Jeff Rutt: A home builder’s philosophy

Building a home requires efficiency, perseverance, and a positive attitude, three principles that Jeff Rutt once lived by as a dairy farmer. Before making a career move into home building, Rutt and his wife owned and operated a 200-acre farm in Pennsylvania. Being in the farm business for over a decade, Rutt felt that he could find another way of earning a living that is not as strenuous and that offers less risk, which resulted to his decision to start a business in home building.

From JEFF RUTT

Founded over 18 years back, Keystone Custom Homes now lives by the same principles that Rutt once used in farming. The company always puts their customers first by implementing a rigorous quality assurance process for each house built that is sure to leave customers completely satisfied. Jeff Rutt and Keystone are proud to offer a limited 20-year warranty and 25-year roof warranty that comes with each house a customer buys, to assure families that the house they will be purchasing is a well-built house.

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Bestowed with the Best Builder Award by the Builder Magazine for three years: 1998, 2002, and 2005, Keystone Custom Homes is now ranked as one of the top 100 home builders in the United States. The company’s philosophy of ‘giving the customer great value and great service’ at all times, is definitely a philosophy that works.

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Learn about great deals by Keystone Custom Homes by visiting www.keystonecustomhome.com.

Jeff Rutt gives HOPE: How small things make a big difference

The success story of Jeff Rutt revolves around his vision of the future and his perseverance to reach his goals.


A then-farmer working long hours in the field, Jeff Rutt decided to stop farming and get into a new business venture. According to him, he wanted something with lower risk and fewer work hours. In 1992, he founded his own home-building company, Keystone Custom Homes, which has since then achieved a lot, including some renowned awards and commendations.

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Part of the earnings of Keystone goes to another venture that Jeff Rutt established in 1997, HOPE International. It is a Christian, non-profit organization that provides practical and attainable solutions to the poor around the world. For more than a decade, Jeff Rutt’s foundation has achieved greater heights with over 260,000 clients worldwide.

From JEFF RUTT

HOPE International helps out the less fortunate by providing excellent microenterprise development and financial services. A sample support offered by HOPE is a simple monetary loan, which the individual may use as capital for starting a business. The success stories that HOPE International has as of the moment attest that a small act can make a big difference especially when it is done for good. Moreover, the desire of the individual to succeed and change his/her life contributes to the triumph.

From JEFF RUTT

A spiritually motivated organization, HOPE International continues aiming for more success by reaching more areas that need support and bringing more dreams to life.

HOPE is open for partnerships, especially for its international operations. To know more about HOPE International, log on to www.hopeinternational.org.

The Importance of Savings for Microfinance

Hi everyone, this is Jeff Rutt- if you're interested in how HOPE works by providing both loan AND savings programs for those less fortunate, please enjoy.

Imagine a world in which you paid the bank to hold your money… Perhaps worse, imagine being forced to hide your life savings under your mattress, without a lock or even a door to protect that which is needed to give your family a better life. Welcome to a world without savings- a world without the simplest of institutions allowing men and women the opportunity to responsibly store and save their earnings for tomorrow. While it is a world we can scarcely imagine, it is nevertheless a grave reality for millions around the globe every day. At HOPE International, we recognize the necessity of not only offering diverse and effective loan products to our clients, but complimenting the ability to borrow with the opportunity to save as well. While loans are critical to furthering economic development through providing the capital to help small businesses grow, perhaps nothing catalyzes financial and therefore social change like the impact of saving. HOPE International partners with communities to create Saving Circles; groups of men and women bound in solidarity coming together to consolidate and protect savings. It’s extraordinary to witness the solidarity and determination exhibited by members. Previously, members were often subject to gross mistreatment as they sought to bring themselves and their families out of poverty- while loan-sharks have become part of our vernacular, we often forget that savings-sharks are equally dangerous and sometimes as prevalent. Imagine investing one-hundred dollars throughout a year but only receiving fifty upon your return… welcome to the sad state of living without a bank or financial institution, controlled by those that prey on the powerless. And yet people continue to participate, simply because they are desperate to save for their families, no matter how little the percentage return. Therefore, HOPE International partners with local churches and communities in the form of Savings Circles, an incredibly effective tool for rebuilding dignity and fostering development. Members of the Circle join together to create their own “bank”- while the specifics vary by country and culture, member’s pool savings and offer loans to other members, allowing access to the lump sum of capital needed to weather an emergency or help a business grow. All the policies and funds are provided by the individual members; HOPE simply assists in the education and maintenance of the group. This means that Saving Circles reflect the same Christ-centered philosophy of servanthood that HOPE has always represented- the preservation of dignity for every man, woman and child created in the image of God. 

