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CWS Executive Director's report to CWS Board

October 24, 2006

Cleveland, Ohio

Introduction

I want to begin this report by first thanking the United Church of Christ for graciously hosting our Board of Directors meeting here in Cleveland. As always, we have appreciated your hospitality whenever CWS meetings have been held in this city.

Church World Service gathered here at yet another important historical milestone in our ecumenical journeying together, as we marked our fiftieth anniversary of a tradition of help and a legacy of hope. And, while today is not nearly as important an occasion, nonetheless our meeting here during the sixtieth anniversary of Church World Service denotes yet another significant milestone in our history, worthy of celebration for what it has meant to the lives of millions of people around the world and here in the United States.

Recently I visited with CROP Hunger Walk leaders and volunteers in the Denver area. There I was met with great and earnest enthusiasm for our ministry together. From seven or eight year old Joe who with sleepy eyes and blush cheeks on a chilly October morning was setting out on his first CROP Walk, to Shirley Hamilton whose face swelled with pride when she was recognized for her continuous walk with CWS for now fifty-eight years as fundraiser and volunteer, our mission as Christians working together with partners to eradicate hunger and poverty and to promote peace and justice around the world has been both a source of inspiration and purposeful living.

In November of 1967 yet another memorable event took place. Mr. and Mrs. Harlan Stenger brought to Cleveland their American Tour, An African Object Exhibit, and a phenomenal collection of African paintings, sculptures and other objects. Harlan was a celebrated artist for his depictions of the people of Ghana, where from 1964-67 he served as the Overseas Representative of Church World Service. Fondly remembered by his daughter Cindy and her husband John, "the Rev. Harlan Stenger was responsible for insuring that those, for whom they were intended, properly received relief food and goods that were sent from America." A place of warmth and hospitality, the Harris’ home is a living museum of her parents’ work, noting, "[Her parents] three years with Church World Service was a highlight of their selfless career in service to other people." Finally, Cindy and John offered this blessing to CWS saying, "We wish you great success in your noble challenge of helping those in need…"

That is a sentiment greatly appreciated because today Church World Service is meeting that challenge. The CWS staff is literally working around the clock around the world to meet that challenge every day of the year.

• With CWS offices on five continents, including the opening of our newest regional office in Maputo, Mozambique; and now Regional Coordinators located in Thailand, Argentina, Kenya, and Bosnia;
• An unparalleled global network of ecumenical, indigenous, and other partnerships; an unprecedented, though under-developed, national network of local hunger and poverty agencies; and,
• A competent and effective staff serving our mission: building and maintaining relationships, assessing programs, mitigating disasters, promoting public policy, welcoming migrants and refugees to our shores, keeping computer systems operating, tracking financial and material resources, monitoring news services, and cultivating financial support,

Church World Service is on the move.

Of CWS, one staff person wrote:

I am strongly struck by an intense level of activity and energy. The meetings of all the regional teams; the comings and goings of our regional coordinators; our trips abroad; the settling in of colleagues to new positions -- there is a real sense of dynamism. Nothing is status quo! I feel the sense of awe.

Tradition.

Vitali was born the second of three children to Natalja and Ivan Verona on October 15, 1952 in Moldova, a former republic of the Soviet Union, though their ethnic heritage is Ukrainian. His father was an agrarian and his mother a primary school teacher.

After his father died at the young age of 36, Vitali's family found itself in a very difficult financial situation, and knew the face of poverty in a country already deeply impoverished. Now, several decades later, Moldova continues to occupy one of the last places among the European countries according to the income per capita, with a GDP per capita under the average of all the regions in the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2004, about 40% of the population were under the absolute poverty line and registered an income lower than US $2.15 -purchasing power equivalent- per day. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe in terms of GDP per capita. *1

Vitali remembers being inspired by his paternal grandmother Marfa, a devout Christian, who was instrumental in forming his religious faith and membership in the Orthodox Church. "She told me," he said, "I should live simply, expect little and give much with love." This advice was a sure and steady anchor as he sought to honor the most important values in his family: hard work, honesty, kindliness, and education. After earning a PhD, this was the foundation upon which he has built a distinguished tradition of service as Advisor to the Vice Minister of Education in Moscow, Professor at the University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Project Development Consultant for UNICEF and Lutheran World Service, and Logistics Officer for Medecins du Monde. It is little wonder that Vitali Verona now serves as CWS Overseas Representative for the Balkans Region, and refers to the Balkans Program's contribution to the building of community dialogue and social reconciliation work as his greatest personal achievement.

