fter 16 years as president of the ADVENTIST DEVELOPMENT AND RELIEF AGENCY, Ralph S. Watts, Jr., is retiring on February 28, 2002. During his tenure, which began two years after ADRA's founding, it grew into a large international agency and became a household name.

Sixteen years ago ADRA had pretty low recognition in the world and even in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
That's exactly right; 16 years ago ADRA was an infant. With the blessings God has provided and the team of dedicated, committed leaders, the program has expanded to more than 120 countries. We are in some countries where the church is not officially recognized or even present. The leaders at the United Nations and our major donor partners did not know much about ADRA 16 years ago. Today anywhere you go and meet with government officials they will recognize ADRA, and I think that's true with the church also. Today our members feel good about ADRA and its ministry of compassion.

Let's talk a little about history. ADRA-that name was adopted only in the 1980s, just before you became president, I think.
The ADRA name was officially adopted in 1983; a year and a half later I came to ADRA. ADRA's forerunner was SAWS, Seventh-day Adventist World Service, basically a half dozen individuals working out of the world church headquarters complex and dealing primarily with disaster response. The leaders of the church at that time recognized there was a tremendous need that the church was not addressing appropriately in community and institutional development.

Many of the major government funders were being approached by different Seventh-day Adventist entities in various areas of the world from time to time, without the right hand knowing what the left hand was doing. These funding agencies were asking us to correct the situation. Our leadership wisely said, "Look, we need to consolidate this. We need to have one organization that makes these approaches to the funders on behalf of the church's humanitarian efforts." That's a brief synopsis of the rationale for establishment of ADRA. I think it was a courageous decision.

The name "ADRA" has the key words "Development and Relief." Did that signal a shift in philosophy?
It definitely gave a new sense of direction to this new organization. SAWS had come about as a result of responding to the needs of World War II and the consequences of the war, with the refugees, displaced persons, and so forth. SAWS had begun working in developmental activities, but it wasn't structured to deal with them in a corporate way. That's when our leaders decided, "There's a great need in the development area, but we can't do it effectively the way we're structured. We're going to have to set up a separate professional organization." So the major transition was the establishment of a separate corporation, separate board of directors, and a separate group of officers that would give exclusive attention to the new agency. And that helped to bring ADRA to where it is today.

Let's go back and talk about those early years. You came in as president at a difficult time for the agency.
An extremely difficult time. My predecessor retired, leaving a gap in leadership for several months. It took me a long time, Bill, to make up my mind whether to leave what I was doing-mainstream church administration-and move over to this new organization.

I'd been in church administration for a number of years-conference president, union president-and to leave that line of work was difficult. But my wife, Pat, and I felt impressed that this is what the Lord wanted me to do.

Those early years were very difficult because we inherited tremendous debt-$2.8 million-and we didn't have sufficient resources to cover it. We hardly had enough income to meet our payroll during that first year. However, through an austere program, the dedication and competency of our staff, and the generosity of our supporters, ADRA's financial picture began to improve. The debt was paid off, and each year ADRA has become stronger financially.

This will come as a surprise to many readers of the Review. Many think that the General Conference covers the payroll.
The financial strength of ADRA is basically that which is provided on a regular basis through the faithful donations of our church members in the United States. For example, we have thousands of members who every month send in an amount to keep the ministry of ADRA alive. That helps to provide support for our programs in the field and the matching funds we need to secure government grants and support for oversight. If it weren't for the faithfulness of our members, ADRA would cease to exist as it is today.

Second, the world church provides support for a number of our expatriate, international field staff. For these individuals the General Conference will provide a basic base salary with a local component cared for at the local regional or country office level.

What about your salary?
Several years ago the General Conference voted to cover the salary and expenses of the ADRA president's office, inasmuch as the president also serves as a general field secretary for the world church.

ADRA has one of the lowest overhead percentages among humanitarian organizations in this country, typically 10 percent or less. We feel that it's our Christian responsibility to allocate as much funding as we possibly can to the projects and beneficiaries. That's why more of a donor's gift goes to help the needy than in the majority of similar humanitarian organizations.

You mentioned work in more than 120 countries. How many employees do you have worldwide? They are not really employees, I guess.
Well, they are. Many of them are regular full-time employees serving under the ADRA umbrella. We now have in the neighborhood of 5,000 full-time employees worldwide. In addition to that, we have hundreds of individuals who volunteer to work with a variety of particular projects that ADRA is implementing.

Let's say that a project is funded for Uganda from the Danish government and they need to build schools, which they are doing. ADRA/Uganda may end up employing 200-300 for the length of that grant. It might be two years or three years or whatever the terms of the proposal.

