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Company Profile: Global Need

    Added March 31, 2010

As published in Worship Facilities, Mar/Apr 2010

Armando Fullwood has 20 years experience managing creative design firms, most recently as the co-founder of Design 2020 of Harrisburg, N.C. He also has a passion for cause-focused programs. So many, that Fullwood calls it an addiction. In 1998, after working on water wells and building projects in Ethiopia, Fullwood began to think about how humanitarian relief could be organized better and the idea of Global Need was born.

Global Need, www.globalneed.org, is an organization established for responsible global stewardship of the earth’s resources and the needs of its people. Global Need organizes people, products and purpose to meet needs nationally and internationally through its seven distinct programs. It takes a big picture approach to engineering the causes and does so in a faith-based, environment-friendly way.

Worship Facilities Magazine talks with Fullwood about this growing organization that is simplifying global relief.

WFM: Tell us about Global Need and how it arose.

Fullwood: Many years ago I was doing work in Ethiopia and Brazil and got frustrated with inefficiency in the supply chain. At the same time, coming from an engineering background, no organization I knew of dealing with alternative energy, humanitarian aid development, and green initiatives had a faith-based perspective. I got the vision to do Global Need based on those parameters.

Our goal is to create efficiency in getting people and products around the world. Global Need is an umbrella organization that facilitates the processes of many types of non-profit and for-profit companies who provide products and services to people and places globally. Global Need receives individual donations and corporate donations and is non-profit.

WFM: How do you do that?

Fullwood: Basically, we have seven distinct programs. Global H20 for clean water, Global Mobile for efficient transportation, Global Cover for safe shelter, Global Wear for clothing and shoes, Global Reach for communication networks, Global Grow for farming projects and Global Now for immediate humanitarian aid in time of disasters. We took a very complex strategy for meeting the global need and actually streamlined it into those seven programs.

It’s like a cause ball. If I have several programs, but they all share the overhead structure, they are a lot more efficient than if each one of these separate causes has its own structure.

WFM: How did you envision Global Need and bring it to life?

Fullwood: I was doing water wells and building projects in Ethiopia and we started looking at what could be done better. Later, I was in Dubai at a relief conference and the whole idea of Global Need came together on the 13-hour flight home. God just gave me the plan. It really was an ah-ha moment.

WFM: Tell us about Global Need’s coffee and apparel lines?

Fullwood: Global Need Coffee (http://globalneedcoffee.com/) is going to be a huge asset for us to support our work in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Ethiopia. Independent farmers from these areas use micro-mills to process well-balanced coffees. We maintain an ongoing relationship with them to ensure quality and a fair business return. Marketing this coffee allows us to continue programs in the area.

We also plan to create a healthy manufacturing process for fabric with our Global Wear line. Healthy manufacturing practices for apparel in third-world countries will minimize the sweatshop mentality and bring awareness to waterless dying processes and bamboo fabric.

Many organizations spend too much time fundraising for their work but have no long-term viability in a financial sense. These revenue streams will allow us to be more effective in how we underwrite our programs. After all the immediate needs have been met in an area, we look at long-term exportable commerce. We want to combine good causes with marketable products that help sustain them.

WFM: What is your organization doing now in Haiti?

Fullwood: Global Need is developing property outside of the capital through the ‘Hope for Haiti’ foundation. This property will have a hospital that can serve the 400,000 people of that area, an orphanage, a training facility that will teach a proven character-based curriculum and job skills, a panel building plant through our Global Cover program that, at capacity, can create enough product to build 4,000 homes per year, and land to grow ‘Haitian Bleu’ coffee, avocados and mangoes. This type of development could create long-term sustainability and awareness of the needs of this country by exporting these products to markets around the world.

WFM: What is the environmental cause position?

Fullwood: Global Need is an organization established for responsible global stewardship of the earth’s resources and the needs of its people. In Genesis, God commands us to be stewards over all his creation. I felt like it was time to create an authentic global need-answering organization that could address these issues from a faith perspective. I believe aspects of the global warming crisis have little validity and a real commonsense, cost-effective plan is needed to deal with the challenges at hand.

One example, soybean and sugar crops are being grown in South Africa in unclean water where people dump waste. So, we’re teaming up with a California company that makes waterless outhouses with alternative green wood. The people get paid a couple dollars for taking their waste to a receiving station. It becomes fertilizer, which in turns grows corn, soybeans and sugar, which can be used for bio-fuel products. Now we have sustainable economics, commerce and we’re cleaning up the water in these areas.

WFM: What is your philosophy for running a charitable organization?

Fullwood: One of my core beliefs is people want to get behind causes they can trust. The ultimate goal, through sale of coffee and apparel, is if someone contributes to Global Need, 100% of what they give goes to the work we do, because the products we sell cover our costs. Not a lot of humanitarian programs have products cover their costs. Toms Shoes, www.tomshoes.com, is one of them—with every pair you buy they give a pair away. That’s one of the most successful organizations out there.

We track the money, maintain a lean overhead structure, there are no fancy buildings and no CEO salaries. If you make a commitment to be part of a humanitarian cause-driven company, there’s a certain social etiquette. People are not going to give to a top-heavy organization.

We also like to support other programs. We are not competing with other organizations. Humanitarian companies should share resources.

WFM: How can churches align themselves with the efforts of Global Need?

Fullwood: Global Need Coffee and Global Need Café, www.globalneedcafe.com, offer churches a way to funnel their coffee- and café-giving initiatives into our seven programs. Churches and individuals are the cup and our organization is the fluid to help fill the needs they are most passionate about.

WFM: You own multiple for-profit businesses and run Global Need. How do you handle it all?

Fullwood: Don’t look at me as a musician; look at me as an orchestra conductor. I have a gift of developing great teams. My supreme talent is attracting talented people.

When vision, passion and purpose come into alignment, there’s incredible efficiency where things start to clarify into efficient lifestyle. When I finally gave in to that alignment, I was amazed at what we accomplished. I’m not losing sleep and we get it done. We’re letting this thing unfold naturally. I’m not pushing people.

WFM: How is God leading these efforts in the future, as you see it?

Fullwood: Every great visionary should listen to his or her spouse. Recently, my wife D.J. reminded me that the United States should be part of Global Need. Her program is the 5&2, based on the story of five loaves two fishes. 5&2 is a part of our Global Grow initiative to bring cost-effective, high-quality foods to people. There’s a local food program and we’re teaming up with Young Life Camps, helping to market and fund raise for the first special needs Young Life Camp in the mountains of North Carolina.

We’re also excited to finish water wells in Ethiopia and Costa Rica. There’s a lot on the planning boards and it’s an exciting time and way to lead my life. I love everything about it. It keeps me in perspective when what our hands find to do prospers. I’ve watched many make a lot of money but not have the cause perspective. If we don’t have that, we have a tendency to think we really deserve all the money God blesses us with. For my life I need cause perspective to balance what really matters most to me.