Pieces falling into place

Vitali's story is one of perseverance, of commitment from one generation to the next, of clear and consistent values, the application of faith, and of the reality that if we work hard enough at something the pieces will begin to come together. Vitali's is one of many mirror images of the CWS story. Like the valley of dry bones, new sounds of life are coming from our CWS Forums, such as from the Middle East Forum in partnership with the Middle East Council of Churches following their meeting with Iraqi church leaders. New sounds are coming from the CWS Interfaith Summit on Africa, organized in cooperation with the All Africa Conference of Churches, where policy makers consulted with religious leaders to ascertain their views about US development assistance in Africa; from children across Latin America in partnership with organizations like Civil Association Gurises Unidos (kids united) in Uruguay, and Caminante Educational Project (the walkers) in the Dominican Republic as we refuse to accept poverty, and the exploitation of children and youth; and from the Social Worker Training Project in partnership with the Hanoi Women’s Union College, where together we are helping young women to improve the quality of their lives, work, and services to their communities.

Throughout its history Church World Service has always been about people. The people who rallied their neighbors and churches in this noble cause in 1946, and the people who not only have been recipient of our assistance throughout these past sixty years, but who now partner with us in a collective effort to transform the world to a reality of justice and peace. The DNA of CWS is found in the more than one hundred and eighty thousand persons participating as CROP Hunger Walkers this year. It's in the three hundred CWS Pakistan and Afghanistan staff risking insult, threat, and injury serving thousands of uprooted families, while at the same enabling young people, especially girls to pursue their hopes and dreams in schools now better equipped for learning.

I hear a noise, and a rattling, and bones coming together – bones to bones; and I see sinews and flesh. I believe that where there is hunger, it can be fed; where there is poverty, it can be overcome; where there is injustice, civility can be established, and peace – Peace can become the order of the Day.

I want to report to you today that across the life of Church World Service we enjoy strong, competent, visionary, and a results-driven staff leadership and service. Collaboration between and amongst Program, Operations, Resource Development, and Financial Management is increasingly outstanding. That is not to say we are without our share of difficulties and challenges. But it is to say we know where our vulnerabilities are, and we are clear in our resolve to improve the product that is Church World Service.

The Strategic Plan presented in this meeting is the result of countless hours of consultations and meeting to evaluate our current plan, to give shape to a common and more integrated vision, and to begin giving this vision dimension and direction for future activity. From Nairobi to Jakarta, from Miami to Buenos Aires, from Islamabad to Washington, D.C., our Program team has collaborated and agreed on both methodology and priority for meeting our programmatic objectives. We not only have sufficiently talented staff, but more importantly they have the tenacity to help us meet our mission.

At the same time we recognize that many of our Communion mission organizations are undergoing fairly radical changes. The paradigm for collaboration between and among CWS and Communion program staff therefore remains somewhat in flux, and the availability of program funding less certain. Nonetheless, our covenant to a common mission is what makes us unique and builds our capacity to fulfill it.

Once again, in this meeting Financial Management will present a clean audit with no material findings. CWS has an excellent financial staff, perhaps invisible to most, but nonetheless effective on our behalf, achieving an A- rating for management of our financial resources and in building public trust. We have continued to improve our performance in reconciling expenditures, meeting local allocations, moving financial resources around the world, building funding reserves, managing our investments, and keeping Church World Service solvent.

We recognize however, that we still experience periods during the year when finances are lean, and choices have to be made as to what expenditures will take priority. We are making those choices, meeting all of our commitments, and working to bolster confidence with our partners, both domestic and international, all the while recognizing that there remains room for improvement.

CWS remains a large and complex organization. In Washington we are in the process of consolidating the offices of Religious Services, Technical Resources, Domestic Emergency Response, and the CWS portion of U.S. Public Policy into one office suite on the fourth floor of the United Methodist Building. We will still maintain strong collaboration with the NCC on matters of U.S. Public Policy, but this reconfiguration will enable greater collaboration and influence on, as well as integration of our common work as CWS. We think it will help us to work smarter in areas of public policy, will enhance our networking and funding relationships with the government and non-governmental organizations, and strengthen our credibility and visibility in the nation's capital.

