Echo, Inc.

Summary

ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is a nonprofit, Christian organization dedicated to fighting world hunger through agriculture. ECHO supplies ideas, information, training and seeds to those working in agriculture and development overseas. By networking with community leaders and missionaries in developing countries, ECHO seeks to find agricultural solutions for families growing food under difficult conditions. ECHO has been assisting development workers and missionaries since 1981 by providing seeds, information, and ideas to people in over 160 countries.

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Organization Details [ Back to top ]

Purpose [ Back to top ]

ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is a nonprofit, Christian organization dedicated to fighting world hunger through agriculture. ECHO supplies ideas, information, training and seeds to those working in agriculture and development overseas. By networking with community leaders and missionaries in developing countries, ECHO seeks to find agricultural solutions for families growing food under difficult conditions. ECHO has been assisting development workers and missionaries since 1981 by providing seeds, information, and ideas to people in over 160 countries.

Mission Statement [ Back to top ]

ECHO describes its mission as follows:

Our primary mandate is to strengthen the ministries of missionaries and national churches as they assist small farmers or urban gardeners in the third world. We gladly offer assistance to others doing similar work, such as Peace Corps volunteers and development workers.

Program Accomplishments [ Back to top ]

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Statement of Faith [ Back to top ]

ECHO subscribes to the following statement of faith:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We believe in the deity and humanity of Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, in his present rule as Head of the Church, and in His personal return in power and glory.

We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful men regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost, they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ with equality across racial, gender and class differences.

History [ Back to top ]

In the early 1970's Indiana businessman Richard Dugger led a group of high school students on a visit to Haiti and was deeply moved by the plight of people in developing countries. He and others made personal commitments to share their time and resources, they prayed and dreamed of ways to help meet the needs that they had seen. Other Christian laymen and clergy from Indiana and Florida caught the dream, and ECHO (Educational Concerns for Haiti Organizations) was born. Until 1981 ECHO worked on various projects in Haiti.

ECHO's role in international agricultural development was more clearly defined with the arrival of the current director, Dr. Martin Price, in June of 1981. The work in Haiti was closed, and all of ECHO’s resources were directed towards strengthening the work of other organizations. Under his direction ECHO has become an ever growing pipeline for sharing information, ideas, techniques, methods, plants, books, materials, solutions ... whatever has potential to ease world hunger.

ECHO's primary functions are providing agricultural information to overseas workers, distributing seeds for promising food plants, and offering training opportunities at the Florida farm. ECHO's role and purpose as conceived in the early 1980's endures today, and as a result, ECHO's "history" is mostly a story of the expanding ministry.

The first issue of ECHO's highly regarded ECHO Development Notes (EDN) was published in 1982 and mailed to 36 interested individuals. This mailing list has grown steadily over the years. The most recent edition went out to over 3500 agricultural workers in 140 countries around the world.

Late in 1986 three large greenhouses were erected at the ECHO farm. The houses were built by winter volunteers, and now provide a better environment for some of our special crops. One greenhouse simulates rain forest conditions with frequent watering from overhead sprinklers; a second is home to a number of plants especially adapted to arid regions, and the third serves as appropriate technology demonstration. By the end of 1986 ECHO had also paid off the farm mortgage.

ECHO's expanded work is made possible by an ever-broadening base of support from private individuals and organizations. In 1985, 671 contributions totaled $70,133. By 1998 this had grown to 3823 gifts totaling over one million dollars.

Nearly every aspect of ECHO's ministry has experienced substantial growth. The permanent staff has grown to 11 members. Volunteers gave over 16,000 hours of work at ECHO last year. We now have 8 interns who reside, work and receive training for one year on the farm followed by 3 months in a Third World agricultural setting. More than 5000 visitors toured our experimental/demonstration farm last year. Each year, agricultural development workers from around the world spend from a few days to a few months at ECHO where they use the library, attend seminars, and work alongside the interns in their projects for practical, hands-on experience. We now operate a resource center that contains about 3000 books on agricultural for the Third World tropics and an edible landscape nursery focused on tropical plants.

Ministry Needs [ Back to top ]

This organization has not offered MinistryWatch.com with specific needs to be posted on the profile. At such a time that MinistryWatch.com receives a response from the ministry, it will be posted immediately.

Research Analysis

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MinistryWatch.com 5 Star Financial Efficiency Ratings [ Back to top ]

Ranking Category	Rating	Overall Rank	Relief and Development Sector
Overall Efficiency Rating		233 of 348	39 of 52
Fund Acquisition Decision		233 of 348	39 of 52
Resource Allocation Decision		of 348	15 of 52
Asset Utilization Decision		of 348	15 of 52