United Religions Initiative, annual Global Council meeting, Day 5
(last day)
October 14, 2015
(Note: When a person is mentioned for the first time, their name
is in boldface. More information
about each person can be found on the URI web site at: http://www.uri.org/about_uri)
Wednesday started with a blessing from the Africa Region. Rattan read something from the Sikh
scripture, the Adi Granth, and Elisha told a story about being a tribal
chieftain in Nigeria.
I sat next to Swamini, who asked if I was doing better and
suggested Reiki. When I told that Reiki
and other magical approaches were the only ones that had helped, she said
"Oh! Of course. You're a Wiccan. You're open to good things." I smiled and thought that would make a good
slogan: "We're Wiccan; we're open to good things!"
After singing "Happy Birthday!" to Sue Martin
(Christian / USA - Director of Development), Sally asked us to do something for
the CBS Christmas Eve special.
Apparently a song will feature in the special. It's sole lines are : "I will be your
standing stone. I will stand by
you." (No one seemed to notice how
Pagan this was.)
Sue, Becky Burad (Christian / USA - Treasurer), and Bill
led a session on long-term sustainability.
Bill told a story about another major, global interfaith organization
that was already almost 70 years old when the URI got started. They didn't think that the URI would amount
to much. Now, while they have a lot of
global connections, they don't do very much because their funding can only
support a staff of two. "Whatever
we do," Bill said, "we'll need staff to support it, and funding to
support the staff. If we don't have a
President's Council to secure the funding, we could be in the same shape in the
future." Bill talked more about the
President's Council and its role in the URI.
Bill said that he had two and a half goals in his retirement:
1) Write a book
about the beginnings of the URI (or else someone else would write it). That's just been accomplished. A Bishop's Quest: Founding a United
Religions is available on Amazon.
2) Create an
endowment to fund the basic operating costs of the URI. That probably needs to be ~$50-60 million and
it's in the works.
2 1/2) Write a
book called The Sacred and the Silly, collecting some of the ridiculous
stories from his years as Bishop and URI founder. He has about 150 pages done.
Bill asked us to consider the support of the URI in three large
categories:
1) The "URI
budget" really means the Global Support Office, the Global Staff, the
costs of Global Council meetings, and underwriting Regional Assemblies. But there's also...
2) The money
being raised by the CCs themselves to support their activities. We did an assessment of this in 2000. If we excluded the handful of CCs whose own
budgets were in the $100k to $1 million range, then the CCs were raising about
5 million on their own.
3) With a Staff
of 26 people serving over 700,000 members, it was obvious that 90% of the work
in the URI was being done by volunteers.
Bill said that, with the growth of the URI since 2000, if we did
an assessment today (which needs to be done!) of funds and in-kind
donations circulating in the totality of the URI it could well reach half a
billion dollars!
Bill asked how the URI network does this:
1)
Self-sufficiency. The 745 CCs raise
their own funds. This makes the URI
unlike every other global interfaith organization.
2)
Circulation. Now, it mostly moves from
the center outwards. He suggested the
creation of a Global Council Assembly fund.
If everyone contributed a little bit towards getting the Trustees
together once a year, that would take a large burden off of the Global
Budget. He also said that we need to
encourage more CC to CC giving. (I
volunteered that the Spirituality & the Earth CC has been doing that since
the founding of the URI; paying for English lessons for Latin American
Trustees, travel costs for indigenous representation at interfaith events, and
more. I also explained about the use of youcaring.com to raise
money to bring Raul to the Parliament of the World's Religions.)
3) Equity. We need to balance the value of money and
labor so that everyone's contribution is honored. We also need to understand the relative value
of a dollar in different parts of the world.
I suggested that, rather than try to track currency exchange rates, we
think in terms of the cost of something like a loaf of bread in different parts
of the world.
In the discussion of all of this, several people brought up the
need to more clearly explain to prospective CCs the benefits of
membership. I brought up our "What
CoG Already Does for You" pamphlet and suggested that we include among the
benefits of membership the opportunity to share in the vision of the URI and
the opportunity to make a difference in the world at a larger scale through
supporting the work of other CCs.
