IN A RELATIVELY small pond of international nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations in Washington, Federal Way-based World Vision International is a big fish. Actually, with more than 23,000 employees worldwide and annual revenue of more than $2.1 billion, it's a really big fish.

That makes it a powerhouse in the world of humanitarian aid. But its large public presence could make its employment practices, unusual for this state, highly controversial.

If World Vision were a publicly traded company, it would rank 14th in Washington state based on revenue, just behind Expedia Inc. and ahead of Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc. And even if you exclude World Vision's international operations, it's a major player in the state's economy with nearly $1 billion in annual revenue. Of its 1,100 U.S.-based employees, 650 are in Federal Way.

As humanitarian crises grow in number and scale, World Vision has used web technology and effective marketing to carve out a role as one of the world's largest international humanitarian aid and development organizations, operating in nearly 100 countries. "They are very good at telling the story that will tug at your heartstrings, that will bring into your living room a relationship with a kid in Colombia," says a former employee.

But the company also has vulnerabilities. Its revenue growth has come in part from increased federal funding under the Bush administration, a strong supporter of Christian organizations. Aid to World Vision from the U.S. government climbed to $261 million last year from $62.5 million in 1997. Some of that aid could decline under a future administration less inclined to use public money to support religious organizations. The company's hiring practices could also make it a lightning rod for criticism from its more liberal supporters.

EMPLOYED BY A HIGHER AUTHORITY
World Vision's Christian-based worldview permeates the company. It was founded in 1950, in the aftermath of the Korean War, by Bob Pierce, a former news correspondent and a devoutly religious man. World Vision was initially based in California, where World Vision's international division still maintains its offices. Because both World Vision International and the Federal Way-based headquarters are classified as faith-based religious organizations, they can, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hire U.S. Employees based on religious belief.

According to the company, it has few problems filling their many openings. For example, Rich Stearns, the CEO of World Vision U.S. since 1998, left his position as CEO of Lenox, the Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of high-end china and tableware, in spite of a salary reduction of 75 percent.

Stearns chuckles as he tells the story of how, despite saying "no, thanks" repeatedly over several months, the headhunter hired by World Vision kept calling back, quietly and persistently, until Stearns finally agreed to meet him for dinner.

Stearns, now 54, readily admits that with a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business - not to mention his 25 years working for name-brand consumer product companies - he could have pursued a number of better-paying opportunities.

Instead, he chose to walk away from the $800,000 annual compensation package, the luxury company car ("a baby-blue Jaguar," he says, wistfully) and a historic, 10-bedroom farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania that comfortably housed his family of seven.

"Ultimately," says Stearns, "it became a question of faith, of walking the talk and actually seeing myself in a position of being able to change lives for the better. I'm in a position now to serve God the way that he wants me to."

Other key executives, many with impressive résumés, apparently felt the same calling. Joan Mussa, World Vision's senior vice president of advocacy and communications, left her career as a videographer and television network journalist after embedding with World Vision on a project in Africa.

Indian-born Atul Tandon, the organization's senior vice president of donor engagement, holds his M.B.A. from the University of Delhi and left an executive position at Citigroup/CitiBank to come to World Vision. Four other key executives, all highly educated and coming from backgrounds as diverse as financial services and transportation, left large corporations and, in most cases, major cities around the world, to relocate to a small Seattle suburb for an organization whose stature is little known.

Even Julie Regnier, World Vision's senior vice president of human resources, laughs when asked whether she knew what she was getting into when she left a stable and prestigious position in southern California to relocate with the company to Federal Way. "Well, I admit that I did have to look Federal Way up on a map."

THE GOD ADVANTAGE
Regnier, who oversees all hiring and recruitment for World Vision, explains that although the company can't always match salaries at other large companies in the region, it offers an intangible not many other companies can offer.

"We have the God advantage [and] I think that God does prompt people to step out on faith," says Regnier. "They can step back and [ask], 'What's really important to me?' And they align work and faith and they're willing to take a pay cut to do it."

World Vision frequently turns to religion to guide their hiring practices. In online job ads, the organization says that while it "extends assistance to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs, gender, race or ethnic background ... for World Vision staff in the United States, Christian faith is a prerequisite for employment, based upon the United States federal guidelines provided in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

The organization also requires that all prospective employees sign a Statement of Faith, which is based on two tenets, the Apostles' Creed and the influential evangelical treatise the Lausanne Covenant. These two documents, when accompanied by World Vision's written Standard of Conduct, point to the one glaring omission in the lengthy Equal Employment Opportunity statement posted by the organization, which states that it will hire without consideration of such things as race, gender or disability.

There's no mention of sexual preference or gender identity.

The reason, explains Regnier, is either very simple or very convoluted, depending on the interpretation of "Christian."

"We'll absolutely consider any qualified applicant who complies with our Standard of Conduct statement, part of which says that we don't believe in sexual conduct outside of a monogamous heterosexual marriage relationship."

