Tag Archives: children

Shelley Callahan | April 13, 2018En Español

Ratings of charitable organizations exist to provide the general public with knowledge about the finances of particular charities, including identifying their incomes, business expenses, and the amount of money it takes for them to acquire donations.

Information from charity rating organizations also tells donors how much of their donations will be used to support charitable causes, and what portion of them will be dedicated to the charities’ operating expenses. Additionally, it lets donors know how financially stable and self-sustainable charities are. In the case of charities that do not appear to be self-sustainable, because donations may not actually reach their intended recipients, donors’ money might be better spent with other organizations.

How are charities rated?

Most often, charities are rated by evaluating their financial health, accountability, and transparency. This way, donors can see how efficiently charities will use their support, how well they have sustained their programs and services over time, and their level of commitment to accountability and transparency.

Information from charity rating organizations also tells donors how much of their donations will be used to support charitable causes, and what portion of them will be dedicated to the charities’ operating expenses.

The financial health of organizations is based on the financial information they provide in their informational tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 990. Accountability and transparency are also determined from the same forms, as well as from information that organizations present on their websites involving best practices of governance and ethics, and whether or not charities make it easy for donors to find critical information about them, such as their bylaws.

Top rating agencies and their methodologies

There are a few very reputable charity watchdog agencies: Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, and GuideStar are at the top. Though each of these agencies uses a different methodology for rating charities, they all utilize charities’ financial documents, particularly their Forms 990, as their primary sources of information.

Charity Navigator

Charity Navigator is an independent American charity watchdog organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the United States. Its stated goal is “to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome the nation’s and the world’s most persistent challenges”. Children Incorporated has a four-star charity rating with Charity Navigator – the highest rating that an organization can obtain.

Charity Watch

Charity Watch exposes nonprofit abuses and advocates for the interests of donors. Their ratings include the percentages of charities’ budgets that are spent on program services, how much it costs charities to raise $100, an accountability measure, and the salaries of the charities’ highest-paid employees. Children Incorporated is a top-rated charity with Charity Watch, with an “A” grade.

Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance implements a rating system in which 501(c)(3) organizations are required to meet a minimum of twenty standards before receiving a “BBB Accredited Charity” designation. The Alliance’s standards include spending at least 65 percent of total expenses on program activities, no more than 35 percent of donations on fundraising activities, and having no more than three years of financial resources in reserve. Children Incorporated is a BBB Wise Giving Alliance recipient.

GuideStar

Children Incorporated believes in full transparency of our financial management.

GuideStar specializes in reporting on nonprofit organizations in the United States. In 2016, its database provided information about 2.5 million charities. GuideStar was one of the first central sources of information about nonprofits in the United States, and it is the world’s largest source of information about nonprofit organizations. GuideStar serves to verify that organizations are established, and that donated funds are spent where donors intend them to be – for individuals hoping to give in the wake of disasters. Children Incorporated is a Gold Participant with GuideStar – the highest rating that a charity can receive.

Children Incorporated believes in full transparency of our financial management. This protects the trust that you place in us as stewards of your generosity. For more information about our financial status, accountability, and transparency, visit the Accountability page of our website to find our most recent Form 990s and financial reports, as well as other administrative documents.

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How do I sponsor a child with Children Incorporated?

You can sponsor a child with Children Incorporated in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child that is available for sponsorship.

Shelley Callahan | April 12, 2018En Español

At Children Incorporated, we think a lot about the basic needs that children living in poverty are going without. Providing kids with items like food, shoes, school supplies, toiletries, and clothing are at the forefront of our mission as a child sponsorship organization. Sometimes, however, when we think about ensuring that children have appropriate clothes to wear, we don’t think about how important pajamas are for kids while growing up.

“Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something.”

Introducing the Pajama Program

The Pajama Program was founded in 2001 by Genevieve Pitturro, who discovered while volunteering to read to children at a shelter that the kids there were going to bed wearing the same clothes that they had been wearing all day, and that they didn’t have comfortable pajamas to change into. This discovery prompted Genevieve to return to the shelter with bags of new pajamas and storybooks to share with the children so that she could help ensure that they would enjoy a good night with a caring adult to tuck them in. After that, Genevieve decided to expand her project to reach children all over the United States, because she strongly believes that loving bedtimes lead to good days for children.