When I interviewed 14 CCs in 2002 at the URI's Global Assembly in Rio de
Janeiro, each of them explained how they raised money in very different ways in
14 countries around the world. In
addition to their direct fund-raising activities, every single CC added how
important it was to be part of a larger, global network - to be able to speak
to donors with the gravitas lent by such a network and to know that they
had the intangible support of hundreds of thousands of people who believed in
and encouraged their work.
When we had to cut short this discussion to move on in the agenda,
Sally mentioned to me that in an open discussion, the white men always speak up
first, giving them more input into the meeting before we have to cut it
short. I added that it's always the
white, native-English-speaking men.
This is a cultural problem that we need to address. The fact is that we do have limited
time to spend on a number of topics, so how can we make sure that voices that
are not inclined to just jump in will always be included and heard?
Becky said that all of the Trustees were very generous and that we
should be proud. She reminded us of the
traditions of giving in our various faith traditions.
Sam An said that Interfaith Youth of Cambodia CC is not registered
with the government, so it is illegal for it to receive donations. This is a problem in most of the world. It's not just an issue of being a non-profit
and giving donors a tax-deduction, its that it is illegal for an organization
to receive money from outside unless it is registered with the government, and
registration can be a long and difficult process. Many countries' government are very
suspicious of non-business organizations.
Kiran agreed that the dynamics of giving are very different from
place to place. In most of Europe,
individuals do not give money to charities - governments do that. Currently, in the UK, there is a lot of
concern re: violent extremism. If a
group can sow that it is doing something to address that, then there is
government funding available.
Elisha talked about how CCs were able to work together to create a
Christian / Muslim Tolerance Project that brought peace to an area of northern
Uganda.
I said that it's great that we can share stories of successful
fundraising efforts here, but we need to share them across the URI
network. Can we create a section of the
global website dedicated to sharing information between CCs about successful
fundraising, perhaps sorted by Region?
There was interest in pursuing this when we are back home.
Sue reminded us that the global organization does not receive support
from corporations or religious groups.
This has been a policy since the beginning, to avoid the appearance of
undue influence. She, like many of us,
believes that there are interested donors around the world; we just need to
find them.
For the next phase of the discussion, Becky directed our attention
to the Essential URI Handbook, pages 6-7 - Global Council Roles &
Responsibilities. There was an effort to
make the wording of the Handbook as simple as possible, to ease
translation into many languages, but some needs to be looked at and understood
clearly. Under the section on
"Leadership, Governance, & Oversight":
2. Accepting accountability for both the financial stability and
the financial future of URI.
3. Approving URI’s annual budget, audit reports, and material
business decisions; being informed of, and meeting all legal and fiduciary
responsibilities.
Becky explained that this was all about accountability. The Global Council is responsible for all
resources and assets, management, insurance, employee benefits, outside audits,
etc.
11.
Collectively, GC Trustees will play an active role in fundraising for URI. Individually, Trustees will consider URI a
giving priority and make annual gifts commensurate with their capacity. So that
URI can credibly solicit contributions from donors, URI expects 100% of the
Global Council to make some annual financial contribution.
Sue explained that it's always very important to be able to say to
a prospective donor that 100% of our Board contributes to the organization
(whatever the individual amount). She
said that the main reason that people don't give to a good cause is that they
haven't been asked. She explained "planned
giving".
When Sue started to talk about the URI endowment, Sam asked for an
explanation of "endowment" for the group. Victor did so, and Swamini added that this is
often called a "corpus fund" in other parts of the world.
Genivalda brought up an idea she had mentioned before called
"$1 for URI". We should ask
each CC for $1 - "although you can give more" - so everyone feels
that they are participating in supporting the global URI. Also, imagine going to donors and being able
to say "Do all of our Trustees give?
Not only do they, all of our Cooperation Circles do as well!"
