Why the Fellows Cohort exists: 

• Be a community of leaven for Kingdom excellence
• Host “big questions” and learning
• Grow and mentor Kingdom talent

What the Fellows contribute:

• Learning from their experience & organization
• Hosting, thought leadership, and enrichment at Accord events
• Mentoring for young leaders

Deborah Bensen

Serving as a Vice President of Marketing and Media for Cross International, Deborah’s passion for social causes plus her experience in media, marketing, and fundraising has led to multi-level private and government fund development to benefit the impoverished. Having traveled to projects in 40+ countries, she has helped to develop awareness and funding for hunger relief, emergency disaster aid, safe water, medical aid, and orphans & vulnerable children (OVC) programs through private funding and government agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). She served a two-year appointment on USAID’s Advisory Council on Volunteer Foreign Aid, where she was committee chair of USAID ACVFA’s Public Outreach Subcommittee. Deborah lives in coastal Virginia with her husband, twins, and a few wayward four-legged pals.

Victor Cortez

Victor serves as Senior Director for the Latin America and Caribbean Region at Water Mission, and has more than 33 years of experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of holistic transformational development projects. Originally from Bolivia, prior to serving at WM, he served at Food for the Hungry Bolivia in different roles, at FH Guatemala as Country Director, as FH Regional Director for the Latin America and Caribbean Region based in the Dominican Republic, and as FH Senior Director for Leadership Development based in Phoenix, which is where he currently lives with his wife Elizabeth and his two children Josue and Abigail. Victor has his bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering and his master’s degree in Business Administration.

JoAnn Flett

Dr. JoAnn Flett is the Executive Director of the Center for Faithful Business at Seattle Pacific University. JoAnn was a 2020 Fulbright Teaching Scholar to Trinidad and Tobago. Her dissertation is entitled Reshaping the Goals of 21st Century Business: A Grounded Theory Study of the B-Corp Movement.

She has served on numerous nonprofit organizations boards that include: The Accord Network (120+ faith-based international development agencies. She was formerly Board Chair for – Capital for Good | Geneva Global (a performance philanthropy firm), and Board Street Ministry (non-profit serving the most vulnerable Philadelphians). Her board advisory roles include: Everence Financial (Philadelphia Initiative); The Ormond Center at Duke University, and the Coalition for Christian Social Innovation a collaborative effort between Compassion International and Baylor University.

Mafer Madriz

Maria Fernanda, who goes by Mafer, has worked for Compassion since 2004, but her Compassion history started long before then. She is a formerly Compassion sponsored child from Guatemala. She currently serves as Director of Partnership, where she leads a team focused on designing and operationalizing new program models and equipping Compassion field offices to mobilize and strengthen the capacity of local church partners for ministry to children and youth. She holds a BBA in Economics and International Business from Harding University and a MS in HR and Organizational Development from Abilene Christian University (ACU).

Mafer, her husband Anibal, and their children Gabriel (10) and Matías (7) live in El Salvador. As a family, they attend Vida Real.tv church, a small church in San Salvador where Anibal and Mafer serve as leaders of the in-country missions and social outreach ministry and volunteer in several other ministries.

Shawn McCabe

Shawn, his wife Becky, and their four children have served with the Christian & Missionary Alliance through CAMA Services, their relief, and development structure in West Africa, for 19 years. In partnership with a local church, Shawn established a fish farm in a Malian village to combat malnutrition and provide a livelihood. This previously unreached community now has a gospel presence and Christ followers. Shawn currently serves as the Africa Regional Developer for CAMA Services and is based out of Dakar, Senegal, with his family. He has an MA in International Development from Hope University, Fullerton, California, and a BA in Communications from Toccoa Falls College, Toccoa, Georgia. He loves to golf, play tennis, scuba dive, and has a deep appreciation for motorcycles.

Emma Smith Cain

Emma Smith Cain serves with Mennonite Central Committee where she gives leadership to agency-wide efforts to evaluate the evidence of MCC’s impact and trains and mentors staff in MEAL. Previously, she served with World Vision International and Samaritan’s Purse, both in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As a Harry S Truman Scholar, Emma earned an MA in Human Rights from University College London. In addition, Emma holds an MA in Christian Leadership from Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and she will begin her doctoral studies in organizational leadership in the fall 2023. Emma is a triple citizen of New Zealand, the USA, and the Osage Nation – a resilient Native American tribe based in northeastern Oklahoma. She brings all these identities to her work daily and is passionate about supporting faith-based organizations to challenge the power imbalances baked into the humanitarian system.

Katie Toop

Katie is Senior Director of Transformational Development for World Concern. She joined World Concern in 2013 in South Sudan as a consultant focusing on project monitoring and evaluation and later became the organization’s Transformational Development Specialist for Africa, based in Nairobi. Katie currently operates out of headquarters near Seattle and helps guide the team’s strategic approach to integral mission. Prior to joining World Concern, Katie served as an independent consultant and as a field worker in both disaster response and development in South and Central Asia as well as East Africa.

Katie holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Bethel University and a Master of Science in Water and Environmental Management from Loughborough University’s Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) in England. She loves teaching and facilitating, meeting new people, learning about new cultures, and leading worship. She is a proud auntie to 2 nieces and 4 nephews.