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Campus Crusade's early years were successful enough that other university ministries, most notably InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), observed Crusade's rapid growth with great interest. IVCF had expanded from its roots in Great Britain to Canada and the United States in the late 1920s and 1930s, as the precipitous decline of both the YMCA and the Student Volunteer Movement created an opening for a new evangelical campus ministry. IVCF reasserted evangelical verities, including the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, and his vicarious sacrifice. Given the movement's British background, however, IVCF was further removed than Crusade from the subculture of American fundamentalism and more interested in helping students approach Christianity from intellectual and academic perspectives. IVCF grew quickly during the 1940s and established chapters on many large American universities in the West, Midwest, and Northeast. Under the leadership of C. Stacey Woods, IVCF balanced a variety of objectives: evangelism, discipleship, apologetics, and leadership training. Evangelism and missions, however, were paramount among IVCF's early priorities. The organization declared the academic year 1950-51 "The Year of Evangelism" and brought evangelistic speakers — including Billy Graham — to campuses across the country. In 1951, InterVarsity attracted sixteen hundred collegians to its triennial foreign missions conference at the University of Illinois-Urbana.

Since InterVarsity was active at both UCLA and USC, the established IVCF chapters took careful note of Crusade's well-publicized results. According to Bright's later recollection, some IVCF students "joined us on evangelistic team meetings in local fraternities, sororities, and dormitories, with the thought that they would make contacts and bring into their fellowship the students who responded to the gospel and help follow them up." Bright in turn was impressed by an evangelistic campaign that IVCF organized at USC, which included lectures as well as meetings in fraternity houses. However, a "terrific clash" occurred between Bright and Mel Friesen, the IVCF staff member at USC. Many years later, Bright wrote that "the students associated with InterVarsity were soon asked by their local director not to be involved with us" because he "felt that we were competitive." Moreover, he explained that this lack of cooperation "forced us into a totally different posture" and caused Crusade to begin its own "follow-up work." The clash between Friesen and Bright set the tone for subsequent interactions.

In the spring of 1951, Stacey Woods and Bright tried to establish a more positive relationship. After Bright visited Woods's home in Geneva, Illinois, Woods reported that he found Bright a "smooth operator" but a "charming person." Furthermore, he optimistically suggested that "the difficulty between Mel [Friesen] and Bill Bright is not necessarily … a national difficulty or a difficulty that will apply to all InterVarsity staff, but may have something to do with Mel himself." Woods predicted that Bright "will make a big impression across the United States." Evidently both Bright and Woods believed IVCF and Crusade could collaborate, with Crusade spearheading evangelistic missions and IVCF incorporating converts into local chapters. "He suggested," wrote Woods, "that on quite a number of the campuses he believed that IVCF would be able to take care of this follow-up program and there would be no need for them to do anything of a permanent nature."

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August (Web-Only) 2008, Vol. 52