Our discussion on funding identified four broad sources:
1) Corporations -
We should approach those with a mandate to address social obligations.
2) Individuals -
We should identify and approach those with a personal interest in using their
money to support social good.
3) Earned Income
/ Goods - We should consider how the URI could become a global marketplace.
4) Government -
We should identify sources of governmental funding.
We broke into four groups to look at these, one group for each
source this. My group looked at Individuals
and included Vrajapati, John, Biff Barnard (Christian / USA - President's
Council), Kazi, Peter, and me.
Highlights from our group...
* Reach through our CCs to find
people with funds.
* Establish a Fundraising Resource
CC in the Multiregion to investigate the different "cultures of
giving" around the world and collect advisors knowledgeable in local
fundraising to assist CCs.
* Approach existing members
better.
* Get clarity re: who are we
asking for? Global Operations? The Endowment? The Regions?
Specific CCs?
* Perhaps we should try to
establish Regional Endowments?
* Investigate the laws from
country to country to ensure that the fundraising methods we recommend are in
fact legal. What's legal in one country may
not be in another.
* Establish guidelines for
building a case-by-case fundraising strategy.
* Revive and circulate some of
our earlier guidelines restricting funding from corporations or single-faith
religious groups.
Highlights from the other groups...
Corporations:
* Develop a "message"
of what the URI is and how it benefits corporations through the activities of
its CCs and through creating a more stable social environment of goodwill and
cooperation between religions. Let's
face it - religions being at peace is good for business (well, most
businesses).
* Some sort of "stamp of
approval" from the URI would help local groups approach corporations.
Earned Income
* The URI could host a Global
Marketplace where goods produced by CCs around the world could be sold.
* We should encourage the CCs in
the telling of stories. Almost all CCs
have compelling stories of their founding, their challenges and successes, and
more. Perhaps we could assist with
getting such material published.
* We could investigate employing
our expertise to provide interfaith education in schools.
* We could look into how goods
could be exchanged between CCs.
Government
* It was noted that government
grants are usually for particular projects.
Concern was expressed that such funds may come with strings attached.
* Some Trustees already work with
USAID and have advice on writing grant requests.
* Someone pointed out that, in
explaining the amount of work put in by URI members, if each person's in kind
work was valued at just $20 a year, that adds up to $14,000,000!
Someone suggested that the Global Council should become
self-funding. Another, that the CCs
could participate hosting educational trips for donors.
All of this just took us to lunch!
Over lunch, I sat with Sherif, Elisha, Bart, Petar, and Elisabeth. We talked about the refugee problems coming
from the Near East and the effect on Sherif's & Petar's countries (Egypt
& Bulgaria). We also talked about
the state of interest in secession in Elisabeth's Catalonia.
After lunch, Liam had a short time to finish his presentation from
the day before. I was both sorry I had
missed it and sorry he only had a short time today, as it was one of the most
interesting and useful. He was
addressing how we can tell if the network is working - how well the
organization is serving its constituent parts and how much the whole & the
parts are having an impact on the world in relation to the three
"interrelated & mutually reinforcing" goals of the URI:
* to promote
enduring, daily interfaith cooperation;
* to end
religiously motivated violence;
* to create
cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.
(It was way more comprehensive and densely packed than I could get
down in my notes, but afterwards he agreed to send me his notes.)
Some of the measurable indicators that the organizational network
is working:
* Number of new CCs generated
each year and geographic coverage of CCs.
* Number & % increase in
youth & women leading and participating in CCs.
* % of CCs that partner with
other CCs to carry out joint initiatives / activities.
* % of CCs receiving support such
as CC exchanges, trainings, participation in URI events to raise the CCs'
profile.
* Total number and % of CCs /
people who have been trained in peacebuilding.
* % of CCs sharing resources and
information with one another.
* Numbers of CCs linked to
funders or resources.
* Number and quality (scale of
1-5) of URI partnerships with institutions such as police, military, schools /
universities.
