ELGIN, Ill. – Combining “faith with a plan of action,” the board of directors of humanitarian agency Church World Service unanimously approved a strategic vision to meet the requirements for superior performance in a changing global environment.
Calling the moment “historic,” CWS CEO and Executive Director, the Rev. John L. McCullough said the changes will “ripple out from here to inspire and inform the work of the global CWS network.”
The CWS 2020 vision, which grew out of four years of focused debate, discussion and inquiry with members, partners, donors and staff guided by the CWS board of directors, highlights 11 principles affirming the agency’s role as a grassroots leader responding to hunger and its causes. The response to hunger undergirds CWS’s programmatic work in refugee resettlement, disaster response and development.
The change comes as the agency is poised to enter its new quadrennium, preparing for a new and smaller board.
Incoming Board Chair, the Rev. Dr. Earl D. Trent, Jr., described the enthusiasm surrounding the approval of the measure: “There is a sense of excitement because we are moving out into something new and as you look at the needs and the challenges, you see that CWS is going to be leaner and even more effective in our work as we move in this new direction.” Dr. Trent, a member of the board since 2005, is senior pastor of Florida Avenue Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.
As he passes leadership of the board over to the new chair, outgoing Board Chair Bishop Johncy Itty says he sees CWS 2020 as an opportunity for CWS to “creatively engage in mission” in a dramatically changing world.
“It provides an opportunity for people with a wide variety of personal, religious and social experiences to gather together in community to support the dignity of all human beings through the work of CWS,” said Itty, who is a bishop of the Episcopal Church.
65 Years of Service
The United States-based global humanitarian agency, which celebrates its 65th anniversary this year, is composed of 37 member communions connected in mission with a global ecumenical network of partners and grassroots agencies. CWS and its global partners develop and coordinate programs run by indigenous staff in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. The agency also sponsors the popular CROP Hunger Walks held annually in some 2,000 communities in the U.S.
CWS grew out of the faith response to hunger in a continent reeling from the aftereffects of World War II. The agency organized shipments of grain, donated by Midwestern farmers, to help feed starving war survivors in Europe.
Speaking of the agency’s decades of service, the Rev. McCullough said, “We have a proud and distinguished past and our future is equally exciting. Our post-war model was appropriate to the global need at that moment in time. As the world has changed in the years since CWS began its work, so too is the way that we envision and accomplish our work,” Rev. McCullough added.
Over the years, CWS’s programs and its signature grassroots fundraiser in the U.S., the CROP Hunger Walks, have gained nationwide recognition, although the agency’s broader international development, disaster relief and refugee resettlement programs remain less well known. A key component of the new strategy will be increased collaboration – in a wide variety of settings, faiths, world views, and conditions – aimed at better reflecting, strengthening and recognizing the global nature of CWS and its emphasis on indigenous community-based solutions.
That emphasis, says Dr. Nigussu Legesse, who just completed a four-year term on the board, is a perceptive move on the part of CWS. A native of Ethiopia, Legesse, who now lives in Geneva where he serves as program executive for Africa at the World Council of Churches, says that an important part of CWS’s strength is its ability to “draw upon the knowledge, ability and experience of its partners and staff from the global south.”
In addition to program focus, the 2020 vision includes more partnerships beyond CWS’s historical funding relationships, a reduction in the size of its board, and the creation of new ways for members to be involved in the 21st century work of the global organization.
Legesse pointed to changes in the faith landscape that show mainline churches becoming more “inward-looking in the sense that they are considering more the development of their own congregations rather than supporting each other in an ecumenical way.” That, Legesse believes, is a challenge that CWS is properly responding to with its decision to look beyond its member communions for support, even as it continues to nurture the historical ecumenical support that in large part defines the agency.
Legesse summed up the importance of CWS, saying “In this fragile world in which we live, where need or disaster can hit anywhere, where people can lose everything and be left only with desperation, CWS is hope for all those people. Even just to see the CWS logo in a desperate time makes them know that ‘’We are here for you.’ That is very important all around the world and if the new change makes us even stronger that is good.”
In addition to Trent, officers elected are the Rev. John L. McCullough, CWS executive director and CEO; the Rt. Rev. Johncy Itty, The Episcopal Church; immediate past chairperson Roy Winter, Church of the Brethren; 1st vice chairperson the Rev. Amy Gopp, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); 2nd vice chairperson Roland Fernandes, The United Methodist Church, treasurer; and Sunitha Mortha, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, secretary.
A full description of the process and its findings and documents is located at www.cws2020.org. The CWS 2020 videoreveals the “new CWS” as the agency moves into its future.