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Project: (007) Empowering Global Bible Translation Through Strategic Project Funding

(007) Empowering Global Bible Translation Through Strategic Project Funding

Project Name: Establishing an Alliance Project Funding function

Contact Person: Matthew Bore, matthew_bore@wycliffe.net

Start date: October 2024

End date: September 2027

Summary

The Wycliffe Global Alliance is launching a transformative initiative to establish a dedicated Alliance Project Funding Function. This effort aims to enhance the Alliance’s capacity to mobilize and manage financial resources to support strategic Bible translation and missional projects across its global network.

With over 100 Alliance organizations engaged in serving more than 2,000 language communities, the need for a sustainable and community-centered funding model has never been greater. This three-year project (October 2024 – September 2027) will lay the foundation for long-term impact by strengthening project management systems, equipping staff, and cultivating strong partnerships with funding organizations.

Key outcomes include: successful implementation of priority projects, increased donor engagement, improved reporting and transparency, and a sustainable fundraising structure that aligns with the Alliance’s relational and value-driven approach to resource sharing.

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Background Information

The Wycliffe Global Alliance (Wycliffe Bible Translators International Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The organization exists to see individuals, communities and nations transformed through God’s love and Word expressed in their languages and cultures. It is a network of approximately 105 organizations working in more than 2,000 languages. A statement of commitment, signed by each Alliance organization, sets out the basis of the relationships.

The Alliance offers leadership, influence, and service within Bible translation movements. This is achieved through various initiatives by the Alliance Leadership Team and the Area teams.

The Alliance Board and leadership team, meeting in April 2019 decided to include project sponsorships in its funding model. This was in line with the Alliance principles for funding that states “…sharing resources is an interdependent relational activity where all people and their contributions are valued and every person can graciously give and receive.” In the past, the Alliance operations and projects were previously funded by the contribution of 0.35 percent of each Alliance organization’s total income and the assessment income from members. Our new strategy is for all of the Alliance to collectively fund specific projects as they arise. At the core of this, we are seeking to put our values (which were crafted in community with Alliance organizations) into practice. This means that we no longer automatically collect annual funding from Alliance organizations. Instead, we work with Alliance organizations on projects and seek funding from the community to meet key needs.

In 2022, the Alliance took initial steps to establish a project funding function and this project will support the key needs for establishing and operationalizing the function.

Determination of the Need

Alliance organizations contribute to Bible translation movements in many ways. The Wycliffe Global Alliance leadership team and staff contribute through; deepening missiological reflection, nurturing leaders for the Bible translation movement, facilitating effective and timely communication, strengthening Alliance organizations, equipping for Bible translation, strengthening community and serving in unity, supporting collaboration, encouraging stewardship and ensuring a trustworthy organization. The Alliance leadership and staff seek to accomplish the above goals by implementing various projects.

In order for the above projects to be successful, adequate financial resources are needed so that prioritized projects can be implemented successfully. Currently, the Alliance does not have an active function that spearheads fundraising and coordinates the management of sponsored projects. There is also the need for the Alliance to put in place appropriate project management systems and structures.

This project is therefore necessary to ensure that the Alliance has adequate funding to effectively implement key initiatives. The project will serve as a catalyst for sustainable ongoing fundraising efforts.

Strategy/Solution

In order to address the problem, the Alliance will focus on establishing a project funding function using the following strategies.

Project management: The Alliance will strengthen its project management capacity
Strengthening staff capacity: The Alliance will seek to build the capacity of staff to effectively manage projects
Donor relations and Marketing: The Alliance will develop a network of partners to support its key initiatives

Case Statement

The Alliance has been obtaining funding from assessment income and contributions by Alliance organizations. With the change to include project funding as one of the income sources, it is essential to establish a new strategy that aligns to the new model.

Project Goals

The overall goal for this project is to entrench project funding in the Alliance structure.

The specific goals are;

Strengthen the project management capacity of the Alliance
To build the capacity of the Alliance Project funding team
To establish a strong network of funding partners

Desired Results

Impact

The Alliance team able to effectively shape and nurture the direction of the Alliance, participate in key networks and partnerships, and provide accountability.

Outcomes

Key Alliance projects are implemented successfully
An effective and vibrant team of project funding staff
Healthy relationships with funding partners

Output

Key Alliance projects are implemented successfully

3 to 5-year plans for prioritized projects developed
Enhanced quality and ownership of projects
Effective implementation and management of all Alliance projects
Accurate, quality, and timely narrative and financial project reports
Functional project funding policies
An effective and vibrant team of project funding staff

Additional staff
Enhanced performance of Project Funding function staff
Alliance staff well versed with project management
Strengthen healthy relationships with funding partners

- Better relationships with funding partners
- Better understanding of partners areas of focus
- A diversified source of funding for the Alliance
- Up to date funding trends that guide decision making
- Alliance project funding priorities known among partners
- Greater awareness of Alliance project needs
- More Alliance projects funded