I've listed the above at some length for a reason. Early in the history of the URI, I pointed
out - often and to anyone who would listen - that the structure of the URI and
the structure of CoG were extremely similar. (So much so that, to this day, I keep
slipping up and call their Global Assembly "Grand Council" or our
National Board "the Global Council".)
This should come as no surprise since the URI was trying to create a
structure that would "allow for the maximum autonomy in the local unit,
while providing for networking at the global level)". Where have we heard that before? This is why I chair the URI's Bylaws
Committee - I am very familiar with these structures.
Early on, they had a lot to learn from us. We'd tried the same things already and had
discovered the pitfalls. After 15 years
of experimenting at a global level with 745 local units, I sometimes think we
can learn from them.
Some things obviously don't apply, of course, and others have to
be scaled down, but try reading the list above substituting "coven"
for CCs and "CoG" for URI. Is
there insight here for CoG's future?
Could we be the URI of the Craft?
Just food for thought.
Where the analogy really breaks down, however, is in the
activities of the CCs in their communities.
The URI CCs are promoting interfaith in a way that covens usually do
not.
Some of the measurable indicators that Cooperation Circles are
(not could be, are) having an impact:
* Communities celebrate each
other's religious and/or cultural holidays and events (through CC events).
* Religious leaders engaged in
dialogue (through CC events/activities).
* Establishment of CC-sponsored
interreligious councils to solve disputes.
* Reduction of
interreligious/intercultural violence (in community of a CC).
* Number of children in schools
with curricula and activities promoting interfaith harmony (CC-School
initiatives).
* Tolerance for building of religious
shrines of minority religions (in CC community).
* Media promotion of interfaith
harmony (positive stories of interreligious cooperation, reduced use of
stereotypes, voices of minority heard, etc.).
* Children from different
faiths/cultures play together.
* Cleaner environment (through CC
activities).
Some of this still applies to covens, but would have to be
re-interpreted intro a Craft / Pagan context.
There's more, but this gets the idea across, I think. Maria added that w do a comprehensive interview
with a CC when it joins, and another a year later, so we at least can see how
much impact belonging to the network has had on a CC over the course of its
first year.
There was a LOT of discussion of this information - other indicators
to consider, how to collect info about them, how to verify the perceived
impact, etc. Liam reminded us to go look
at the CC profiles on the URI website to learn more about what our CCs are
doing around the world.
During a short break, Bill said that he would be giving out and
signing copies of his new book - A Bishop's Quest - at the back of the
room. The book tells the story of the
founding of the URI from Bill's point of view.
Many of you may remember the struggle we had over the inclusion of
"Earth" in the URI's purpose statement back at the founding of the
organization. Bill's comments on the
Preamble, Purpose, and Principles of the URI on pages 225-234 of this book shed
some light on his understanding of these events and make interesting reading
for Pagans. Whatever its history, the
URI is completely supportive of environmental issues now and the Environmental Resources CC - founded by Bill Swing -
was the first Resources CC to be created.
When we reconvened, we opened with a blessing from the Southeast
Asia & the Pacific Trustees - Musa, Peter, and Sam An. We then started the actual business meeting
of the Global Council.
Last year, when we first were given copies of the Essential URI
Handbook, I noted that one of the "Key Principles of Good Practice for
Individual Trustees" was #7 - "A Trustee keeps GC deliberations
confidential." I asked how that
applied to my reports and the ensuing discussion reached no conclusion. As a result, I errored on the side of caution
and asked folks to look at my existing reports and see if they were okay.
No one voiced objections to me, which means either they didn't
object or didn't look. Either way, I'll
continue to proceed with caution, which has the added advantage of reducing
what might be too much detail in my reports anyway. :-)
Kiran opened with a moment of silence. She then went around the room and asked each
Trustee for their thoughts on the material covered so far. Items of greater and lesser import came up:
* Questions about how we would be
proceeding with finalizing the Strategic Plan for the next few years.
