burkina Faso where communities face extreme scarcity and instability.
Love isn’t something we admire.
Love is something we do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lovedoes.org
- Instagram: @lovedoes
- Facebook: @lovedoes
- LinkedIn: @lovedoes
- Twitter: @lovedoes
- Youtube: @LoveDoesorg
Image Credits
Images by @halleproject and @bethanysikute
