ACT Alliance North America members meet, seeking to strengthen their collective work and witness

The annual meeting of the ACT Alliance North America Forum was held at the National Setting of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio on January 15 and 16. ACT North America (ACT NA forum) members include the UCC, Baptist World Aid, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and others whose goal is to share information and collaborate on issues important to all.

Josh Baird, UCC Chief of Staff, attended the meeting, and said, “The strength of the ACT Alliance is its members. With more than 160 global partners, when a humanitarian crisis occurs we are often connected with those already present in affected communities.” 

The North America Forum provides an opportunity to strategically coordinate with partners to further leverage resources and maximize impact in response to crisis around the world.

Baird explained, “We gather regularly to review our shared work and be attentive to what is ahead of us. Members provide a contextual update for the work so that we can proactively prepare for response.”

“At the heart of all of our work is relationship,” said Andrew Long-Higgins, minister and team leader of Global H.O.P.E. (Humanitarian. Opportunites. Progress. Empowerment.) “The ACT NA forum serves as an opportunity to deepen our collaborative efforts to meet the deepest needs of the most vulnerable around the world.” 

Supporting a critical mission

A key question members tried to address was how the group can do more with the resources they are entrusted with, and strengthen relations to better serve with partners and support their critical mission.

Sara Speicher traveled from Northern England to be at the meeting. A member of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), the convener and chair of the group, this was her first meeting with the Alliance.

“This is a very important forum for these church-based organizations to share perspectives together, identify challenges and opportunities, sharpen ourselves as individual organizations and collaboratively,” Speicher said.

She was impressed by the attendees. “This group is very honest. There is a strong collegiality in the room. We are getting excellent analysis, asking, how do we continue to promote hope and truth and compassion in destabilizing times?”

Seeing progress with the mission

Laurie Kraus has been on the board of the ACT Alliance since 2013. She is with the Presbyterian Church USA in Louisville, Kentucky.

“For the first few years, ACT North America meetings were focused on updates from each overarching body and how we layered into that,” she explained. “Northern Hemisphere dominance was unexamined. We’re a global alliance, but our focus has been in a lot of ways, the Northern Hemisphere, and white patriarchy dominated countries.”

But Kraus has seen progress on that front. “In the last five to six years, there has been a different focus, trying to strategize  more effectively together. There is more networking among us. ACT Alliance is leaning into it’s ideology more, getting a centering of local voices.”

Edwin Gonzalez is also with the Presbyterians, and has been participating in the ACT Alliance North America meetings since 2019. “I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the challenges and opportunities that colleagues are seeing,” he said.

“It helps us feel that we are not alone. It provides spaces to work collaboratively and to put our funds together, engage in conversations, get an understanding of each other.”

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