Since Washington state doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, where does that leave gay, lesbian or transgender applicants or employees when it comes to employment with World Vision? In the same place, explains Regnier, as single, unmarried heterosexual applicants or employees: If you're not married, abstain from sex and you're within the Statement of Conduct guidelines. If you're sexually involved with someone other than a monogamous, legally married spouse, you're in violation of your employment agreement.

"We look at this as a behavior issue and a choice issue," Regnier says, "and not something that comes as a surprise to either applicants or employees. Everyone sees the Statement of Faith and the Standard of Conduct document well before they're hired, and anyone can, at any time, opt out of the hiring process or out of being employed here. It's not unlike the NRA [National Rifle Association] not considering James Brady as their spokesperson. They wouldn't want him representing them, and he wouldn't want to be in that position with them, either."

However, Regnier does admit that the policy can be confusing for applicants, for recruiters and for publications offering help-wanted classified ads.

"We do get questions from applicants like, 'How can you ask me that? Isn't that illegal?'" she says. "We have to explain to them that we're a religious organization [and] we have that exception under Title VII."

When asked specifically whether the organization can include the sexual practices of its employees or prospective employees in World Vision's Statement of Conduct, Marc Brenman, executive director of Washington State's Human Rights Commission, pauses before answering. "I'm not going to say to you that I think it's good public policy. But as a religious organization, yes, they're within their rights. When it comes to the area of discrimination and employment issues, the state of Washington has made certain exemptions for religious organizations and those exemptions are pretty broad."

Still, the policy is an unusual one, especially in a state where same-sex domestic partners now enjoy some of the same rights as married couples do. "I am not aware of any nonreligious company or organization in Washington with similar hiring standards," says Gail Mautner, an attorney specializing in employment law at Lane Powell. "Our statute still prohibits (for-profit) private employers from imposing their personal religious values on employees."

Apparently, for most of the employees at World Vision, the religious values they're quizzed about at hiring are less an imposition than a bonus to their career and personal lives. With the exception of those traveling or keeping appointments, attendance at the voluntary Wednesday morning chapel services at the Federal Way headquarters is nearly 100 percent.

But those policies, if widely known, might result in fewer donations from some liberal families. One Seattle woman, whose son participated in a fundraiser for World Vision, said she would have thought twice about supporting the organization if she had been aware of its policy toward gays.

But if World Vision is unlike private companies in its hiring practices, it is much like any modern corporation in other respects. Its offices in Federal Way are located in a reasonably contemporary, multifloor office building with interiors that are bright, sophisticated and filled with multicultural art. The latest computer equipment sits in each cubicle, and the general level of professionalism resembles that of any Fortune 1000 firm.

MODERN AND SOPHISTICATED
Its marketing strategies are equally sophisticated. Not content with old-school fundraising techniques like telephone chains and mailed appeals, World Vision uses every media device and marketing strategy out there for reaching the public, from online videos, radio programs, YouTube and RSS feeds to the strategic purchasing of placement on Internet portals and search engines.

In fact, the organization's Internet marketing strategies have been so successful that John Strobel, World Vision's director of interactive media, oversees campaigns that might include everything from placing ads (both purchased and donated) within game sites on MSN to purchasing key words like "tsunami," "disaster" and "relief" on Google and similar search engines following events like 2004's tsunami in Southeast Asia. That way, anyone - individual donors, media and potential corporate partners - using the search engine to gather information or looking to make a donation see World Vision first, often before other international organizations like the Red Cross or Mercy Corps. Insiders say as much as a third of the company's donations are made online.

Charity Navigator (www.charitynavigator.org), a website devoted to examining the reported financial records of nonprofits and which subsequently ranks organizations not only on revenues but on spending habits and services provided, gives World Vision U.S. a four-star rating, the highest rating offered, and ranks the charity as No. 3 on their list of 10 Super-Sized charities.

Part of that rating is based on the percentage of revenue used to meet overhead and fundraising expenses. In 2006, World Vision U.S. put 87 percent of its revenues toward its programs in the field - domestic and international - and only 8 percent and 5 percent were used for fundraising and overhead, respectively.

In fact, the organization's administrative and overhead expenses as a percentage of income have dropped consistently, year after year, since Stearns took over in 1998, even as its revenue - a mixture of private donations, federal monies, grant and foundation gifts and corporate gifts-in-kind - has increased
exponentially.

And if Stearns' personal compensation has grown from $200,000 to $366,000 per year, it still places him well below his peers at the largest for-profit companies in Washington state.

Although World Vision raises money around the world, Stearns says residents of Washington state have been extraordinarily generous with both cash and in-kind donations, especially following natural disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

If World Vision can serve as the conduit for exporting materials and expertise that bring about hope, says Stearns, then the organization is meeting its mission. Or, as he once explained it, "Seattle has always been proud of Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon, but people seem to miss that one of the biggest charities nationwide operates here. That should be a source of community pride. Seattle has another export to be proud of."