Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 12, 1994 TAG: 9403120032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Steve Rabey Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
DATELINE: COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. LENGTH: Medium
But Nelson left his position as Focus' chief operating officer in January. Earlier this month he began a new job as president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the Washington, D.C.-based organization that provides supervision for 750 member organizations with a combined income of billions of dollars.
Nelson hopes to polish the image and raise the public profile of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which has been hampered by a three-year search for a new president.
"I'm anxious to put some teeth into an organization that needs that," Nelson said in a January interview. "ECFA has been on a holding pattern, but we need to toughen our standards and improve the credibility of the organization."
For example, organization members, which include Christian organizations and schools, pledge to provide ministry financial information to anyone who asks. But the council has been slow to discipline organizations that do not respond to information requests.
Nelson believes the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability needs to toughen its standards to counteract negative perceptions of Christian ministries.
Nelson says many people's poor image of Christian groups stems from highly publicized scandals involving television ministries headed by Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and Robert Tilton, to name a few.
The vast majority of Christian ministries, Nelson says, are financially upstanding. He believes that negative portrayals in the news media and Hollywood have given Christian ministries a bad image.
"Unfortunately, all the ministries get painted with the same brush," he said.
Earlier ministry scandals led to the council's founding in 1979. Oregon's Democratic Sen. Mark Hatfield, himself an outspoken evangelical, warned that unless Christian ministries police themselves, the federal government would do it for them.
Numerous ministries responded and helped create the council. Among the group's founding members were Springs-based Compassion International, Minneapolis-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Southern California's World Vision.
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability requires that any organization seeking membership adhere to its three-page "Standards of Responsible Stewardship," which include standards on doctrine, boards of directors, financial accountability and reporting, conflicts of interest and truthfulness in fund-raising.
The standards are strict enough that some ministries can't meet them. But Nelson thinks they should be even stricter. For example, he would like to restrict membership on boards of directors to people who are not related to ministry officials.
Focus itself was the subject of some public scrutiny last year when a fund-raising letter implied the ministry might close its doors if donors didn't send cash.
Nelson says the media misunderstood the letter, which described a cash shortage resulting in part from a failed attempt to sell Focus' former headquarters facility in Southern California.
"Our constituents understood (the letter) better than those who are not on our mailing list," he says.
Nelson believes his work at the council is part of a continuing divine call that began when he joined Focus after 23 years of work in the chemical and oil industry.
"I was named chief financial officer of a petroleum company in 1980 at the height of the industry's boom years," he says. "And I watched as the industry unraveled.
"It was every man for himself. Lifelong friends who had worked together were in litigation with one another. It showed me there was more to life than what you can earn and the glory you can receive from it. I was ripe for Focus on the Family.
"And I believe God was speaking to me (to move to the council) after the completion of Focus' Briargate campus," he says. "I am very comfortable in my decision."
Although Nelson is no longer at Focus, his imprint will remain with the organization for years. He streamlined the ministry's financial operations and oversaw the development of a management philosophy that calls for strict employee accountability and rapid response to supporters' calls and letters.
"I brought with me a corporate philosophy, and that philosophy has evolved over the years," he says. "My detractors will say I have industrialized Focus.
"There is always a tension for those who say, `Are we a business or are we a ministry?' But we felt we must take on an astuteness of business management, because our stockholders are the people who have given significantly of their resources - the little old ladies on Social Security who send you $2 a month.
"If you ever lose sight of that, you've lost your mission."
by CNB