Compassion International, Inc.
Releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
According to a 2016 analysis from the World Bank Group and UNICEF, there are nearly 385 million children living in extreme poverty, including one out of every five children under the age of five in the developing world. Children are more than twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty and younger children are at the highest risk.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Child Survival Program
Every baby deserves a chance to flourish. The sad
reality, however, is that too many are not receiving the care they need. Compassion’s Child Survival Program helps ensure that every child has an opportunity to thrive. This critical fund provides nutritional support for caregivers and babies, spiritual guidance, parenting help, income-generation training, hygiene and cleaning items, medical checkups and more. Caregivers and babies in desperate need
are able to receive prenatal and postnatal care that is critical to survival.
Child Sponsorship and Development Program
There is no quick fix to the complex issue of poverty. Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program works to transform the lives of children in need by providing them with spiritual encouragement and teaching, nutritional support, medical assistance, and emotional and social nurturing. The program establishes long-term, one-to-one relationships between a child in need living in a developing nation and a donor. The donor’s monthly contribution enables Compassion’s work, which is delivered by more than 6,800 indigenous church partners.
Complementary Interventions
There are many crucial activities and initiatives that affect and improve the lives of Compassion’s child beneficiaries that cannot be met by program support alone.
Complementary Interventions address critical, and often urgent, needs that threaten to derail children from developing into healthy adults. From natural disasters and acute medical crises to unsafe water, the program is a safety net that aims to remove potentially debilitating obstacles, getting children back on track and in school so they may pursue futures free from poverty.
Where we work
External reviews

Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total dollar amount of grants awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Child Sponsorship and Development Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This is the amount of money Compassion is able to send to its church partners around the world. With this money, local churches are able to provide Compassion's holistic child development program.
Number of organizational partners
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Child Sponsorship and Development Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Compassion's holistic child development program is delivered entirely through the local church. In FY 2017, Compassion was forced out of India, losing over 500 church partners.
Number of children registered in Compassion's program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Child Sponsorship and Development Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This metric reflects the number of children registered in Compassion's holistic child development program around the world. Children receive educational, socio-emotional, health and spiritual training
Number of individual financial supporters
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Supporters can: sponsor a child with a monthly recurring donation, give to a general or specific fund, support a baby in our Child Survival Program or a young adult in secondary/tertiary education.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our mission is to release children from their educational, social, economic, physical and spiritual poverty so that they can envision and live out a different future for themselves, their families and their communities.
We believe releasing children from poverty is a lasting, permanent change accomplished by directly engaging each child as a complete person, and by pursuing a holistic approach to child development that addresses their educational, social, economic, physical and spiritual needs from birth to young adulthood. We take a long-term approach that goes far beyond simple involvement and financial support. Our goal is to see children thrive and become fulfilled adults, contributing to their communities.
Holistic child development means we begin, in some cases, with prenatal care and go all the way through educational and leadership opportunities for young adults. It means we take a long-term approach to what we do and go beyond simple involvement in the lives of the children and families we serve. All of our child development programs provide opportunities that encourage healthy development in five areas — education, spiritual, physical, social and economic.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Child Sponsorship.
Through monthly financial support, prayer and letter writing, sponsors invest directly in the lives of children living in extreme poverty.
The children attend church-based child development centers where they receive life-changing opportunities that would otherwise be out of their reach, and which build on, add to and extend their school lessons.
Child sponsorship offers:
• ongoing Christian training through a local church.
• educational opportunities to defeat illiteracy.
• key life skills training and vocational programs to provide a brighter future.
• health care to prevent and fight disease and sickness.
• supplements to protect against malnutrition.
• recreational activities to development self-confidence and social skills.
• protection from crime, violence and danger.
Child Survival
Babies in poverty are too often the victims of infant mortality. Millions of children around the world die within their first year of life due to a lack of resources, delivery complications, malnutrition, and preventable diseases. This should not be happening.
Compassion's Survival initiative focuses on promoting development and survival of the most vulnerable babies, while also providing education and support for the mother or primary caregiver. The mission of Survival is to ensure that the critical needs of babies and mothers are being met immediately.
We do this through:
• HOME-BASED CARE, where mothers are visited monthly in their homes by a Survival specialist, who offers education in prenatal care and early child-rearing as well as one-on-one biblical mentoring with parents.