Pajamas help keep children warm and night as well as secure in bed.

According to the Pajama Program website, “Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something. They may be feeling alone and afraid, in a bed that isn’t theirs, in a shelter that isn’t a home or with families who wish they could give them more. Nightly bedtime rituals like fresh pajamas and a storybook offer a consistent, reassuring ‘comfort zone’ at the end of each day.”

Offering comfort to our kids
Children Incorporated is honored to be a distribution partner for the Pajama Program, because their mission and goal to help children obtain basic needs align perfectly with ours. What’s more, because we are a pajama distributor, we are able to work with amazing community members who want help children as well!

This past year, during the holiday season, the Richmond, Virginia Chapter of the Women’s Association of Verizon Employees (WAVE) held a pajama and book drive in conjunction with the Pajama Program; and as a result of their generous efforts, we were able to provide new pajamas to both sponsored and unsponsored children enrolled in our program in Richmond, Virginia. We are so grateful for all those involved in helping provide kids with pajamas so that they can have a good, comfortable night’s sleep – every night.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA?

You can sponsor a child in Richmond in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | April 12, 2018

Children Incorporated frequently asks our on-site volunteer coordinators at our affiliated projects what services the children they work with are in need of most. As members of the kids’ communities, our coordinators are in contact with our sponsored and unsponsored children and their families on a daily basis, and are in the best position to know exactly what they need.

Listed below are some of their most common responses, which we hope will help you to better understand how your donations to Children Incorporated change the lives of children and families in the United States.

Enabling literacy

Many of the children we serve have little to no reading material at home.

Many of the children we serve have little to no reading material at home; they don’t personally own any books, nor do they have magazine subscriptions.

Additionally, many schools are so underfunded that their libraries and classrooms have extremely limited selections for reading and old titles. Your donations will put books in kids’ hands; your contributions will foster their imaginations and a love for reading.

One of our recent initiatives includes providing a school in the Navajo Nation with a large selection of pictures and early reader books on their native culture and language. We also help kids participate in their school book fairs by letting them have books of their own to take home at no cost to their families.

Providing enrichment and remediation

Our children have amazing potential — but some of them need extra academic help. They may come from homes in which their parents have little education, and are unable to help them with their homework. Many kids have never been out of their communities, but their parents can’t afford to pay for field trips. Your gifts will help to provide for summer and after-school programs that offer tutoring and a variety of stimulating educational activities.

In the past, we funded a program at a summer camp that focused on social studies in a structured yet fun way. These summer camp students had performed very poorly in the subject of social studies at the school they attended, as documented in pretests. At the end of the summer, however, the same kids were tested again, and their scores had improved significantly.

Supporting career awareness and higher education

Our children have amazing potential – but some of them need extra academic help. They may come from homes in which their parents have little education, and are unable to help them with their homework.

As children grow up, they need hope for their futures. Many have no idea about all the possibilities they have in life, as young people with potentially bright futures ahead of them. Your donations will go towards helping them with vital programs in their pre-teen and teenage years, like job and career fairs, internships, and the provision of equipment or supplies needed for vocational courses. Once our teens graduate from high school, they may apply for our Higher Education Program.

We have provided goggles for welding courses, and have funded an entrepreneur course. We are currently assisting several graduating sponsored and unsponsored children with the costs associated with technical schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities.

Providing access to healthcare

Many of the public schools with which we affiliate are underfunded and underequipped. Our coordinators need a variety of items to keep children healthy. These articles range from underwear for kindergarten accidents to antibiotic ointment and bandages for cuts and scrapes; from soap and shampoo to toothbrushes and toothpaste for kids who have run out of these items at home. We work to help keep children clean and healthy, so that they can attend school regularly, and are able to learn.

