This is a planning workshop on the relation of religion to leadership training for non-profit, non-government international organizations (international NGOs). The workshop, funded by the Orfalea Center and the Henry Luce Foundation, will involve approximately 20 participants, roughly half of them scholars in the area of religion and international affairs, and half of them professional international NGO leaders who deal with issues of religion. It will be held at the University of California-Santa Barbara, on January 18-19, 2008. This workshop will help to identify some of the issues relating to religion that are relevant to training leadership for international NGOs, including issues of cultural conflict and sensitivity that confront all humanitarian organizations working abroad.

Focus: The role of religion in international NGOs

The workshop will be concerned with the role of religion in two ways: in the diverse cultural contexts that international NGOs might confront, and in the cultural assumptions—some of them related to religion—that NGO leaders might bring to their assignments. In the first case, for instance, the workshop might deal with the way in which Islamic views towards abortion, Buddhist attitudes towards contraception, or Hindu ideas about social service would affect social service agencies working in cultures dominated by these religious traditions. In the second case, the workshop might deal with assumptions that NGO staff bring about such matters as the role of religion in public life that are colored by their cultural backgrounds.

This workshop will raise a number of issues regarding the role of religion in international NGOs that may be relevant to all NGOs, whether they are secular or religious. Even organizations that regard themselves as secular have to confront issues relating to religion when they engage with diverse cultural attitudes. For those international NGOs that regard themselves as faith-based, the subject is even more difficult to avoid. Regardless of how nonreligious its organization and mission may be, if a service organization carries a religious name in its title—or even a symbol such as a cross or a crescent—its mission is open to be interpreted in religious terms.

Not all of the issues raised at the workshop will be equally relevant to all international NGOs. Nor will all of the organizations respond to the issues in the same way. Nonetheless, the workshop will probe some of the crucial areas of concern that touch all organizations, such as whether international NGOs make a clear distinction between their roles in providing social services and in conveying social and cultural values; what international NGOs can do to understand and be sensitive to the cultural mores of other societies; and whether international NGOs can go too far in their efforts to adapt to local cultures.

The NGO participants in the workshop will be chosen from a variety of international NGOs, from those that have no religious affiliation—such as Direct Relief and Human Rights Watch—to those that have a religious dimension even though their primary purpose might be to provide service regardless of faith, such as Catholic Relief Service, Church World Service, Islamic Relief, and the Buddhist and Hindu Sarvodaya movements. The issues relating to religion that these organizations confront are emblematic of those addressed by international NGOs as a whole. 

The scholars who will be participating will range between those who are experts in religion and religious thought, and those who are concerned about general issues of international NGO organization and global civil society. The common thread that unites them is a concern about the way that cultural values play a role in providing social services and evaluating human rights. 

International NGO training at Santa Barbara

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, we have just initiated a new MA program that is patterned on the typical international affairs curriculum of most programs related to the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA). These curricula include courses in economics, international organization and politics, and cultural studies. The focus of our Master of Arts in Global and International Studies program, however, is on leadership in global civil society. It is an extension of a highly successful undergraduate program that was created in 1999 to be the first global studies degree program offered by an American research university. It now has approximately 800 majors. An affiliated PhD program in graduate studies provides graduate students in six departments (from political science to history) with an interdisciplinary focus. The new M.A. in Global and International Studies program, launched in Fall 2006, is more practically oriented, and its graduates will likely seek positions in international NGOs (though some may also go into the traditional international affairs fields of diplomacy, journalism, and international business, and others may seek further graduate training in professional schools or a PhD program). It is the non-profit world of civil society, however, that is the central motif of the MA program and is the intellectual heart of the accompanying Orfalea Center, a research and programmatic unit in global and international studies.

An additional advantage of the Santa Barbara location is its premier department of religious studies. From its inception, with the guidance of scholars of comparative religion such as Ninian Smart, the department has taken a global and intercultural approach to the study of religion. Faculty members such as Walter Capps—the first scholar of religious studies in the country to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives—insisted on the social and political relevance of the study of religion, and sociologists such as Wade Clark Roof have led the study of religion into the public square. Hence we believe that Santa Barbara is a good location to think about training for leadership in international NGOs in general, and—because of the interests of its global studies faculty and the adjacent religious studies faculty at UCSB—in particular the role of religion in international NGO leadership training.

Preparation before the workshop, and follow-up report

Prior to the workshop a team of graduate research assistants at UCSB will prepare an information packet and on-line data set on religion and international NGOs. The data set should include listings of religion-related international NGOs with relevant information on budget, staff, projects, and countries served. Additional material will focus on groups represented at the workshop, and articles and reports related to the topic.

The material gained from this research and further information gathered after the workshop will be included, along with a summary of discussions at the workshop, in a comprehensive report. The report will be circulated to all participants and interested scholars and NGO leaders, and be made available as a print, Web, and CD-ROM guide to the role of religion in international NGO leadership training.

Following the workshop, a planning committee might be formed to consider expanding the project in the future. Possible projects to be discussed would be a larger conference, further research and information gathering, and a summer training institute on religion for international NGO leaders.

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