• GROUP-BASED LEARNING ACTIVITIES that combat isolation through a supportive community of mothers. Parents can receive basic education and income-generation training to combat long-term poverty.
• ADVOCACY FOR MOMS that provides and secures funding for medical treatments, ensures mothers are treated fairly by local services and arranges for birth attendants to assist mothers during childbirth.
• SURVIVAL CENTERS, where staff help coordinate outreach and care and offer a safe place for new mothers to learn and grow, all while monitoring and supporting healthy child development.
Youth Development:
Compassion's Youth Development Program equips youth ages 12 and older with customized training and educational paths according to their own unique potential, talents and purpose. Students may receive assistance with formal education needs, non-formal education opportunities and income generation training.
Critical Interventions:
Critical interventions are programs and resources that meet urgent and critical needs Compassion children face that sponsorship donations alone can't cover – needs like disaster relief, lack of clean water, extra medical bills, technical and vocational education, unsponsored children, and much more.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Compassion International started in 1952 with outreach to children living in poverty in Korea. Over these many decades. Our organization has grown to include a presence in 27 countries and more than 8,500 church partners. More than 3,300 staff members all over the world ensure that Compassion's large global footprint is achieving our mission of releasing children from poverty. Additionally, Compassion International has more than 1.2 million global sponsors who make sure the 2.2 million children, students, babies and mothers engaged in our programs are known, loved and protected.
In addition, Compassion has 14 global partners who support our worldwide efforts, providing sponsorship opportunities in more than a dozen countries outside of the United States.
In summary, our capabilities are an expansive and solid global footprint, a large and dedicated staff, community trust & support, and an ever-growing number of global sponsors.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In the more than 65 years that Compassion has existed, over two million children have benefitted from Compassion's programs.
Most importantly, we know sponsored children are being released from poverty. In 2016, we reported that 42,336 sponsored Compassion students were enrolled in university or vocational training, given them the education and skills needed to generate income capabilities for life.
On a broader scale, we also know from quantifiable research, that our model of one-to-one child sponsorship is working. Independent research conducted by Dr. Bruce Wydick, a professor of economics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, along with two colleagues, concluded that our Child Sponsorship Program has large and statistically significant impacts on the educational, employment and leadership outcomes of children. The peer-reviewed research was published in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Political Economy—one of the most prestigious economics journals in the world.
Here are just a few of their findings:
Employment
The research found that former Compassion sponsored children were more likely to have salaried/white-collar jobs than their non-sponsored peers.
• 14 to 18 percent more likely to have salaried employment
• roughly 35 percent more likely to secure white-collar employment as adults
Leadership
The research found that former Compassion sponsored children were more likely to be leaders in their communities and churches.
• 30 to 75 percent more likely to become community leaders as adults than their non-sponsored peers
• 40 to 70 percent more likely to become church leaders as adults than their non-sponsored peers
And Compassion sponsorship increases the probability that a child becomes a teacher by 63 percent.
Education
An extra year of schooling can have long-lasting impact on a child's future employment possibilities. The research found that former Compassion sponsored children stay in school longer than their non-sponsored peers: 1 to 1.5 years longer. In Uganda, the numbers are much higher—2.4 years.
Former Compassion sponsored children were:
• 27 to 40 percent more likely to finish secondary education than those who were not enrolled in the child sponsorship program.
• 50 to 80 percent more likely to complete a university education than non-sponsored children.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Compassion International, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 07/21/2023
Judy Golz
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Term: 2012 -
Karen K. Wesolowski
Law Review
Ronald C. Mathieu
First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu
Judy Briscoe Golz
Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Trinity Graduate School
Jean-Francois Bussy
Senior Pastor in Nyon, Switzerland
Michael Jeffs
CEO, Australian Christian Channel Pty. Ltd. and Network Communications Pty. Ltd., Australia
Santiago "Jimmy" Mellado
President & CEO Compassion International
Kristin Colber-Baker
Global Director of DE&I Mars
Blake Canterbury
Founder, Purposity
Marie Geschwandtner
Dr. of Chiropractic, Body Garage
Christopher Knepper
Vice President, Wipro
Michele Lee
Global Vice President of Justice Solutions, International Justice Mission
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 02/09/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.