News

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Special Report - May 2025

‘We’ve come very far, very fast’

A tech observer outlines what AI will mean soon for workplaces and ministry

Tech pioneer: Christians ‘have to show up’ for AI

Silicon Valley pioneer Pat Gelsinger was CEO of Intel Corporation until December 2024. Quickly realising his career in technology was not finished, he joined the faith/tech platform Gloo in early 2025 as the executive chair and head of technology. He is also a general partner at the venture capital firm Playground Global. Gelsinger was instrumental in the development of cloud computing, Wi-Fi, USB and many other everyday technologies. He estimates his work has touched 60 to 70 percent of humanity. Here are highlights of his keynote talk at the 2025 Missional AI Summit. You can watch his entire talk here. Pat Gelsinger (left) is interviewed onstage by Steele Billings. Both are with Gloo. Watch the full interview here. Is technology good or bad? Technology is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral. It can be used for good. It can be used for bad. … If you think back to the Roman roads, why did Christ come when he came? I’ll argue the Pax Romana and the Roman roads. … The greatest technology of the day was the Roman road system. It was used so the Word could go out. Historical example I will argue Martin Luther was the most significant figure of the last thousand years. And what did he do? He used the greatest piece of technology available at the day, the Gutenberg printing press. He created Bibles. … He broke, essentially, the monopoly on the Bible translations …. He ushered in education. He created the systems that led to the Renaissance. That’s a little punk monk who only wanted to get an audience with the pope because he thought he had a few theological errors. I’ll argue (Luther was) the most significant figure of the last thousand years, using technology to improve the lives of every human that he touched at the time. How today compares to the dawn of the internet AI is more important. AI will be more significant. AI will be more dramatic. … This is now incredibly useful, and we’re going to see AI become just like the internet, where every single interaction will be infused with AI capabilities. In the 75-year-or-so history of computing, we humans have been adapting to the computer. … With AI, computers adapt to us. We talk to them. They hear us. They see us for the first time. And now they are becoming a user interface that fits with humanity. And for this and so many other reasons that every technology has been building on the prior technology, AI will unquestionably be the biggest of these waves, more impactful even than the internet was. On the need for AI development to be open-source It is so critical because we’re embedding knowledge, embedding values, embedding understanding into those underlying models, large language models and every aspect that happens. It must be open, and this is part of what I think is critical about us being together here today. We need to be creating trusted, open, useful AI that we can build humanity on. On the need for Christians to help build AI systems We have to show up as the faith community to be influencing those outcomes, because remember what happened in the social media. We didn’t show up, and look at what we got. So are we going to miss this opportunity for something that’s far more important than social networking with AI? Where it truly in the models embeds every aspect of human history and values into it? We have to show up, team. What we do with large language models is far more important because truly we are choosing how we embody knowledge of all time into those underlying models. They need to be open. They need to be trusted. What Christians must bring to the process If we’re going to show up to influence AI broadly, we have to show up with good engineering, good data, good understanding, good frameworks. How do you measure things like ‘Is that leading to better character? Is that leading to better relationships? Is that creating better vocational outcomes? Is that a valid view of a spiritual perspective?’ We need good underlying data associated with each one of these. And for that we’re actively involved. We’re driving to create that underlying data set. Because we need to show up with good data if we’re going to influence how AI is created. How should this work? For the AI systems we need to create good benchmarks. If I ask about God, does it give me a good answer or not? If I ask about relationships with my children, does it give me good answers? We need to create the corpus of data to give good answers to those questions. And, armed with that good data, we need to show up to influence the total landscape of AI. We want to benchmark OpenAI. We’re going to benchmark Gemini. We’re going to benchmark Claude. We’re going to benchmark Copilot. This is what we’re going to do at Gloo, but we want to be part of a broader community in that discussion so that we’re influential in creating flourishing AI. Technology is a force for good. AI that truly embeds the values that we care about, that we want to honour, that we want to be representing into the future and benchmarking across all of them. Oh his role with Gloo We are going to change the landscape of the faith community and its role in shaping this most critical technology, AI, for faith and flourishing. That’s what we’re going to do at Gloo and we need all of your help and partnership to do so because if we don’t hang together, we’re not going to influence the outcome, right? ‘Here am I, Lord’ I don’t think I’m done. … You and I both need to come to the same position like Isaiah did. Here am I, Lord. Send me. Send me. Send us. That we can be shaping technology as a force for good. That we could grab this moment in time. This is the greatest time to live in human history. We’re going to solve diseases. We’re going to improve lives. We’re going to educate every person in poverty. We are going to solve climate issues. We are going to be using these technologies to improve the lives of every human on the planet. We are going to shape technology as a force for good. Here am I, Lord. Send me. ••• Story: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance Translated with ChatGPT. How was the translation accuracy? Let us know at info@wycliffe.net. Alliance organisations are welcome to download and use images from this series.