The executive board of national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) officially distanced the missionary organization from the newly formed independent women’s missions group, Global Women. The action came during the national WMU board meeting Jan. 12–15 at Shocco Springs Conference Center.
Global Women was incorporated Dec. 6 to “create and cultivate global friendships among women for shared learning and service for all humanity,” according to legal documents. The organizaton will be housed in Birmingham.
While organizers include several former leaders of national WMU, the group has no affiliation with WMU, said national WMU executive director Wanda Lee.
Lee released a prepared statement upon request immediately following announcement of the new organization. But the WMU executive board, which is made up of state WMU executives known as national WMU vice presidents, wants those remarks to officially become public record.
The WMU executive board affirmed Lee’s response and unanimously approved the move to release it as public record Jan. 13. (See sidebar for full text of Lee’s statement.)
Another significant move for national WMU was a newly formed partnership with the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
NAMB’s missions education department will be part of WMU’s MissionSmart Web-based resource for churches. The resouce — located at www.missionsmart.net — provides one-stop shopping for missions resources.
Lee said WMU is also working with LifeWay Christian Resources as another possible partner in this effort.
“This is not for us but so the person in the church who desires to develop a missions plan can give an idea to the Web site and the idea will flesh out the opportunities and resources that will be there,” Lee said.
Also recently implemented was WMU’s Enterprise Internet Project, Lee said. This project, which was launched Oct. 17, “exists to develop WMU’s Web presence and e-commerce business line,” Lee said
The four-year project is divided into five phases with the following goals:
To strengthen and update WMU’s Web presence.
To attract new customers.
To increase profits.
To create marketing strategies for the customer base.
To build a robust e-commerce system that will provide an electronic means to sell goods and services.
“This is a basic, simple business plan,” Lee said. “We hope to reduce the cost of operations and increase our revenues as well. (The WMU executive board has) challenged us to be on the cutting edge of technology.”
Lee also reported that the three goals dealing with the internal office’s team structure approved by the executive board in June 2001 were met by October. Those goals were to have all teams physically located together, all members to complete team member orientation and all employees to go through the “WMU How-To” workbook.
In other business, the executive board:
Approved the 2001 annual report.
Approved Second Century Fund grants of $79,675 and $10,402 in scholarships for 2003.
Approved John Jordan, a member of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, as the new director of the operational services center.
The board heard the following reports:
National WMU received a clean audit for the past year — Oct. 1, 2000–Sept. 30, 2001.
WMU Foundation raised $500,000 in 2001 with one-third less donors, according to WMU Foundation president David George.
WMU had a total of $1.5 million in the Second Century Fund by the end of 2001, a collective total since the conception of the fund in 1988. Since 1988, the Second Century Fund has granted $929,473 for missions leadership development projects.
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