That's a lot of employees. Now let's think about the number of people who are being helped. Worldwide, it's no doubt millions of people.
In the neighborhood of 19-20 million people in a given year. Just think! That's a child, mother, refugee, someone in need being helped every couple seconds. In a given year ADRA will touch more lives directly and indirectly than any other church entity by far.

What are the chief types of help that ADRA gives to these 19 or 20 million people?
We touch their lives in a number of different areas. For example, education. At present we are building schools, training teachers, and equipping classrooms. Education is extremely important to us, not only from the standpoint of what we do to touch the lives of people today, but education trains tomorrow's leaders of developing nations. We help mothers learn to read and write, and by so doing, they can improve the quality of life for their families.

Another area is microenterprise development; in other words, training and equipping individuals to be able to develop their own little enterprise or business. That has grown rapidly. We do a lot in the way of enabling mothers to raise their incomes and living standards through literacy training and modest loans to establish small businesses. Then, of course, one of our major areas is that of disaster preparedness and response, endeavoring to meet the needs of refugees, displaced people in every sector of the globe.

In the health arena I would highlight the HIV/AIDS crisis. Bill, there are millions of people right now who are being educated in HIV/AIDS awareness through ADRA's ministry. We are moving forward aggressively in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and other areas of the world because we see this pandemic as a major problem for society.

We have given this a high priority because we feel that we have an obli-gation. We're not only concerned about the education and the awareness aspect of HIV/AIDS, but we're also deeply concerned about what happens to kids who are left as orphans. Last year ADRA International launched its first United Nations World AIDS Day campaign on December 1 here in the United States. The response from our churches was tremendous, and we plan to make that an annual educational campaign.

There are many other types of help I could mention, but I want to conclude by emphasizing food security. This program is extremely critical in meeting the needs of those who are malnourished and starving. It also provides avenues for other unique areas of economic development. ADRA's food security program is our largest and most diverse.

What is the total value of the aid that ADRA is involved in?
Looking at cash and kind, ADRA's budget this year will run close to $150 million. We are fortunate to have about 20 governments now providing funding support for ADRA projects worldwide, in addition to other organizations such as the UN and its subsidiaries, along with the European Union and others that provide significant funding. So from New Zealand and Australia to Iceland and Norway, we receive this funding support.

Mention some of the other countries.
Japan is a major player. We have Canada, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom is coming on strong now, and Spain as well. These are some of the major players that provide funding support for the various projects we have around the world. We are not the largest agency in the world in terms of financial resources, but there are very few organizations, if any, that are in more countries than we are. (Of course, it goes without saying that ADRA establishes and implements only programs that in no way conflict with our Adventist beliefs. In fact, we don't accept funds that have strings attached.)

And that's because Adventists are in so many countries?
I think because of the global mandate and challenge that we have embraced, we are trying to respond to the acute needs that are present in every part of the world.

We do this because we believe it is the presence of Christ that people receive with the ADRA workers who participate in development and relief projects that help their communities to become healthier, to be able to have a life with true meaning, and to have hope for a better future. We do what we think Jesus would do if He were physically present today.

One hundred fifty million dollars is a lot of money. How do you ensure accountability?
Accountability is one of our fundamental principles of action. We have to be ever vigilant. We have a regular process of monitoring projects and auditing them on an annual basis. We have to make sure that the implementing countries are doing what they have contracted to do with integrity and excellence. That is a big challenge for us at world headquarters and regional offices as well.

In any given year, how many projects will ADRA be involved in?
Off the top of my head, probably between 600 and 800 projects. In a country such as Nepal we could have a half dozen projects going on at any given time. We have country operations where there may be a half dozen or more different funders working simultaneously in that same country.

All these projects-how do they start?
The method we prefer is to involve the community from the planning stage and forward. For example, here's a community that has a critical need for, let's say, water. Kids are sick and dying; the water is contaminated; the mothers are at a loss about what to do. They get together with our local representatives to discuss the problem and identify a solution.

The country office will get in touch with one of our funding offices with a request and write up a proposal. That proposal is then submitted to our supporting (donor) country office, which reviews and approves it.

The supporting donor country office will either fund it out of resources they have, or they will go to the government and submit or secure funding for it. After careful review the appropriated government agency will approve or modify or even reject the proposal. In a nutshell, that's the basic process.

