Our History
Almost forty years of changing destinies
IMI did not start with farms and cities. It started with a preacher, a calling to evangelism and prophetic ministry — and, years later, a moment at a Honduran garbage dump that changed everything.
The timeline
How a ministry became a city
Late 1980s
IMI is founded for evangelism and prophetic ministry
Tom Stamman establishes Impact Ministries International as an evangelism and prophetic ministry. From the beginning, IMI travels, preaches, and ordains ministers — the seed of a work that will eventually reach 55 countries.
Early 2000s
Honduras: one house and a feeding program
Tom and Dr. Teresa Stamman witness extreme poverty in Honduras — children searching garbage dumps for food. Refusing to ignore the need in front of them, they start IMI’s humanitarian work with a single house for orphans and a feeding program.
2008
The financial crisis forces a better model
When the global financial crisis hits, IMI learns a hard lesson: children’s lives should never depend on next month’s donations. The ministry restructures, adding income-generating components to every project. The same year, IMI’s agriculture work begins in Uganda with 100 acres. The self-sustaining City of Refuge model is born.
2020
The fight against human trafficking begins
After three rescued teenage trafficking victims die by suicide while awaiting government-provided housing, IMI stops waiting and starts building. The City of Refuge framework is applied at home: self-sustaining safe houses for survivors, each supported by its own businesses and a local church community.
Today
Cities of Refuge on three continents
The flagship City of Refuge in Honduras houses and educates 90 children with 100 staff across more than 80 buildings. A City of Refuge in Guatemala is in its beginning phase, and land has been purchased in Peru. Safe houses stand in four states — Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri — and IMI has held 26 annual conferences.
Why it matters
A model that outlives its donors
The thread running through this whole story is sustainability. A conventional charity spends each donation once; IMI turns donations into farms, businesses, and trade schools that keep funding orphan care and safe houses year after year. That is why the Honduras campus is nearly self-sustaining today, why Honduran universities send agriculture students there to study how it's done, and why the same framework now protects trafficking survivors in the United States.
Meet the people behind the story on thefounders pageand the leadership page, or see the model itself atCities of Refuge.
Write the next chapter
The next City of Refuge — Guatemala, Peru, and beyond — is being built right now.