President's Blog

Somehow, I went to bed on Tuesday night in denial.  By Wednesday morning that was over.  I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It was the same feeling I had after the tsunami and the same feeling I had after Katrina.   I could tell immediately that this is going to be a long haul for many years: a marathon, not a sprint.

It is important to remember that all disasters have a life cycle:  “The Three Rs of Disasters.”

Right now, we are in the “Rescue” phase.  All hands are on deck to save lives and property.  This phase involves finding and treating the immediate medical needs of survivors and stabilizing ongoing hazards, such as shifting buildings. As such, it is best left to the heavy lifters - government and military search and rescue teams. These groups also have heavy equipment that can clear roads and debris, as well as large specialized operations with mass distribution systems that have pre-positioned warehouses.   The “Rescue” phase typically lasts a week, but with the extraordinary logistical hurdles being faced in Haiti, it may take longer.

The next phase is the “Relief” phase, where the focus is on creating temporary safe and sanitary conditions.  As I saw in Katrina, the church is often one of the first places people go to seek assistance and shelter.  We have already heard that in rural and outlying areas around the earthquake zone, existing clinics are seeing patients who have been able to get out of Port-au-Prince. Some of these clinics are expanding patient care to schools and church buildings.  The “Relief” phase typically lasts a few months.

Finally, we get to the third and final phase: “Recovery.”  During recovery the emphasis shifts to restoring services, rebuilding houses and buildings, and returning, to self-sufficiency.   The Diocese of Haiti has a very large and vibrant social infrastructure and we fully expect that Episcopal Relief & Development will be there for the long haul supporting their important and vibrant ministries. 

The challenge of the “Recovery” phase is that most of the television cameras have moved on, but the human suffering has grown.  It is a chronic state, not a crisis.  However, it is the phase that Episcopal Relief & Development and its partners excel at, because we work with churches that are part of the communities and know the needs best and how to meet them.  This phase will last years.   The unmet needs in a place like Haiti - which already struggles with immense, chronic poverty - will be monumental.

Right now Episcopal Relief & Development is focused on preparing for the “Relief” phase and securing the resources for the “Recovery” phase. 

Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

For more information on the Haiti earthquake and on Episcopal Relief & Development’s response, please visit www.er-d.org/HaitiCrisis.

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, I’ve invited my colleagues in Donor Services to offer some reflections on the thanks that we give. In particular, we are grateful for our supporters, who care for those in need by giving to our work faithfully, with joy and often sacrificially.

This time of year is definitely a busy season for Episcopal Relief & Development’s Donor Services staff.  You may not know this, but about 40% of our donor correspondence and communication occurs in the final eight weeks of the year.  Answering program inquiries, sending out Gifts for Life cards, processing end-of-year contributions – some days feel very hectic indeed.

And yet, to be honest, this is also the most enjoyable time of year for us.  Not too many people can say that they smile every time they open the mail, but it’s true for us.  Every day brings us good tidings of great joy, in packages big and small – for example, the results of a successful Alternative Gift Market or a photo of a young boy’s personal fund-raising project.  We are truly touched by the grandmother who chooses her grandchildren’s Christmas presents from the Gifts for Life catalog.  And over and over again, we recognize the names of donors who have supported us year after year.  We really do get to open our holiday presents every day.

Recently, after sifting through the day’s mail, we talked about the quiet, heartfelt support we receive from Episcopalians, no matter where they live or the level of their income. Every month, we look forward to the arrival of a clean white envelope with three crisp $100 bills – no name, no address, no request for acknowledgment, just a thoughtful anonymous contribution to help those in need.  And we are struck by the humility of donors who apologize that their donations can’t be larger – knowing full well that for some of our supporters, a check for $5 or $10 is a tremendous sacrifice.

Lately, the phrase “hallowthanksmas” has been popping up in the media – a description of the period from Halloween through New Year’s Day that, in many ways, has turned into one long party, but not much of a celebration.  Yet at Episcopal Relief & Development, every day is Thanksgiving Day – and we’re happy to celebrate it with you.

Thanks from all of us in Donor Services – Xerxes, Adrienne, Theresa, John and Esther

Many of our friends and supporters have helped Episcopal Relief & Development shape its strategic goals for the coming triennium.  Thank you.   

I want to report back that at its most recent board meeting, the board affirmed the following goals for the organization for the period 2009-2012. 

International Programs: Fight extreme poverty and disease worldwide, working primarily within the Anglican Communion, by supporting quality programs that promote sustainable development and provide relief and recovery in times of disaster.

US Disaster Preparedness & Response: Help equip dioceses in the United States to support congregations, agencies and communities in order to enable them to better respond to and recover from disasters that impact the vulnerable in their communities and elsewhere.

Church Engagement: Engage all Episcopalians in the work of Episcopal Relief & Development as the compassionate response of the Episcopal Church to help heal a hurting world. 