Thanks for taking the time to read, 

-Jeff Rutt

NFL Stars Team Up with Jeff Rutt's HOPE International and Starkey Hearing Foundation

From JEFF RUTT

Keystone Custom Homes and HOPE International Founder Jeff Rutt welcomes National Football League stars Adrian Peterson, Larry Fitzgerald, and more than twenty other NFL players currently representing Pros for Africa together with Starkey Hearing Foundation on a trip to Rwanda, Africa for a community outreach program running from March 14 to 20, 2011. Hearing aids will be distributed to over 1,000 people in impoverished communities in the area.

Over 1,000 microfinance clients and residents of Rwanda have been identified to be recipients of the gift of hearing offering to be led by the Starkey Hearing Foundation and NFL’s top stars. At the moment, over 90 percent of Rwandan residents thrive on less than $2 per day. The program will greatly help many considering the cost of purchasing a hearing aid is beyond the financial resources of most Rwandans.

From JEFF RUTT

Jeff Rutt’s HOPE International is a Christian faith-based non-profit organization currently undergoing operations in 14 countries to alleviate temporal and spiritual poverty through microenterprise development. Clients of HOPE are provided with financial services and biblical-based business trainings to assist them in establishing self-sustaining livelihoods providing them with the opportunity to create stable occupations and provide for the needs of their families. HOPE’s financing program has helped families gain access to proper nutrition, education, and health care programs.

Find out how you can contribute to this activity by visiting www.hopeinternational.org or call Katie Straight at 540-229-3152 to learn more about HOPE International.

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Jeff Rutt: Empowering Women with HOPE

From JEFF RUTT

Jeff Rutt recognizes that women have long been marginalized by society. Even in these modern times, Jeff remarks that most women in the countries where they operate are still being deprived of education by parents and prohibited by husbands from working outside of their homes.

Jeff says that it is not a coincidence that around 80% of HOPE’s clients are women. He notes that studies and his own observation have proven women to be a wise investment. Investing and educating women did not only pay off in terms of profit but contributed to the improvement of women’s self-esteem.

As an investment, Jeff Rutt explains that women repay more consistently than their male counterparts and spend their profits on the needs of their families such as nutrition, housing, and education for their children.

HOPE paved the way for women from developed countries to interact with women in developing countries who have been denied the ideas of freedom and respect. Members have been empowered to assert their rights that HOPE has witnessed women banding together to petition for government to improve their employment conditions.

More women are also asserting their rights. During a group meeting in India, a member shared how her husband has been continually beating her despite pleas to stop. Fifteen women in the group confronted her husband about how his violent behavior violated the rights of his wife.

HOPE is committed to continue to empower women worldwide. Learn more about this noble initiative at www.keystonecustomhome.com/hope.

From JEFF RUTT

From JEFF RUTT

Jeff Rutt: HOPE All Ablaze in Asia

Jeff Rutt, a grand slam Builder of the Year from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, felt a calling to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty in developing countries and thus founded HOPE International in 1997.

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Prompted by the depressing situation in post-Soviet Union Ukraine, he came across the concept of microfinance as a poverty alleviation strategy. Together with the Christian vision, HOPE started implementing microenterprise development in Europe, and then spreading to Africa, and then to Asia, the most populous continent in the world.

Despite the prominent economic upturn in Asia, poverty levels have not been subdued in some countries. Obscure families still struggle to access fundamental necessities including jobs, such as in war-stricken Afghanistan. Jeff Rutt and the HOPE team also feel for the 50 million Chinese still living in shortage of wealth and freedom, despite China’s industrial rush in the recent years. The Philippines also has its own statistics of families living below the poverty line, 34 million of them, who direly need solutions that will lead to self-sufficiency.

From JEFF RUTT

It is in the dark of these economic quandaries that HOPE brings its holistic approach to poverty. As a Christian faith-based organization, it develops microfinance services—microloans for Chinese retailers, improving the standard of living of Afghans through microenterprise development, and additional services such as life insurance, health insurance, and housing loans to the Filipinos—while introducing spiritual integration, wherever law abides it, in these Asian countries. The organization believes that physical and spiritual poverty need to be addressed side by side.

From JEFF RUTT

More details about the HOPE impact in Asia can be accessed at www.jeffruttblog.com.