Our Story

The Renewal Initiative began with a simple conviction: that communities in crisis deserve more than emergency attention. They deserve the kind of long-term investment that makes recovery hold.

Our founder, Andrew Moroz, was born in Kyiv and immigrated to the United States as a child. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Andrew began traveling back — not just to deliver aid, but to build the relationships and presence that lasting work requires. Those early trips became the foundation of what Renewal Initiative is today.

Three years in, the work has changed. The field has changed. The need is no longer primarily emergency relief. It is long-term recovery — leaders under sustained pressure, institutions straining to endure, communities rebuilding on ground that has not finished shaking. Renewal Initiative has moved with it.

We work through trusted local partnerships, embedded presence, and layered engagement — meeting immediate needs where necessary, while investing primarily in the leaders, systems, and relationships that make recovery last.

We are partners in a long, unglamorous work — alongside chaplains, pastors, medical professionals, and community leaders who were already there before we arrived, and who will still be there long after any news cycle moves on. Our commitment is to walk with them.

Renewal Initiative is one arm of the Renewal Ecosystem — an integrated system connecting frontline community recovery with leadership formation. The two arms strengthen each other: what we learn on the ground sharpens how leaders are formed, and what we develop in leaders strengthens those carrying the frontline.