Have you sought funding from corporations or individuals who give away a lot of money?
We developed an office here and put up the budget for several years to try to break the corporate and foundation barriers. But it is extremely difficult for us to do that because of our faith-based connection-we're the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, instead of CARE or Save the Children. Many corporations and foundations are reluctant to give to a church-based organization. One reason, I suppose, is because of concerns from stockholders or the members of the foundation regarding the potential support of a religion or Christian organization. As for individuals, I believe that ADRA has the most generous and dedicated donors anywhere, and they sacrifice much in the way of personal resources.

Why is it that we don't see ADRA mentioned in the media?
I once put that question to Tom Brokaw when I met him at a reception. After a brief visit I asked him. He just smiled and said, "We know that you're there.

"Look," he said, "the television media have made a policy decision that we will refer to all of the faith-based organizations like ADRA as aid agencies. So when you hear the report on the evening news, we refer to you as aid agencies. We don't refer to you as Adventist Development or Catholic Relief or Lutheran Relief or what have you. It's aid agencies." And the reason is simple: "We get flack if we single out one in particular."

Since governments are providing money, with some putting up big money, do you get pressure sometimes to be a representative of government in foreign countries?
No, we don't. Up front they know from the very beginning that there will be no strings attached. We must maintain our unique identity and integrity. We make a commitment to the donor, Bill, and we make a commitment to the countries where we implement projects: we will provide assistance based on need. We will not get involved in the political arena. We will not get involved in religious controversies and conflicts. We will not get involved in ethnic and tribal strife. We are going to remain neutral. We will assist anywhere and everywhere we can without qualification. That has served us well. I can name countries today that we would not be in if that were not our policy.

Do some of our people and leaders expect the ADRA workers to be involved in evangelism and proselytizing activities?
Some. But more and more leaders are beginning to realize that the work of ADRA is by itself a bona fide ministry of our church. We do expect every staff member, in their own right, at all times, to live exemplary lives. That's being done on a regular basis. ADRA people are doing that around the world. But to formalize evangelism, or to develop a protocol for that or to become overtly involved in an evangelistic campaign right there in a community where we are implementing a project funded by government resources, that is not how we carry out our mission.

My sense is that ADRA's name is good; it's seen as being a clean organization.
I keep telling our staff again and again that the thing we have going for us is our name. It's our integrity; it's extremely important. Above all, we have to be transparent and authentic; we can't say one thing and do another. Our financial records at headquarters are audited by one of the largest auditing firms in the world. It's not done internally. Because we are a legally organized corporation, we are required by law to have our books audited annually. We have no problem with that.

In fact, we worked very hard to get our own 501(c)3 status as a nonprofit organization so that our financial information is public domain. We have to submit a 990 form to the Internal Revenue Service every year, and publish that statement on our public Web site. So we are scrutinized by the public very carefully every year, and that's good for us.

What have been the most difficult or most challenging parts of your work?
This may surprise you: it is not finances. The biggest challenge we have is finding qualified individuals who are willing to commit to a ministry in ADRA and move into leadership positions rather quickly. Human resource development, human resource challenges, are overwhelming. I would venture that right now there are at least a dozen major administrative positions that need to be filled in our various country offices worldwide.

I'm talking about country directors, project directors, finance people, technical people. It's hard to get the right person, the right mix, the right combination. I'm convinced that within the church system worldwide we have the people. But to find qualified people and attract them to leave what they are doing and take this kind of assignment with our church-based wage structure is an enormous challenge.

Ralph, do people sometimes ask you: "Why are we putting all this effort into this? Shouldn't we concentrate on evangelism and let someone else do it?"
The Old and New Testament Scrip-tures, the ministry of Christ, and the counsel of Ellen White make our position very clear. How can we specifically ignore the plight of people in physical need or emotional turmoil in a time of crisis? How can we just walk away and say, "If you are willing to become an Adventist or we can get you to come to an evangelistic meeting, we will help you"? I think that is contrary to the mission and challenge that Christ left for us.

My thinking has changed during the past 16 years. I believed in this work intellectually while I was in church administration or as a pastor; I believed in it, but not to the extent that I am so strongly convinced today. I believe that what ADRA is endeavoring to do is to show people the face of Christ.

What has given you the most satisfaction as director of this important ministry?
I think the greatest satisfaction comes from knowing at the end of the day that we have touched the lives of thousands of people. Infants whose lives have been spared; mothers who have been taught how to take better care of their kids; young girls who have had a chance to get an education; young families who have been given an opportunity to get a little business established where they can stand on their feet with more self-reliance and dignity.

ADRA really is changing the world one life at a time.

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William G. Johnsson is editor of the Adventist Review.