Funding: Increase and diversify revenue streams to support and sustain programs and operations.

Visibility & Awareness: Position Episcopal Relief & Development in the Episcopal Church, Anglican Communion, and the wider community as a valued partner and leader in responding to human suffering.

There are detailed objectives and work plans that support these goals and that will roll out over the coming months and years.

Let me know what you think about the new goals.

These are tough times for everyone. I’m hopeful but realistic about the prospects for 2009.

In these difficult times, our challenge is to create abundance out of scarcity. If only the Episcopal Church had the child from the parable of the loaves and fishes running Episcopal Relief & Development, we would be a lot better off! He knew how to get things done.

Except for a miracle (and I pray for them daily), how do we go about doing the greatest good for the greatest number at the lowest possible cost?

One of the tools that we use is a decision-making matrix (stop snickering) that was used in a church strategic planning process a few years ago. It was designed by Sithole Mbanga from South Africa. I find it a very useful way to sort through options about how we are to “feed the 5,000” and I share it in the hope that it will help others.

One takes a list of options (in our case program proposals) and rates each one on a scale of 1 to 3 on complexity and 1 to 3 on impact, (with 1 being low and 3 being high).

So, when looking at a set of program proposals we ask ourselves, “How complex is this program?” We then grade it low, medium or high complexity

Then we ask ourselves, “What kind of impact will this program have?” We define impact by a variety of measures, but among the most important is sustainability and numbers of people reached. We then grade it low, medium or high impact.

Once each program has a complexity rating and an impact rating, we chart each program into the matrix. If a program is rated as high impact and low complexity it goes into quadrant 1. If a program is rated high impact, and high on complexity we assign it to quadrant 2, and so on.

Pretty soon it is clear which programs are “must do”, which are “long-term pilots”, which are “let’s keep thinking about it” and which are “don’t do it.”

Interestingly enough there seems to be a high correlation between those projects that are complex and those that are expensive. In our experience complexity and impact don’t often go together either.

Once we’ve done this exercise, we are able to know very quickly what we should do and it makes it a lot easier to create abundance out of scarcity.

Three years after delivering the first long-lasting insecticide-treated net to a remote community at the end of the road in rural Zambia, NetsforLife® has distributed its one millionth net.

My colleague, Shaun Walsh, Executive Director of NetsforLife® was in Kisumu Kenya to mark the occasion. There was much dancing and singing to mark this joyous occasion.

As most of you know, Episcopal Relief & Development is an implementing partner of NetsforLife®. However, reaching this milestone would not have been possible without our other partners: the ExxonMobil Foundation, Standard Chartered Bank, Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, Starr International Foundation, White Flowers Foundation and Christian Aid.

In addition, none of what has been accomplished could have come to pass without the hard work of all of our Anglican Church partners in the field whose experience, local knowledge and incredible efforts at mobilization have paved the way for NetsforLife®’s success.

Along with this momentous achievement, we have trained a veritable army of local volunteer malaria agents across 15 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. These dedicated individuals work on the front lines of net distribution and community education on net use, malaria prevention and symptom recognition. They are the eyes, ears, hearts and feet of NetsforLife® and we should all be profoundly grateful for their life-saving efforts.

Besides distributing nets and training people to work in communities with their friends, colleagues and neighbors on malaria prevention, NetsforLife® has achieved remarkable success in instilling a ‘net culture’ in communities that were previously unaware of the benefits of sleeping under a long-lasting insecticide-treated net.

In all of its countries of implementation, NetsforLife® has recorded astonishing increases in people’s awareness of malaria prevention, symptom recognition and environmental management to control malaria. Most dramatically, overall use of bed nets among those most vulnerable to malaria –children and pregnant women– has increased on average from 12% to 88% in the communities where NetsforLife® is present.

In addition, our third party evaluators report that in communities where NetsforLife® is present:

• 4 out of 5 households have at least one long-lasting insecticide treated net
• 9 out of 10 children under five years of age slept under a net the night before the random monitoring and evaluation took place
• 4 out of 5 pregnant women slept under a net the night before the random monitoring and evaluation took place

Based on this kind of impact, our third party evaluators estimate that between 2006 and 2008 the lives of approximately 12,000 children under five were saved as a result of NetsforLife®.

These statistics are certainly impressive. However, it was what one of the priests where we work said to Dr. Stephen Dzisi, the NetsforLife® Technical Director, which really hit it home for me:

“Before NetsforLife came to this area, community members used to wake me up in the middle of the night at least 4 times every month to baptize and anoint a sick child only to bury him/her the next day. However since the program started such midnight calls have ceased. I believe that NetsforLife is saving lives.”

Everyone in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion can be deeply gratified by these results and give thanks for the work we have been able to do together. Nothing demonstrates to me more profoundly the power of partnership. Together we can eliminate malaria and heal a hurting world.

Gloria In Excelsis Deo!