Jerry W. Leach

President, World Affairs Councils of America

January 29, 2005

Taking Us Apart

Two years ago on the anniversary of an important but little-known event in the council system, I told the story of the dismantling of our original national association which had been built up to about 45 councils and a New York headquarters from 1918-1947. 

The dismantling was done with best of intentions but had major unintended consequences.  There ensued a long period in which the councils essentially stood alone.  During that period, the councils became almost completely disconnected for each other, best practices stopped circulating amongst them, stagnancy set in except in the biggest councils, and the growth of the movement was unintentionally stunted.

From 1981 onwards, with the disadvantages of a stand-alone system becoming more and more apparent, a drive started to bring the system back together.  This 15-year period was however dominated by considerations of turf, zero-sum thinking, lack of self-confidence, and a crippling national budget and dues system.  Some progress was made nevertheless: creating a national board, starting leadership missions, launching a small conference for staff, and opening an (unsalaried) office in Washington.

Coming Together Again

From 1995 onwards, the coming together of the system as a whole moved into much higher gear.  We are now in the 10^th year of continuous reform.  Those reforms have:

• created an activist national board led by a nationally prominent chairman with circulating council seats, places for corporate members, high expectations, and real fundraising clout;
• developed real synergy among councils nationwide based on the constant circulation of best practices, councils stimulating each other, a first-name-based network of council leaders throughout the countrY;
•  produced a new era of innovation and revitalization throughout our movement, expanding our work programmatically, shedding bad practices, and lifting our sights and our belief in ourselves;
•  built a dynamic national association (WACA) which complements the work of the local councils, generated many new services for councils, and brought new resources into the system;
• developed a set of Flagship Programs, a common tier of programs supported throughout by councils across the country, to improve our visibility, enhance our fundraising capability, and heighten our overall impact;
• raised our level of self-confidence as a movement, setting the goal of making the council system a first-tier organization in its field.

Where We Can Go Now

That is where we have come from as an association and what we are doing now.

What could we become?  Where could we go now that we have a much stronger infrastructure and greater capability than before?  Let’s try to look out into the future and envision where we might be if we keep on building this way for ten more years.

Broadening Our Base

Why not a council in every state and every major city in the United States?  Right now we cover 41 states and 125 cities with our 86 councils.  If we push, we can surely cover every part of the country and top the 100-council mark.  

We could double our numbers in all our categories of membership and participation: 84,000 dues-paying members; 350,000 in Great Decisions; and 50,000 teachers. 

Our numbers have grown slowly over recent decades for several reasons: lack of attention to building membership, the mistaken belief that there aren’t many more people in the area who will join, and unexciting programming.  Yet some of our big-city councils have around 10,000 members and there are some great growth stories in the system: Houston from 200 to 3850 members, Naples from 700 to 1850 members, Minneapolis from 800 to 2500 members, Jacksonville from 65 to 750 members.

Why not 700,000 in Great Decisions?  It’s been a great success for 50 years and the need was never greater.  We have 350,000 users now in 47 councils, thousands of discussion groups, 450 universities, and many other non-profits.

Co-Branding

We now have a new logo and the first brochure usable at the local and national level in the history of our movement.   We need to start really branding ourselves, presenting ourselves at the local and national all at once.  It doesn’t mean local logos or names or identifiers have to change – not at all.  It means in most cases co-branding, tying a  council’s identity with the national identity.

We are the largest international affairs non-profit in the United States.  That’s like having the largest slice of market share in the corporate world.  Yet we hardly make any hay out of this fact.  Virtually no council uses this fact in its presentations to local audiences.

We need also to make sure that our members know they are part of a larger network with an enormous range of achievements.  Right now probably one-third of our membership nationwide doesn’t know this, to our detriment.

Making Academic WorldQuest a Major National Competition

WorldQuest is our own, more exactly the Charlotte Council’s, creation.  There is nothing really like it at the adult or the high school level around the country.

Why don’t we set out to make it a major national high-school competition, taking its place alongside the Geography Bee, the Constitution Fair, and other contests?  We are headed into our Third Annual competition and are already up to 50 competing teams from high schools all around the country.