* A recommendation that, in the
future, we have our meetings at the same place as our hotel rooms, to make it
easier to grab catnaps.
* Will there be a press release
about this meeting? Yes. (Note: Hasn't happened yet.)
* We have a challenge in working
on long-range tasks that will take several years when half of our Global
Council is new every two years. We
always have to start over to some degree.
Staggered terms may have helped with continuity, but it has created
other problems.
* It's very difficult to find
times for Global Council conference calls when we have folks in 13 time
zones! Some of us are always having
difficulty staying awake.
* Several people talked about the
miracles of getting us all together at all and of the work that we do in such a
short time.
* Victor talked about how we
create powerful bonds when we come together and then try to maintain them over
long distances. The tech we have is
helpful, but inadequate and we need to keep exploring new tech and new ways to
not only maintain, but empower, community.
(I couldn't help but think much more true this is of the
Multiregion.)
* Bill noted that, in addition to
our one face-to-face meeting each year, we have three conference calls. What if, for each of those calls, one Trustee
from each Region was brought to San Francisco for a mini-face2face as well as
the call? It could be a different set of
Trustees each time, rotating through the Trustees from each Region.
* Is there a way that the CCs
could participate more in the work of the Global Council?
* One of the non-English-speakers
pointed out that they really need the face to face communication, as seeing the
facial expressions is a big help in understanding the English. Victor said that he has been in very
effective video conferencing and that this was something we could look into.
* We will be going into elections
in 2016 for four Regions: Latin America & the Caribbean, Middle East &
North Africa, Multiregion, and North America.
* Biff, on behalf of the
President's Council who were with us, thanked the Global Council for the
experience and for the work we do.
We took a 10 minute break and
took a group photo.
After the break, we studied and passed a draft budget that will go
back to the Finance & Operations Committee for tweaking as the year comes
to an end, then come back to the GC for final approval at the end of the year. The projected 2016 budget at this point is a
little over $3.4 million. Given the size
of the organization, that's fairly lean and trim. Phil said that, based on his experience with
other large non-profits, he was stunned that we were doing so much with so
little. Victor said that he expected our budget to grow to around $4.5 million
by 2020, given our current growth in CC membership.
Phil asked how many of the Trustees do not have internet
access? Just one. How many are on Skype? Almost all.
How many are on facebook? Almost
all.
After this (and aware that our time was getting short), Victor and
I gave a brief report on the status of our Bylaws Committee. We have partnered with the Mills Legal Clinic
at Stanford Law School, which is taking on our Bylaws, pro bono, as a
seminar project. They have all the
reports from the Bylaws Committee so far and will go over our existing Bylaws -
mindful of our needs and intentions, California non-profit law, and precedents
of best-practices - and come back to us with a binder full of recommendations. Our Bylaws Committee will then go over those
recommendations and report back to the Legal Clinic, which will then prepare a
final report for our Global Council. Our
existing Bylaws Committee includes: Kiran, Victor, John Weiser, John Kurakar, Genivalda,
Vrajapati, and me as Chair.
This concluded our business session and the official 2015 annual
meeting of the Global Council. We had
about an hour to relax and chat with munchies before the evening program. At 7pm a bus arrived full of members of the
Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World's Religions, many of who I
recognized from previous interfaith events.
Andras was there, but not Phyllis.
She was busy preparing the Womens' Assembly that was starting the next
day. Andras stood out as the only
representative from a "non-Big 5" religion.
We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves. In my opinion, the Parliament Trustees were
surprised at the diversity - of both religion and nationality - of our
Trustees. Later, over dinner, I think
they were also surprised at the scope of the actions in the field of our
Cooperation Circles - in conflict transformation, economic development,
education, health care, nuclear disarmament, refugee and displacement issues,
women’s empowerment., etc., etc. I think
they thought we were just a bunch of dialogue groups. Just my impression.
Eventually, they caught their bus back and we caught our shuttles
back to the hotel. And so ended a very
long day of interfaith... and the Parliament would start the next morning!
More to come…
Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative
