FORUSA – The Transition

by Doug Mackey

FORUSA has seen many transitions over the nearly 100 years it been around, but the changes occurring in the last two years are likely among the most significant.  I say this having just spent the last year looking through the nearly 100 years of our periodical Fellowship magazine, its predecessors The World Tomorrow and The New World, and some of the historic files of the American FOR buried in the headquarters in Nyack, NY.

This two-year chunk of time began as I attended my first meeting of the National Council at Shadowcliff, the 100-year old mansion and FOR headquarters overlooking the Hudson River just north of New York City.  I learned that Mark Johnson, then Executive Director, would be retiring in about a year, that the National Council fully entrusted the work of the organization to a talented but small staff, and that a strategic plan was nearing completion.

The financial challenges faced by the organization had worsened since the economic downturn of 2008: endowments were decreasing, returns on investments had sharply fallen, several annuities were headed ‘underwater,’ and the three-pronged programmatic focus encapsulated in the “Demilitarizing Life and Land” initiative needed to change to a domestic focus.

Reverend Kristin Stoneking, a Methodist campus minister from Davis California, has been leading the organization since Mark’s retirement a year ago. Kristin is perhaps best known for her reconciliatory actions during the Occupy movement’s pepper spray incident that happen on UC Davis campus.  Kristin’s walk with a frightened Chancellor through the hundreds of quiet students sitting in solidarity, nonviolently, went “viral” on the Internet.

Rev. Stoneking seems up to the multiple challenges and has begun the process of balancing the budget.  This means reducing expenses. After a quick study of FOR’s revenue-generating history, and pursuing the next opportunities, she’s tightened up the non-personnel related spending to the bare minimum.  With National Council support, she’s has reduced field staff from six Regional Organizers to three.  The task was made somewhat easier as Lucas Johnson, Organizer for the two south- and eastern-most regions, has already started his new job as the Director of the International FOR.

These staff changes come after a year of switching focus from the outward-looking FORUSA program (Columbia, Iran, and elsewhere) to a focus on domestic needs of chapters and more direct work with US citizens.  The former three major thrusts had grown out of 1) the nearly 20 years of Accompaniment work in Columbia, 2) a growing series of FOR Peace Delegations to Iran, and 3) the remaking of an economic and civil rights educational program in the Midwest here in the U.S.  While the Demilitarizing Life and Land efforts will continue through FORUSA’s collaborative work, the regional approach in the US will represent the field work of organization for the next few years.

The National Office team will continue to produce Fellowship magazine and the Witness newsletter, alternating the publications, with one each quarter. Witness will share the work of chapters and Fellowship will contain the broader stories of the work of affiliates and allied groups.

What the 2014 changes mean for the future of FORUSA is yet hidden, but it is related to the important work of groups like WWFOR.  Our chapters in the Pacific NW are among the most active in the country.  The annual Seabeck Conference remains an example to the other regions in the US.  What we do here is an example to others.

The significant financial issues faced by the national organization and our own WWFOR are similar.  FOR members dedicated to the Statement of Purpose of FOR will continue to do the work however many members believe it is time for a change.   FOR numbers are not in decline, nor are they on a surge upward.  The next Pacific Call will introduce the new NC members and speak about the slow increase in the number of FOR members, due in large measure to the internet.

Glen Anderson, Bernie Meyer, Bruce Pruitt-Hamm, Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm, Jennifer Newell, Doug Mackey, and many others have represented Western Washington on the FOR National Council over the years. Doug is one of the current fifteen members of the National Council.  Eight new members from across the country who joined the National Council in June are either educators or activists who represent a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The gender and racial composition of the National Council is now more representative than it has been at times in the past.

Director Stoneking is discovering what so many FOR leaders in the past have found.  People look to them and the FOR way of a thinking-heart in which reconciliation is a way of life.  This approach has been a defining behavior of FOR members and has been the binding force of its fellowship.  It can sustain us even through these impossible times.