Letter from the President
March 3, 2011
Dear Colleagues,
Last week, IESC commemorated the 50th anniversary of its founding with a reception attended by nearly 200 people at Meridian House in Washington, DC.
The reception included former and current staff, donors, past and present volunteers, our Board, and IESC’s many friends. Although founder David Rockefeller could not join us in person, he did send a warm taped greeting. We were also very pleased to award former Board of Directors Chairman John Torell with the Rockefeller Spirit of Service Award and to award volunteers Melody Meyer and Dexter Koehl with the Frank Pace Award. Moses Forkpah from our project in Liberia received our first Tarek Nabhan International Achievement Award (to exemplary staff in the field).
Against this backdrop, I am pleased to report that IESC continues to do quite well. Over the past fifty years, we have worked in 130 countries, fielded over 25,000 volunteer missions and created or saved or 1.5 million jobs. More recently, we closed out 2013 with revenues of $30 million’a six-fold increase over where we were only four years ago. Our headquarters staff is approaching 40’a three-fold increase from where we were in 2010. Even more significantly, we continue to deliver on our promise of promoting prosperity and stability through private enterprise in our many projects throughout the world. Our partnership with AARP and China to mobilize a large number of volunteers is still on track, although it is moving at a slower rate than we had hoped.
IESC has made great strides in not only improving the size and quality of our staff, but also the infrastructure that undergirds our operations. We are well along in our total revamp and updating of systems to support all aspects of our operations’from programs to finance to HR to IT. This upgrade, most of which should be completed this year, will not only make us more efficient but more competitive in what has become an increasingly competitive environment. I also want to share with you the fact that we have made great strides not only in delivering quality programs, but in communicating those programs to a wider audience. Only a few years ago, we used to say that IESC was one of the best-kept secrets in our field. That is no longer the case as we have done a number of short videos, animations, and other media describing what we do with a special emphasis on reaching those audiences in social media. In this respect, I strongly urge you to take a look at our webpage (www.iesc.org) and accompanying social media platforms (found on the web page) to get a better feel for our work.
In sum, as we close out our first fifty years, I thank you all for your continued support and passion in helping IESC deliver on its promise. I also want to recognize the special contribution that John Torell has made to IESC in his ten years as Board Chair. John just stepped down from the Board last week after many years of dedicated service.
All the best,
Tom
