About
Our Story
We Are Meant To Be In Community
At Accord, we cultivate a community where Christ-centered organizations, churches, and individuals leverage their combined learning to achieve the best in relief and development.
Our members help each other reach their full potential by operating in community—sharing knowledge, skills, and support with one another. Our members are not limited to their own learning curve—they have ready access to the collective knowledge of 110,000 employees that collectively leverage over $5 billion of resources annually.
Origins Of Accord Network
Four decades ago, the president of Food for the Hungry sought to respond to disasters in Guatemala and Bangladesh but instead found himself waiting in line at foreign ministry offices. It was suggested that the Christian organizations could serve more effectively if they worked together.
He returned to the U.S. resolved to start a community of “like-minded organizations.” Twelve agencies—including MAP, World Vision, World Concern, MAF, and World Relief—first met in 1977 in Wheaton, IL. They wanted to replace the prevailing feeling of competitiveness between them with a feeling of collaboration among them. According to one of the participants, “We wanted to be a fraternity, a place to fellowship, to see each other as colleagues, and to profit by getting together.”
And Accord Network was born. They invited additional agencies that were:
- Christ-focused
- Professionally and fiducially responsible
- Relief and development-focused
Their vision was that “all Christian relief and development professionals and agencies base their initiatives on biblical principles and work to re-engage the Church in holistic ministry among the poor and needy.” The network incorporated in 1978 as AERDO (The Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations). In 2010, the membership voted to change the name to Accord Network.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Accord's former CEO, Chad Hayward, our network grew to over 130 members and associate members.
Under the leadership of CEO Michael Cerna, who assumed the role in 2024, Accord now brings together more than 160 member organizations united in their commitment to serve the global poor in Jesus’ name
Our Standards and Principles
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Principles of Excellence
In Integral Mission
These principles below were developed over a three-year period with 70 collaborators from around the world. They describe a useful framework for organizational self-evaluation.
GIK Standards
Accord's seven Gifts-in-Kind Standards were developed by a broad spectrum of Accord Members and others in 1999 and updated in 2019. They represent what we feel is the best thinking on appropriate GIK programming.
Principles Of Practice
The Financial Standards are provided by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).
Financial Standards
This document articulates many biblically sound, professionally effective best practices. For some this statement will list goals or suggest important innovations needed within their organization. To all it is offered as a useful tool for review of operations and activities.
Integral Mission Principles
1. We Center On Our Christian Faith.
As Christians, our approach to development is viewed and implemented through the lens of our faith as understood through the Holy Bible. We are respectful when working with people from various religions, cultures, and backgrounds but not at the expense of our relationship with the living God or witness to the transformation that only Christ can bring.
2. We Acknowledge The Spiritual Realm.
We celebrate that God is powerfully at work in the world through the Spirit, and we humbly accept the invitation to collaborate with Him. We stand ready to battle the forces that will oppose this work with all the weapons entrusted to us in Ephesians 6:10-18.
3. We Affirm The Church
We recognize and respect the local church (the local fellowship of believers as manifested in the community) is central to restoring shalom—physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual health and wholeness—to the community. Our work strengthens the local fellowship of believers and is strengthened by it. Where there is no church, we will work to represent the global Church in a faithful manner, bringing salt and light to the community.
4. We Model What We Value
Before asking churches and communities to practice humility, honesty, mutual respect, empowerment, and sustainability, we must exhibit humble, honest, mutually respectful, empowering, and sustainable practices in our organizations, both as leaders and as followers. Otherwise we lack integrity, and our witness as a model of integral mission is marred.
5. We Recognize Systems Of Poverty.
We see the whole system of individual, spiritual, structural, and relational barriers that can keep the community trapped in poverty. From our organizational competency areas, our efforts at advocacy and empowerment address both immediate needs and the long-term systemic causes of the problems.
6. We Enter As Guests, Co-Labor As Partners, And Continue As Friends.
Enter as guests: Invited by the community, we demonstrate humility and a learner’s heart to understand how the community sees its wealth and its poverty, to assess its existing strengths, and to humbly envision together opportunities to collaborate around its areas of felt need. We recognize that we are merely visitors, but for the church and the community, this is home.
Co-labor as partners: We celebrate the reality that everyone involved in the work in the community has something valuable to contribute, and all partners strive to demonstrate, articulate, and evaluate two-way accountability. We value the church and the community’s assets and wisdom as we value our own. We work to find common ground when our opinions differ. Together as equals we make the big decisions that have lasting implications for the community itself.
Continue as friends: Success in our work together is marked by healthy relationships with the community and by the community’s capacity to own and sustain the work.
7. We Measure All That Matters.
Together with the local community, we develop outcomes and indicators within our competency areas. The impact is measured in the observable metrics of local community members served and interventions implemented. Impact is also measured long-term in community ownership, spiritual impact on agency and community, and the development of the community to carry it forward and replicate it elsewhere after the agency is gone.
8. We Tell The Story With Integrity.
How we tell the story of the work, and what we choose to say, is a sacred trust between our organizations and the churches, communities, peers, donors, and the poor who work together with us. What we say about the work to all parties is true and transparent, demonstrating the complexity of poverty alleviation, and giving credit everywhere credit is due. What we communicate honors the view and the voice of those we serve and reflects our humble and teachable spirit by sharing even hard lessons learned.
The Principles Can Be Applied By Reflecting On These Questions:
1. Do I see this principle lived out in my organization?
2. If this principle is being lived out in my organization, what is the evidence?
3. If this principle is not being lived out in my organization, why not? What are the barriers to doing so that we may need to address?
Community Accomplishments
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GIK Standards
Accord Network’s Gifts-in-Kind standards became the “first” among the NGO community and have been referenced by InterAction, USAID, and the IRS.
Accord Alliances
Our members band together to facilitate learning and collaboration through alliances. Current alliances include the Gifts-in-Kind Alliance, Accord WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) Alliance, Accord Advocacy Alliance, and the Accord Research Alliance.
Annual Learning Events
We host Executive Retreats and the annual OneAccord Forum.
Grant Collaboration
More than a dozen of our members came together to compete for HIV/AIDS grants under PEPFAR. By combining their strengths and resources, the collaboration and its members secured more than $40 million in grants from USAID.
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HIV/AIDS Alliance
Between 2003 and 2010, more than a dozen of our members came together to compete for HIV/AIDS grants under PEPFAR. By combining their strengths and resources, the collaboration and its members secured more than $40 million in grants from USAID.
Information Sharing, Conference Calls,
and Webinars
We share news on pertinent political developments, inform members of upcoming webinars and conference calls on issues (e.g., hiring rights, evidence-based programming, etc.), and create space for lateral learning.
Publications
With a history of influential publications, including Creation Care, What’s Christian about Christian Relief and Development?, and Principles of Development, Accord recently launched a journal titled Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy to facilitate vigorous debate on Christ-centered solutions to poverty.
Co-Mission
We participated in the “CoMission” with 85 Christian agencies working to provide relief, development Christian witness in Russian schools following the fall of the Iron Curtain (1993-2001).
