Great Leadership Makes the Organization

August 04, 2023

Dr. Lynn Pottenger has been the Chair of the ACT US Board nearly since its inception! Incredible dedication and focus is Lynn's leadership style which has served ACT very well over the years. Here are her thoughts about it:

Back in April, you saw a blog post about how ACT got started - with letters exchanged between Generous & Richard Turinawe and Sue Waechter. That beginning, over 20 years ago, evolved into today's partnership between two NGO's, ACT-US and ACT-Uganda, both registered in their respective countries, USA and Uganda. That evolution, from just John & Sue and some funding from several churches underwent transformation several times - from a 'Committee' under the wing of Memorial Presbyterian to a full-fledged, independent 501(C)3 register in the US, with the requisite Board and Officers (Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) to the current situation with two registered NGO's, one in the US and one in Uganda.

The first ACT-US Board was established in 2007. We wanted a Board member from each participating church partner, as well as the team leaders for each program. Our first program was MukoHOPE (Helping Orphans Prosper & Endure), in which donors sponsored the education costs for children who were single or double orphans. I remember being scared - I'd never done anything like this before, chairing the Board of an organization. Sure, I'd chaired lots of things in my professional life such as workshops, sessions, and research committees, but always with professional support - secretaries, assistants, colleagues, many different folks over the years. But this, this was different - we were stepping out in faith that we would manage to gather and organize the needed support - both folks and funding - and that it would a good thing for us and for Muko Sub-County. Remember, we wanted the transformation to work in both directions, in our hearts and lives and in Muko folks' lives, too. We did manage to gather both folks to volunteer and funding to support projects we thought would be useful and welcome (based on a list generated from the Ugandans initially). I was and continue to be so grateful to every member who has agreed to serve and has served or still serves on our Board - it was a real working Board will all the members contributing time and effort every month.

We made lots of mistakes - probably still are - such as spending significant effort on identifying and analyzing a 3-wheeled vehicle that we thought would be useful, only to learn (thank goodness BEFORE we purchased any) that they would not be functional in Uganda because of the steep terrain! Sue put a lot of time into providing us with Board training, as it was new to us all. And we learned...learned from our mistakes, learned from our discussions, learned from our book studies, and learned from our partners - yes, we finally recognized how much we had to learn from our partners in Uganda. Indeed, these past three+ years we have been striving mightily to learn from our partners and be directed by their goals their wisdom, and their ideas. Our Ugandan friends have their own priorities and ways of accomplishing tasks, and we continue to learn to honor that. We are currently working hard together developing sustainability plans for each of the programs, with the goal of being able to turn over more of the management of ACT to ACT-Uganda. Our journey has been awesome, filled with joyous moments and with challenges and new approaches - every step dependent on truly wonderful and incredibly devoted people on both sides of the ocean. We certainly want to have ACT prepared for a sustainable future in whatever form our Ugandan partners envision.

And our Uganda Director, Generous shares:

Beginning of ACT was just like a dream, but it came to reality. God used the Turinawe and Waechter families as the alpha, and brought in more great men and women who have accelerated programs that have impacted thousands of people in Muko community and beyond.

We started as a Community-Based Organization (CBO); shortly we upgraded to an indigenous, and then an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). Our first board commenced in March 2008 under the leadership of Charles Tuhaise a research Officer at the Parliament of Uganda and President of the Uganda Association of Social Workers. He was succeeded by Lydia Komugisha, an administrator of Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Kampala. Thereafter, Rev Esau Habomugisha, who was in charge of the Diocese of Kigezi construction department, served as ACT Chair, and now Moses Bahati, a lecturer at Kabale University, is our current leader. Each of these Board chairs serves a 3-year term but some served for 2 terms. Rev. Esau served for 3 terms - 9 years total! We are very grateful to all our Board chairs, and board members past and present, for their dedicated and faithful service.

We enrolled parish volunteers who helped in identifying orphans from vulnerable families from each of the seven parishes of Muko Sub-County. Later we hire our first Muko Staff, Blessing Kyokwijuka, who worked with the volunteers on MukoHOPE programs for orphan sponsorship which is now HONORS. Later, we started adding more programs: MEP, MUSIC, HANDS, HEAL, MAVERICK, TEACH, and FUNDS. the more we added programs, the more we hired new staff to support them, hence creating jobs for young people in Muko and also work for laborers earning an income.

ACT has done a holistic transformation in Muko Sub-County and in Rubanda District at large. Thousands of individuals, schools, churches, and farmers have benefited from ACT. We have a BIG reason to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of ACT in action for community transformation this year!