World Emergency Relief

World Emergency Relief (WER) is a Christian charity that focuses on disaster relief and community rebuilding. Nondenominational in nature, it describes itself in its mission statement as ‘an interdenominational fellowship of Christians worldwide,’ and incorporates Christian ministry into its approach. WER was founded in 1985 by the Reverend Joel MacCollam, who continues to serve as its president. The charity's main offices are located in Carlsbad, California, with regional offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, and Honduras.

Charity Navigator, a group that evaluates charities according to efficiency (the ability to put funds to use without waste) and capacity (the ability to use funds and grow in response to increased funding), gives WER a 56.12 rating: four stars out of four for efficiency, and 2 stars for capacity. Of the $60 million spent in 2007, $458,466 (0.7 percent) was spent on administrative expenses, and $1,976,711 (3.2 percent) on fundraising. WER receives occasional grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), specifically to pay for overseas shipping costs.

A small charity compared to organizations like United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) or ChildFund, WER has proven innovative in its approach, and maintains a narrow focus on disaster relief and Christian ministry to keep from being spread too thin. The organization recruits volunteers to assist with its efforts, particularly teachers with foreign-language schools, and medical professionals willing to lend their time to short-term overseas missions. Some projects and short-term missions operate without volunteers, for security and safety reasons.

At the end of 2009, WER introduced a partnership with the credit card company Tempo, introducing an affinity debit card backed by Tempo partner First Bank & Trust of Brookings, South Dakota. Every time a customer uses the debit card—for a purchase or at an ATM—a portion of the transaction fee generated is given to WER, at no additional cost to the customer.

Since 1991, WER has operated a Gifts-in-Kind (GIK) program, enabling them to accept large amounts of donated commodities for relief work, such as nonperishable food, clothing, pharmaceuticals, eyeglasses, building supplies, seeds, books, and even vehicles. Churches, charities, and service groups are the main source of GIK, while surplus and retired vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks are donated by municipal governments. In recent years, WER has made public statements declaring ‘aggressive, global procedures’ to minimize the possibility of any GIK supplies being redistributed to support terrorist activity. Avoiding the support of terrorism and criminal activities is one of the eight criteria WER uses in distributing its aid; others include evaluating whether the target country will accept aid from a Christian ministry, [Page 787]and whether the project itself is appropriate for a Christian group to undertake.

The organization is particularly concerned with the opportunities for exploitation that natural and human-made disasters present, such as the predatory recruiting or kidnapping of children and young women by sex traffickers in Asia in the aftermath of events like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. After Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar and Thailand in 2008, part of WER's efforts in the area included working with local organizations to care for displaced and at-risk children and young people.

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