Mission
GiveLight is a world-recognized crisis relief organization building loving homes & family for orphans in response to extreme circumstances such as natural disasters, extreme poverty and war. Our mission is to build and sustain beautiful homes and provide our children with long term, high-quality education. We strive to recreate a loving family, a sense of belonging and strong identity/self-esteem. Our first home in Aceh, Indonesia established in 2005, is a success story where the kids are growing up happy and thriving. We plan to increase our orphan sponsorship from 1,200+ in 12 countries today to 10,000 within 10 years.
Ruling year
2005
CEO/Founder
Mrs. Dian Alyan
Main address
1879 Lundy Avenue Suite 226
San Jose, CA 95131 USA
EIN
56-2500794
NTEE code
Children's and Youth Services (P30)
Other Housing Support Services (L80)
IRS filing requirement
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.
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Communication
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
153 million children worldwide have lost one parent (“single orphan") and
17.8 million children worldwide have lost both parents (“double orphan").
From our inception, we were determined to build an organization with global reach and impact because poverty is not isolated to any particular region. It is an urgent global issue. We realized, however, that we had to start small and learn from scratch how to establish and manage a home for orphans from afar.
We started with one home in Aceh, Indonesia, Dian's hometown, with land donated by her family. Today, using that same model we have expanded to eleven countries, including Pakistan/Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Morocco, Turkey, and the Bay Area and we currently support over 800 orphans.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Indonesia - Noordeen
Banda Aceh in Indonesia suffered catastrophic damage as a result of the tsunami that struck on the 26th of December in 2004. GiveLight Foundation came into existence with the hope of helping the orphans of the tsunami. Today we have 40 children in our first home, some of whom have graduated and are on their way to college. We are also sponsoring 20 more children who are living with poor relatives or single mothers.
Nestled in Takengon, a beautiful lake resort town in Aceh, Indonesia is our very first built orphanage called "Yayasan Noordeen". Noordeen Foundation is home to 50 boys and girls. We also sponsor over 100 orphans in an orphanage in Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.
More about the program: http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/indonesia.html
Sri Lanka Orphanage
In Athulugama, an hour from Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, stands our beautiful GiveLight Home. In partnership with AAM Marleen Foundation, we built this sanctuary for 60-75 children. The complex also has a free medical clinic, a vocational training center, community services hall, and a mosque.
The architect who designed this home is renowned in Sri Lanka and he put so much love into this work. Dian spent a blessed time with our kids in summer 2014. Please read her account here.
More about the program: http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/sri-lanka.html
Bangladesh Orphanage
Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. Dian, founder of GiveLight Foundation, traveled to the region in 2008 and her visit reinforced the great need there. We started by helping a struggling orphanage for 300 boys, run by a trusted and well known family in Dhaka. The second stage of our efforts involved the completion of a home for girls, through a partnership with the Bay Area Bangladeshi community.GiveLight Foundation has built ten new bathrooms for an orphanage near Dhaka that houses 300 kids. We are able to sponsor a dinner meal for the children at the orphanage every day. We plan to build a new orphanage as soon as we are able to work out the logistics.
Nepal Orphanage
After the earthquake in Nepal, earlier this year, we felt compelled to help children who were left behind. With your generosity, we have already started sponsoring 10 children this past January.
More about this program: http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/nepal.html
Cambodia Orphanage
"Noordeen Home", our first in the country of Cambodia was built and we opened its doors to 50 children at the end of 2013. The donated land is amidst two hectares of rubber plantations in the beautiful Toulsombo village of Kampong Champ Province of Cambodia.
More about this orphanage: http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/cambodia.html
Morocco Orphanage
Our home in Morocco is nearing completion! Help us get to the finish line! With many of our successful projects in Asia, the idea to reach out to the orphan children in Africa was born in 2011. We started with an idea to help in Sudan after the Darfour crisis but was not able to find a credible partner on the ground. Then Morocco came into the picture through personal connections of our team members. Below you can read the story of how our dream is now shaping into a reality in Morocco.
More about the program: http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/morocco.html
Turkey - Syrian Refugee Orphans
Around Thanksgiving 2015, we decided to launch a campaign to help Syrian orphans in Turkey. What began as a project with a goal of raising $20,000 for 2000 blankets turned into the most successful online campaign of our 10-year history!
After her visit to Istanbul to distribute thousands of blankets, where she met hundreds of orphans and refugees, our founder Dian Alyan decided to do something more. GiveLight plans to sponsor 100 Syrian orphan refugees to attend school. Below are the projects’ details.
More about this program:
http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/turkey.html
Afghanistan Orphans
Our work in Afghanistan to support orphaned children in need, started late 2009, through a partnership with a trustworthy organization called Omeid International. We currently have eleven boys, six of whom are in 9th grade and five in 8th grade.
http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/afghanistan.html
PAKISTAN - KASHMIR Orphans
Devastation hit northern Pakistan and Kashmir due to a massive earthquake in October of 2005. GiveLight Foundation joined hands with a local non-profit to build a home for orphan girls in Rawalpindi. Additionally we also sponsor 160 orphans in the affected area of Kashmir.
Our second home is in Rawalpindi, Pakistan for the orphans of the 2005 Earthquake in Pakistan/Kashmir. The home is truly a state of the art facility with all the basic rooms of a house plus classrooms, libraries, playground. This is a joint project with Saba Trust whose founder Saghir Aslam shares our passion of helping orphaned children. Currently we have 30 girls and the capacity is for 50 children.
