World Vision is a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty. Click for a decade-by-decade summary of World Vision's accomplishments: The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s

The 1950s

Dr. Bob Pierce began World Vision to help children orphaned in the Korean War. The organization has grown well beyond its child-assistance roots to facilitating the transformation of entire communities with water programs, health care education, agricultural and economic development, and strategic Christian leadership activities.

World Vision Founder Bob Pierce at prayer.

The Korea orphans program grew after its inception in 1950 by Dr. Pierce, as people throughout America responded to the needs of children of war. To provide long-term, ongoing care for children in crisis, World Vision developed its first child sponsorship program in Korea in 1953.

Through sponsorship, World Vision assists children in struggling communities with food, education, health care, and vocational training, supported by monthly contributions from donors. As children began to flourish through sponsorship in Korea, the program expanded into other Asian countries and eventually into Latin America and Africa.

The 1960s

World Vision began its relief efforts in the 1960s, delivering food, clothing, and medical supplies to people suffering from disaster. In 1962, a devastating earthquake shook northern Iran, killing 120,000 people. The disaster, causing untold human suffering, weighed heavily on World Vision leadership. Determined to offer assistance to people facing such disasters, but inhibited by limited resources, World Vision created a separate, nonsectarian agency, World Vision Relief Organization, to secure ocean freight and food grants from the U.S. government. Now called World Vision Relief & Development (WVRD), this organization soon began soliciting clothing and other merchandise from corporations to help meet the immediate needs of people in disaster. These gift-in-kind (GIK) donations now account for more than 25 percent of World Vision's income.

The 1970s

Former World Vision President Stan Mooneyham greets a young boy rescued by Operation Seasweep.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, World Vision continued to grow in size, reaching thousands more children. At this time World Vision was impressed with the growing need to work with entire communities to help achieve the transformation that brings hope to the lives of the children we are called to assist. The cycle of poverty that creates desperate living conditions needed to be attacked at the root. World Vision began incorporating vocational and agricultural training for families into its sponsorship efforts, and parents began learning to farm and earn money through small enterprises.

These efforts to affect self-sustainable change evolved into World Vision's current community development work. Long-term development has proven central to bringing lasting hope. After meeting immediate survival needs, World Vision works with communities to help them find solutions and move toward self-reliance. Local leaders actively participate in determining the future of their communities. World Vision provides assistance in water and sanitation development, agricultural training, leadership development, education, health care, and economic development activities. While communities work toward self-sufficiency, World Vision often provides fresh water wells and sanitation facilities, supplemental food, farming tools and seeds, loans for small businesses, and medicine. As people begin providing for themselves, dignity is restored and a new cycle of hope is born.

The 1980s

Most of World Vision's financial support for these efforts came from the United States. In an effort to reach more resources, and to expose more individuals to the needs of others, World Vision formed World Vision International (WVI) in 1980. Today, this partnership oversees sponsorship, relief, rehabilitation, and community development projects in 103 countries.

Former World Vision President Ted Engstrom in a 1986 visit to Ethiopia.

A major benchmark of our growth occurred in the early 1980s when famine struck Ethiopia. World Vision provided massive relief assistance under very critical circumstances. The media coverage of the famine created unprecedented awareness of human need, and people throughout the world offered financial resources to the relief efforts. World Vision provided millions of dollars worth of food and medical assistance, saving thousands of lives from the slow, agonizing death of starvation.

Once the immediate crisis subsided, World Vision chose to remain and began rehabilitation efforts to help Ethiopians rebuild their lives. Today the region that was once parched and full of death now thrives with the life of green crops, fresh water, and hope for the future.

In 1986, World Vision launched what has become one of its premiere development programs--the Ghana Rural Water Project. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, mostly children, died from waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea, malaria, and were tormented by the dreaded guinea worm. The simple solution of clean water immediately prevents thousands of deaths.

World Vision began drilling wells in communities and infant mortality rates dropped. World Vision uses this clean water as an entry point into communities, and other activities follow to provide change. Once the pump is installed, World Vision trains community volunteers to become health promoters, who, in turn, teach their neighbors how to use fresh water for better health. World Vision offers classes to all villagers in health care, gardening, irrigation, and developing income-generating projects. Villages evolve from poverty-stricken, illness-plagued communities to thriving, self-supporting, healthy ones. In partnership with the Conrad N. Hilton Fund, a charitable Foundation, World Vision has dug more than 1,100 wells, bringing clean water and the gift of health to thousands of families.

The 1990s

Bob Seiple, shown here in Bosnia, was president of World Vision U.S. until summer 1998.

In this, the final decade of the millennium, World Vision has played a key role in alleviating human suffering and saving lives in complex humanitarian emergencies throughout East Africa, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in the Balkan Republics, and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, World Vision U.S. moved its offices from Monrovia, California to Federal Way, Washington in 1995. This move reduced operating costs by millions of dollars annually, a savings which translates into an additional 140,000 children that World Vision can reach each year with health, education, and hope.

Rich Stearns, shown at left in Sri Lanka followed the devastating 2004 tsunami, became president of World Vision U.S. in 1998.