WASHINGTON — Today, Prison Fellowship International (PFI)–the largest and most extensive association of Christian ministries working in the criminal justice field–announced the Global Capacity Initiative, a new program to provide capacity building support to underperforming Prison Fellowship ministries.

The initiative, which will launch in early 2020, is built around research that demonstrates peer-to-peer organizational mentoring engagements, targeted toward specific development needs, are the most effective intervention for building ministry capacity. Eleven Prison Fellowship ministries are supporting this effort and serving as the initiative’s founding advisory council.

“Many of our ministries want and need help to grow,” says PFI CEO & President Andrew Corley.

“This initiative is part of an end-to-end capacity building strategy designed to engage ministries in our Global Family, who are in the early stages of organizational development, with more seasoned mentors so they can serve prisoners and their families more effectively in the years to come. In addition, the Global Capacity Initiative meetings will be held concurrent with our international board meeting to all our board to interact and listen to the voices of leaders at the razor’s edge end of our global work.”

Participating ministries will be matched in mentoring relationships with newly formed or struggling ministries based on geography, cultural context, and needs alignment. Mentors and mentees will work with one another for up to three years, focusing on improvement in the areas of board development, volunteer mobilization and management, financial systems, fundraising, and leadership and staff development. Together, they will build and execute a plan that identifies underlying problems, solutions, action steps, and budget. Each pairing will be initiated and monitored by PFI to provide and ensure success.

The eleven founding members of the GCI Advisory Council include:

• Peter Hall, Prison Fellowship Australia
• Valdeci Ferreira, Prison Fellowship Brazil
• Stacey Campbell, Prison Fellowship Canada
• Lacides Hernandez, Prison Fellowship Colombia
• Peter Holloway, Prison Fellowship England & Wales
• Tobias Merckle, Prison Fellowship Germany
• Erik de Jonge, Prison Fellowship Netherlands
• Benson Uzonwanne, Prison Fellowship Nigeria
• Robin Scott, Prison Fellowship Northern Ireland
• Kenneth MacKenzie, Prison Fellowship Scotland
• Luzia Zuber, Prison Fellowship Switzerland

Today, through a network of more than 100 ministries, PFI is reaching over 800,000 prisoners, nearly 6,000 children of prisoners, and more than 1,300 victims of crime. The inaugural meeting of the GCI Advisory Council will be held in Washington D.C., March 24–26, 2020.

About Prison Fellowship International

Many people feel hopeless about broken prison systems. We have programs around the world that are proven to restore prisoners, help their families, and reintegrate them back into the community—for good! For more information visit www.pfi.org.

CONTACT: Lindsey Frederick Beharry, 703-481-0000

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