Guidelines For Starting a New Friendship Force Club

The goal of Friendship Force International is to create an environment where personal friendships can be established across the international barriers that separate people, such as language, politics and religion. Friendship Force International (FFI) achieves this goal by arranging for ordinary citizen Ambassadors to share the lives of a Host family living in another country for one or two weeks.   Host families receive no payment for opening their homes.  

The participants who travel, called "Ambassadors," pay their own travel expenses plus an administrative fee which covers most of the operating costs of Friendship Force International.   Participation in exchanges is by application, and the club carefully selects Ambassadors and Hosts to ensure compatibility with the program.

Forming a new Friendship Force club is a big undertaking, and there is a dedicated staff at the organization's headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, who will aid in this process.   Here are the first steps to take in starting a new club:

•  The most important step in forming a new Friendship Force club is to find interested people in the community. You'll need to have the support of approximately 50-100 people in your community who will participate as Hosts and Ambassadors and become members in the club.

•  Select between 5 and 10 people to form the club's leadership committee.   These people will take on the initial leadership roles in the club, such as president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. The first officers typically serve a one- or two-year term, then elections are held so club members can vote on new officers.

•  Once you have the core group in place, the next step is to inform the headquarters office in Atlanta.   Friendship Force International headquarters will provide papers to sign to officially start a club, and assign an exchange to the new club.

•  Keep in mind that in addition to whatever dues structure you put in place for your club to provide local funding, there is also a US$10 per person or US$15 per family membership fee that is forwarded to Friendship Force International in Atlanta to support the international organization.

•  The most successful clubs have over 100 members.   Because that number does take while for a new club to achieve, once you have recruited fifty members from your community we would be happy to discuss with you the possibility of your first inbound exchange.   This will be followed by your first outbound exchange.   Please note that 25 Ambassadors typically participate on an exchange.  

Anyone in the community can join a Friendship Force club, but it is important to note that each participant must be interviewed before they are accepted as a Host or an Ambassador. This is to ensure that the participant's goal is to make a friend. Friendship Force International is not a travel club, but an organization for people interested in making a new friend of a different culture, religion, language or political system.