URI recently celebrated its 16th Anniversary! To mark the event, we're running a fundraising campaign around our work on the Sustainable Development Goals, which you can support here, and will be sharing a number of interviews with the people who helped start and make URI what it is today.
Looking back, Sally Mahé jokes that she was being set up for URI all along, because since childhood she always spilled out of groups, wanting to meet other people who were just a little different. By the time she heard Bishop Swing talk in 1995 about a new peacebuilding organization which would bring together different religions, she had been a history teacher for twelve years, instilling in new generations the principles of democracy and how ordinary people can express the best in themselves by participating. Later, after seminary training as a spiritual counselor, she engaged firsthand with how people connect to their spiritual values and to one another.
Mahé volunteered for a year with the group which would become URI. At its first major planning meeting, she was surprised to be asked to be a central part of the proceedings. “I wasn’t aware that I had anything special to offer,” she said, “So it was a new experience sitting with these great minds and being told I was perfect for this work. But then, URI is made up of ordinary people trying to do extraordinary things.” The main outcome of that meeting was an agreement to build a global organization dedicated to interfaith cooperation. It was a “big idea with a small name”, and no set boundaries. While many other international organizations have started with a spark and then grown globally, URI was intentionally built to be global. “We wanted to build an organization rooted in a genuine appreciation of the gifts all people could bring. It felt right to start globally, and the spirit of appreciation and inclusiveness is still at our core,” Mahé says.
The first staff of four primarily worked to create large Summit meetings at Stanford University as a precursor to launching the organization. People were invited from all over the world to explore theories of organization-building and to form a model that would continue to bring people together organically. Charles Gibbs, URI’s first executive director, visited stakeholders around the world to get their initial input. As a project manager, Mahé had a major role in the process that resulted in the Charter which formed the foundation of URI. Before the advances in the internet, she managed the compilation and mailing of 10,000 draft charters in packets with tear-off sheets of questions asking for input and responses. “Of all those we sent out into the world, we only got about 30 comments back, and maybe four which really brought significant changes,” Mahé remembers. “But it didn’t matter how many responded or what the content was, really, it more about the principle of inclusivity, ‘throw the process of creation open and invite people to participate, and see what happens’…Even now, people feel so invested in the Charter, and many people who were there from the beginning are active in URI still.”
With Charter feedback in hand, an organizational design team went to work to make transformational organizational ideas into reality. This team hammered out they key tenets of URI, such as the Purpose and Principles, and criteria for member Cooperation Circles. “I got closer to those ideas because I participated in every meeting, wrote the notes, and typed them up,” Mahé says, gesturing to a cabinet in her office where such mementos reside.
When URI launched at its first Global Assembly in 2000, one of the main features was a big map of the world. “We had it up on one wall, and we made huts out of construction paper to symbolize regional centers. We began imagining what a fully developed network would look like, connecting little clusters of CCs with gold yarn—for some reason, the connecting thread had to be gold.”
During early face to face gatherings of people from different religions and traditions, there was a jolt of surprise that it was possible to get people from different religions in the same room enjoying one another. “I remember asking rather awkward questions about hexes to the first Wiccan I’d ever met,” Mahé laughs. “There was something so special about being able to enjoy each other and feel united; it was an experience many of us had never had before.”
URI’s dual strategy of interfaith cooperation and organizing for social good works well because of this commitment from people who don’t usually work together. Together across traditional barriers, people in URI reach out together to meet a need in their community. “So many come to URI because of a personal commitment or vocation. At URI, they are able to reach for the impossible because building bridges of cooperation fits with a deep conviction in their lives,” Mahé explains.
Mahé describes URI as a multi-demanding environment, calling forth the best qualities in people. Through all the years being part of URI, she has seen the global community change, with shifts in direction, new needs, and navigating URI’s growth using new ideas. Seeing grassroots communities in different parts of the world self-identify local needs for peace has been interesting, as similar themes pop up everywhere. The interconnection of diverse people within the URI network has visibly enriched people and the communities they are a part of by tapping into one’s basic humanity and desire for peace. URI’s growing global reach is something Mahé is viewing with interest as URI Cooperation Circle members become more vocal in civil society. “We’re bringing a unique voice to the table as a network of hope which is built on trustworthy relationships and retains a personal touch.”
The Sustainable Development Goals formalize significant global needs into a framework for international collaboration, and are one important way for CCs to understand how their local work, while it might seem small, actually contributes to achieving big global goals. Offering an avenue for people’s deeply held spiritual beliefs to turn into tangible action on the scale that URI does is no small feat. In the sixteen years that URI has formally existed, Mahé’s role has blossomed. She says it is a fulfillment of her passion as a teacher when she realized that each child had something unique to contribute. “My answer, ‘am I fulfilling my deepest convictions?’ has remained ‘yes’ through the years, she says. “Helping people discover how they can bring their unique contribution to confront local and global world demands is something we all do at URI, and is what makes URI special.”
Sally Mahé is the Director of Global Programs at the United Religions Initiative’s Global Support Office in San Francisco.