We also sponsor 130 additional orphans in Kashmir area. They live with their guardians and we are providing financial help to ensure they have food, shelter and all they need to pursue good education.
http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/pakistan.html
San Francisco Bay Area Orphans
The Bay Area is one of the most affluent areas of our nation. One would think that there is no poverty, nor orphans, here. Unfortunately, there are many needy children who need help, and some are orphans who were introduced to GiveLight by our own supporters. We provide them with scholarships, mentors, and various enrichment activities, such as trips to see snow, dining out, and picnics at the beach.GiveLight Foundation sponsors 13 orphans who reside in the Bay Area of California. They are orphans who came from overseas as refugees. We took them under our wings by giving them a better education and providing social support.
http://www.givelight.org/our-projects/bay-area.html
Where we work
External reviews
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?
We plan to build beautiful homes on a global scale, prioritizing areas that have the greatest needs. This helps meet immediate needs of the children we seek to support, and tap into resources to help us build and sustain a loving home and surrogate family for them.
Funding and the building are only part of the equation but the most important thing for us is the children. They must be cared for, loved and given the chance to reach their full potential.
TEN-YEAR PLAN AND PRIORITIES
Today in 2017, we are caring for close to 1,000 orphans in eleven countries. By 2027, we aim to help 10,000 orphans in 40 countries.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Here is the formula that has worked well:
Step 1: When a disaster/war strikes a region, we begin by researching which reliable organizations are working on the ground.
Step 2: Based on our findings, we narrow down our research to those organizations that meet the following criteria:
a. Focus on helping orphaned children
b. Share our philosophy of making sure that 100% of funds reaches the orphaned children or as close as possible (some organizations take 3% for admin cost to visit orphaned children in remote areas such as in Kashmir)
c. Our leadership team personally meets with the head of organization to ensure there is synergy and alignment in priority and work ethic
Step 3: We then search for donated land. This creates two things: 1) Ownership from local family and community, and 2) Accountability by having trustworthy individuals on the ground to oversee our homes and children.
Step 4: Our Founder, Dian Alyan, personally travels to visit the location and meet with the family who will be running the orphanage on our behalf. We create a "Memo of Understanding" that outlines how we will jointly raise funds and manage the home and raise our children.
Step 5: We develop the project timeline and agree upon a grand opening date. Active fundraising for construction efforts and furnishings begins.
Step 6: When the orphanage is ready, the children move in and with that begins our next phase of supporting their living and schooling expenses.
GROWTH STRATEGY
1. Awareness and exposure to high-impact organizations/ individuals
2. Target companies that match GiveLight for grant
3. Establish chapters in major cities around the world
4. Endowment
5. Invest in talents and tools to build the best social enterprise for global orphans
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The majority of our funding has always come from private individuals and donors. Our first “big" donors were a group of elementary and middle school students who raised $11,000 for us. At our very first fundraising event, which was attended by 100+ close family and friends, we raised over $100,000. In year two, we were approved for an employee-matching grant from Cisco and over the years that grew from one company to forty. Today we have over $2.5M in reserve to sustain and expand globally.
These are some of the companies matching our donors today:
Adobe, AllState, American Express, Applied Material, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Elrepco, ePocrates, GE, Global Impact, Google, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intuit, Juniper, Just Give, Kaiser Permanente, LinkedIn, Mentor Graphics, Microsoft, Netflix, Network for Good, Nvidia, Oracle, OF Foundation, Orange County Community, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Silver Lake Technology, SEI Giving Fund, Synopsys, Tenet Healthcare, The Benevity, Toyota Motor Foundation, United Way, VMware, Wells Fargo and Yahoo.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Today in 2017, we are caring for close to 1,000 orphans in eleven countries. By 2027, we aim to help 10,000 orphans in 40 countries.
Our Operation as of 2017:
Country Number of Children Year Completed Partners
1. Indonesia 60 boys and girls 2005 Yayasan Noordeen
2. Pakistan 50 at Rawalpindi Home
160 in Kashmir 2008
Saba Trust
Helping Hands
3. Bangladesh 300 boys in Gazipur
40 girls in Savar 1964 (we adopted in 2008)
2013 Darussunat
ECHO
4. Somalia 50 boys and girls *Sponsorship started 2013 Agoon Foundation
5. Afghanistan 17 boys *Sponsorship started 2011 Omeid International
6. Sri Lanka 50 boys 2013 Abdul Ageed Foundation
7. Cambodia 50 boys 2013 WEDO
8. Morocco 17 boys and girls *Sponsorship started 2012 ABPO
9. Haiti 20 boys and girls *Sponsorship started 2011 Helping Hands
10. Bay Area, SF 11 boys and girls 2011
11. Nepal 10 boys and girls *Sponsorship started 2015 AMA Foundation
12. Turkey 100 boys and girls *Sponsorship started 2016 Syrian Forum
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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GiveLight Foundation
Board of directorsas of 7/30/2021
Dian Alyan
President
Term: 2005 -
Mathew Mengerink
Noshaba Afzal
Secretary
Johann Noor Mohamed
Treasurer
Firasat Ali
Legal
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? No -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
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Sexual orientation
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Disability
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