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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 19. May 29 1975

Decision-making in World Vision

Decision-making in World Vision

World Vision is not a democratic organisation. One cannot join World Vision and have a voice in the policymaking, or as we have already indicated hope to be elected by members to a governing board.

The consequences of this lack of democracy are that policies are apparently formulated by the field staff of the International Organisation and then explained to supporters.

We could find only one instance of World Vision policy change, but it clearly illustrates how this situation is worked out in practice. Until 1972, World Vision had believed it preferable page 8 for a child to be brought up in its own culture. However a decision was made to reverse this policy when Vietnamese babies were adopted in Australia.

Smiling girl on World Vision pamphlet.

Smiling girl on World Vision pamphlet.

We learned of this change through "World Vision" (Autumn, 1973), the organisation's quarterly magazine, sent to subscribers and others involved with World Vision. These people were simply told of the change, and had no channels through which they could become involved in the decision.

During our discussions with Mr Renner it became clear that while we considered this lack of direct responsibility to be a problem, World Vision did not. When pressed to state who World Vision was responsible to, Mr Renner replied that "World Vision is responsible to the public." This was the most specific answer we could get. Most other agencies have members who scrutinise the decisions by those in power but World Vision is not subject to this scrutiny.

This discovery alone seems to justify our investigation. If World Vision is responsible to the public, then, in our view, someone hag to place them under the same scrutiny imposed upon other organisations who ask the public to support them financially.