Since our last meeting we have implemented new leadership for, and a new approach to funds development in CWS. You may well have noted different nomenclature with respect to the CROP Walks. We have begun conversion to a new identity, CROP Hunger Walks, marking a more assertive posture with respect to our national leadership in addressing global hunger. Next year we will be celebrating sixty years of CROP as the original national ecumenical grassroots humanitarian movement in the United States. We recognize not only the proliferation of other community fundraising events but also the necessity of claiming and protecting the space we have developed throughout our history.

CROP Walk participants in FY 06	184,608
Average Participants per CROP Walk	107
$ Average per walk	$8,632
$ Average per participant	$81
# CROP Hunger Walks	1,732
Top CROP Hunger Walk	Charlotte, NC $254,129
Durham, NC (Jimmie Hawkins' walk) was #2 with $191,838. Holland, MI (Betty Voskuil's walk) was #7 with $104,670. CROP Hunger Walks now take place in the US and Canada.

Additionally, we have conducted reviews of our donor data base for the top fifty donors, to assess their existing gift potential and determine appropriate cultivation and solicitation strategies, We have also begun solicitation calls on select major donors: including individuals, corporations, and foundations. We will be asking for your help.

Not to be lost in all of this is the work of the Office of the Executive. The Interfaith Summit on Africa was a command performance by CWS, but there is more. We have built a more credible relationship with the World Council of Churches, as the WCC sought our counsel in assessing their Strategic Plan. We now have standing as a Specialized Ministry in Central Committee Meetings, reaffirmed our coordination role in the CANZUS group for the WCC Roundtable, and provided strong participation in the dialogue pertaining to ACT Development, an item for decision at this meeting.

The new CROP Hunger Walk video is widely acclaimed; and at this meeting we will be premiering an exciting new video on CWS at 60 years. Service has become a signature publication, and we have begun production and release of newly formatted print materials to more effectively tell our CWS story. The Annual Report is itself a wonderful illustration of not only the resourcefulness of our staff, but their creativity as well. But that is only the beginning. Even though we still lack sufficient resource for intentional and strategic marketing we have magnified Church World Service name recognition. More and more major news services throughout the world, print, radio, and television are seeking our opinions and picking up our releases on a wide array of topics.

Insomuch that I have been personally involved in all of these activities, and have witnessed firsthand the quality of what has been undertaken on your behalf, I hope you will join me in expressing gratitude to our fine staff.

Help

Ours is a tradition of help, people helping people, and that is what this organization has been committed to in the interim period since the last Board Meeting.

• We responded to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, helping displaced Lebanese families. Working in concert with the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), we provided food, medicine, blankets, and kits. We also prepared to offer support to Israeli families if the need had arisen.
• CWS embarked on a path of accompaniment with the MECC during a period of critical re-organization, offering supplemental financial support and counsel.
• We launched a $3 million housing rehabilitation project in the Gulf states in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, helping to bridge the gap for those whose homes were not totally destroyed by the hurricanes of 2005.
• In Pakistan over 100,000 families have returned to their home communities, but are still without permanent housing as winter approaches. Many are living in the tents they took with them from the displacement camps they lived in temporarily immediately after the earthquake. The Pakistan Government Reconstruction Plan relative to shelter disallows NGO help in permanent shelter construction except for families where the head of household is disabled. This has meant that many people who returned home have not had the ability to get homes constructed. CWS has trained young men in our Construction Trades Training Centers, helping them to help not only their own families, but their neighbors as well.
• Even more important than expanding our CWS presence in Southern Africa, our philosophy behind opening Regional Offices is about helping the ecumenical community achieve more effective collaboration, strengthen partnerships with our member Communions, and build a common platform for meeting some of their most challenging humanitarian needs.

With respect to our own internal matters, I believe we have helped CWS become a more effective organization this year by fully implementing the Salary Administration Plan as originally envisioned. Following long negotiations with the Association of Ecumenical Workers, for the first time all CWS staff participated in annual performance reviews. These reviews help us to more carefully discern not only the strengths and weaknesses of staff performance, but also to recognize areas where staff may be particularly talented. This year working along with the Director of Human Resources, and in consultation with the Senior Manager's Team, I have implemented the Executive Director’s Retreat. The Retreat is an opportunity to meet with a small group of staff distinguished by their work, to learn more about them and their work, to discern a common vision for CWS, and to discuss ways to more effectively meet the mission of this organization.