Providing weather-appropriate items and outfits

Low-income parents make hard decisions every day about how to spend their money, and what their families will have to go without: Do they pay the electric bill or replace their daughter’s split shoes? If the power goes out or is turned off, does their son have a warm blanket on his bed to keep him comfortable and healthy? Our coordinators have told us about kids taking turns going to school because there is only one winter coat to wear in the family. Many children miss school in bad weather due to inadequate clothing, lowered immunity, and illnesses resulting from not having these basic necessities. Your donations will provide these kids with the items that our coordinators feel are most needed.

Preventing hunger

Often children have never been out of their communities and their parents can’t afford to pay for school field trips.

Food insufficiency occurs when a child and their family don’t always have enough to eat. School children have access to the National School Lunch Program. What about when these kids are at home, though? The federal food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is an important resource. Amounts provided to families must be strictly managed, however, and many families run out of assistance before they are allotted a subsequent installment.

Other family groups, like grandparents raising grandchildren, are sometimes too proud to ask for government aid. Our coordinators tell us that a significant number of the kids enrolled in our program have inadequate food at their homes, especially on weekends and during school breaks. As a result, our coordinators will often identify the children with the greatest need, and on Fridays, send them home with food-stuffed backpacks; and extra provisions are provided for breaks, as funds permit. Not only is food insufficiency detrimental to the health of these children, but it also correlates with academic and psychological difficulties — so these kids truly require all the nutritional assistance that can be provided to them.

Helping children to be active and grow up healthy

With school budgets slashed, many schools have reduced or eliminated physical education as part of their standard curriculum. School playgrounds in the most underfunded districts usually have broken, rusted, or no playground equipment; and impoverished parents must prioritize paying bills over providing for activities. Playtime is vital for children’s physical and emotional health, though; research shows that playing is linked to healthy brain growth. Donations to our Hope In Action Fund will support playground refurbishment, as well as the implementation of programs and the purchase of toys that promote physical activity, as determined by our coordinators.

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HOW CAN I SUPPORT CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES?

You can contribute to support children in the United States in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and donate to one of our many special funds.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | April 11, 2018En Español

As an organization that relies heavily on our partners to be able to serve children in need all over the world, we are very fortunate to work with Communities In Schools (CIS) in the United States – especially when it comes to helping children in our nation’s capital. Working directly in 2,300 schools in 25 states and in Washington, D.C., as a national school dropout prevention organization, CIS builds relationships that empower students to stay in school and succeed in life.

The goals of CIS

“By helping our most vulnerable students stay in school and succeed in life, we are building stronger, healthier and more economically stable communities where every person is capable of reaching his or her greatest potential.”

One of Communities In Schools’ goals is to help children achieve in school, graduate, and move on to brighter futures. The organization does this by actively surrounding public school students with a support system of community members and resources in the public schools themselves. CIS believes that these relationships, and giving children the access they need to services that will help them overcome barriers in their education, change children for the better and help them to succeed.

According to the CIS website, “Across the country, approximately 1 in 5 children under 18 lives in poverty. These are disproportionately children of color who already struggle with issues of access and equity. Without community support, they are more at risk for missing school, dropping out and failing to earn a high school diploma. By helping our most vulnerable students stay in school and succeed in life, we are building stronger, healthier and more economically stable communities where every person is capable of reaching his or her greatest potential.”

CIS’ school-based staff members partner with teachers to identify the challenges students face in class and at home, and they coordinate with community partners to bring outside resources into schools. From immediate needs like food and clothing, to more complex ones like counseling and emotional support, CIS offers a wide range of assistance to children, and their mission aligns closely with our own here at Children Incorporated.

A perfect match

All four of our affiliated schools in Washington, D.C. work under the auspices of Communities In Schools – and we couldn’t be happier with this special partnership. The work of Children Incorporated and CIS dovetail beautifully. We are able to provide children with resources, thanks to our sponsorship program and our dedicated sponsors and donors; and CIS’ site coordinators serve as our volunteer coordinators at each of the schools with which we affiliate. Our sponsors can be counted among these caring adults, and the other mentors that CIS introduces to schools are vital to our sponsored and unsponsored children’s growth – and to that of all children living in poverty in Washington, D.C. – in a variety of ways.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN WASHINGTON, D.C.?