Let’s get every council to support it.  Let’s double the size of the competition to 100 teams, make the Washington competition a national finals based on local contests run by councils.  Let’s get the national finals onto television.  And let’s start internationalizing the game by bringing in teams from Mexico, Canada, and other countries.

The start of Academic WorldQuest has been so successful that the only way we can fail in realizing ambitions like these is by losing focus ourselves.

World in Transition Nationwide

Our system through the Southern Center in Atlanta produces the foremost international education curriculum units in the country.  World in Transition is a Flagship Program with now about half the councils supporting it. 

We reach at least 50,000 teachers now.  In fact the number is likely to be higher when we count again.  Why not 100,000 teachers?  Why not set our sights for World in Transition in every state?  We have the capability.  All that is required is a continuous, coordinated effort.

And now that the series covers the world in eight units, perhaps we should move into new territory concentrating on other functional themes that American schooling is weak in such as the world economy, international organizations, world population, international environmental issues, war and peace, and the like.

A Countrywide Radio Voice

The very successful radio program It’s Your World has been going for 53 years in the bay area.  What if we made it a real flag carrier around the country?  Some of our councils have gotten it on NPR stations locally.  Why not make that coverage nationwide?  It is free to local stations and gives individual councils a chance to freely advertise themselves and their programs.  Again, it only takes effort.

Doubling Our Overseas Partnerships

We now have council and national level to our organization.  The third level, however, is weak. We have international partners in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Singapore, Korea, Kuwait, Germany, and Argentina.  But why not India, China, Australia, Indonesia, Russia, France, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Chile, and - perhaps soon - Iraq?

Shouldn’t we have a really dynamic set of overseas partnerships which give us solid working relationships with every country we want to work with?  Anti-Americanism is now a major phenomenon in the world again.  Shouldn’t we be doing something in response?  Can’t we help deal with the worldwide view that the US never listens to the rest of the world by being good listeners?

Building Our Conferencing

We want our national conference to be the premier national conference in the non-profit world in our field.  We could strengthen our conference and build our international alliances by inviting our international partners to the conference or even having joint conferences.

We don’t need to do this every year but from time to time it would be important.  We proved this could be done with our joint conference in Ottawa with the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.  What about a joint conference with one of our partners at the UN?

In addition to our major annual conference, we should also start small conferences overseas, with partners in interesting places built around major issues.

Starting Service Projects Overseas

In the next decade, we should expand into project work overseas, pursuing themes that arise in our conferences or our programming, doing things that our members can support, generating the prospect of fieldwork and field visits.

Like what for example?  Just at the conference these ideas were floated: carving out a role in fight against HIV/AIDS, teacher exchanges with key countries, support for a trauma center in Bangaldesh, holding a womens’ rights conference in the Middle East, hosting interns from abroad in our councils, and more.

Funding will always be an issue but we are now demonstrating the ability to tackle and solve the financing problems time after time.

Is All This Possible?

These are just some of the ideas that have flowed in recently.  Suggestions are welcome as we formulate a bigger vision.  In fact, new ideas flow into the national office almost every day now.

Too big?  Too much?  Not at all.  The proposals here are essentially of the same magnitude of what we have already achieved in the first 10 years of reforming our system.    Over that time we have:

• produced a new national name, logo, and brand image
• expanded services to councils many times over
• built a first-name-based national network of council leaders
• circulated best practices rapidly within the council system
• added a nationally prominent chairman
• launched many new initiatives from the national board
• solved the national association’s past financial problems
• created a stable and productive national office
• expanded our national conference by 400% and added the Chairman’s Dinner
• generated Flagship Programs, widely supported by councils nationwide
• started Academic WorldQuest as a national competition
• begun Journalist, Lifetime Achievement, and President’s Awards
• added National Program Series and videoconferencing
• greatly expanded our Leadership Missions abroad
• raised our visibility nationally
• set our goal to be a top-tier organization in our field.

What Will It Take?

The first reformist decade has laid the foundation for the second.  We have the capability.  The fundamentals are all there:  name, visibility, funds, members, organization, staff.

What we need is great teamwork, great fundraising, continuous innovation, and a perpetual flowering of new ideas.

If we really pull together like a top-notch team, and that hasn’t been our forte in the past, then future is ours.