Our Emergency Response Security Team took a proactive position providing guidance to our staff about the Avian Flu through a series of Email alerts, by pre-positioning emergency supplies, and devising alternative strategies for keeping CWS operative should any of our major US offices be impacted by the virus. We also established new protocols for monitoring and managing staff movements in high-risk areas. In an age of terror, humanitarian workers are not exempt from threat or injury. In fact, it is becoming far too common for humanitarian workers to suffer injury or worse. This is a serious concern for us, and as a result no CWS staff person travels into a high-risk area to which they are not ordinarily assigned without the specific approval of the Executive Director.

We are working to keep health insurance costs for staff on the US payroll within our means. As is the case for organizations of our kind healthcare providers look at the level of risk our employees may be exposed to, average age, and the record of use of services in the previous year, especially for more serious or catastrophic conditions. CWS is vulnerable in some of these areas, resulting in escalating costs. We will be exploring ways to lower the stress levels to which many of our staff are exposed, and will devise ways to encourage habits contributing to good health.

Legacy

Moldova's history has been shaped by the foreigners who came to stay and by those who merely passed through, including Greek colonists, invading Turks and Tatars, officials of the Russian Empire, German and Bulgarian colonists, communist apparatchiks from the Soviet Union, soldiers from Nazi Germany, Romanian co nationalists, and twentieth-century Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Each group has left its own legacy, sometimes cultural and sometimes political, and often unwelcome. *2

Poverty is also part of the legacy of these various conquests, and so is the long and seemingly insurmountable struggle for the people of Moldova to embrace the kind and quality of life to which all people are entitled. But we know they are not alone when we allow our eyes to pierce the realities of Darfur, and Palestine, and North Korea, and so many other desperate and desolate places on God's earth.

Church World Service was organized because people of faith determined in 1946 that this kind of legacy is completely unacceptable. Of Bosnia, Vitali lamented: Ruined houses and buildings - destruction upon destruction... I have witnessed the results of and the horrors of war... I also found a big contrast between the beautiful nature created by God and the devastated villages without inhabitants, animals, or normal life. Each... its own tragic story... a silent testimony to what had happened.

Today we must remain just as determined in our resolve to make sure that the legacy of Sudan is neither the face of starvation –or- callous disregard for death by acts of racism. We must be determined to make sure that the legacy of Cuba is not one of chaos and isolation due to ideological differences –or- the failure of real profiles of courage to open the portals of peace and prosperity for a people who have suffered far too long. We must be determined that the legacy of the Middle East is not one of casting blame, bullets, and bombs –or- paralysis of a region by choosing sides rather than choosing reconciliation.

Hope

Our commitment throughout these sixty years has been to leave a legacy of hope.

Broad reform of US food and farm policy is an important part of ending hunger and poverty in this country and around the world. Originally designed to stimulate agriculture growth and raise farmers out of poverty, these goals for too many remain unrealized.

As an international humanitarian and development agency that advocates for the alleviation of the root causes of hunger and poverty, the CWS campaign "Sow Justice" will join historic partners, Bread for the World, National Catholic Rural Life Conference and other new partners such as Oxfam America in an effort to reform the Farm Bill.

Our publication "Sowing Justice" and the accompanying post card, "Sow Justice" focuses on the opportunity the upcoming farm bill legislation presents to reform prevailing policies. The post card enables us to engage public policy makers, to represent the voices of family farmers and global partners, and to advocate for farm bill legislation supporting sustainable agriculture, rural development, and nutrition programs. At this meeting CWS is officially launching the "Sow Justice" campaign. Reform of the United States Farm agriculture and food policies is a sign of hope.

Sixty years ago CWS was a sign of hope and witness to Christian faith and love in action. It’s mission was simple: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, call for the release of the captives, welcome the stranger, and honor the humanity of others. The people called Church World Service have kept this tradition, as a steady and reliable partner to the most vulnerable in global society. Emboldened by heart, mind, and spirit each generation of CWS has sought to give the best of which they have been capable.

We are no different today. Our hope is that some future generation of CWS will look upon our time as yet another significant milestone in our history, worthy of celebration for what it has meant to the lives of millions of people around the world.

The wisdom in grandmother Marfa's values is as relevant today as it was in the 1950’s. If we follow her advice to "live simply, expect little and give much with love," then within our noble challenge of helping those in need we just might discover more than just A Tradition of Help, but also A Legacy of Hope.

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