You can sponsor a child in Washington, D.C. in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | April 11, 2018

We are very proud of our U.S. Programs, which support children not only in rural areas of the United States, but in urban areas as well. Just as all organizations do, we started out small, with only a few affiliated projects; and we gradually added more over time.

Our U.S. Division has grown quickly over the years thanks to our great partnerships.

When Children Incorporated began in 1964, our focus was on one country in particular: Guatemala. Soon, we started to offer assistance in the United States, too. By the late 1960s, our U.S. Programs Division consisted of one site in Menifee, Kentucky, one site in Rutledge, Tennessee, and a few sites near Farmington, New Mexico. Just twenty years later, we encompassed two divisions in four states: an Appalachian Division in North Carolina; and a Native American Division in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota. The organization lost its connections with sites in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Dakota after a while. By the late 1980s, we had expanded to 32 projects total in North Carolina, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Growing fast

During the mid to late 1990s, our U.S. Programs Division experienced its greatest growth period. Appalachian affiliations were initiated in West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. The organization began to focus on the state of Kentucky again, and we developed a partnership with Family Resource and Youth Services Centers (FRYSC). By partnering with these centers, Children Incorporated was able to expand our program throughout many counties in Eastern Kentucky. Our Native American Division simultaneously began making affiliations in South Dakota and Utah.

Today, we affiliate with 147 projects in New Mexico, Arizona, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, and in Washington, D.C. to help thousands of children in the United States every day.

Addressing urban and rural poverty

By the early 2000s, the need for our program in urban areas became apparent; so Children Incorporated decided to tackle the issue head-on. After focusing on rural poverty during much of our history, we felt the need to address and respond to urban poverty. By partnering with Communities In Schools (CIS), a school dropout prevention program that works in public school systems in the United States, we were able to expand our outreach even further, and assist children in Washington, D.C.; Detroit; Richmond, Virginia; and New Orleans.

Today, we affiliate with 147 projects in New Mexico, Arizona, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, and in Washington, D.C. to help thousands of children in the United States every day, by providing them with basic needs so they can attend school, obtain an education, and have the opportunities they deserve and need to succeed in life.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES?

You can sponsor a child in the United States in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in the United States who is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | April 10, 2018En Español

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world — both geographically and in terms of population. It is truly massive, sharing borders with every other country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. The Amazon rainforest – recognized for having the greatest biological diversity on the planet — sprawls over the country’s northern half, and there are rugged mountains to the south. Despite its wealth of natural resources and beauty, Brazil suffers from staggering poverty, rising inflation, unemployment, and a lack of social development.

Growing vegetables provides food and a new skill sets for children and adults.

These issues are especially pronounced in cities like Lages, located in southern Brazil. Lages’ population — about 150,000 — has been increasing steadily as poor families from the countryside move to the city in search of employment and better lives. Their situations, however, usually do not improve; many families are forced to live in urban developments like Novo Milênio, which lack electricity, drinking water, and even sewage services. Job opportunities there are extremely limited, and area public schools are ill-equipped to provide a quality education to the ever-increasing number of students. Children roam the streets — sad, neglected, and vulnerable to threats of crime, drug abuse, and worse.

A center helping families

The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit.

The plight of these children aroused the compassion of the CARITAS – Novo Milênio Center, a nonprofit organization run by the Catholic Church. One of our affiliated projects in Brazil, CARITAS, was established to help these children and community members rise above the difficult socioeconomic circumstances from which they come.

One of the ways in which the center is helping children and their families, thanks to the support they receive from Children Incorporated, is by establishing vegetable gardens at the children’s houses in nearby neighborhoods! The families, along with their children, tend to the gardens, which teaches them all gardening skills, and helps the parents become more self-sufficient when it comes to feeding their family. The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit!

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BRAZIL?

You can sponsor a child in Brazil in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Brazil that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD