What makes Foundation For The Children so special is that we are entirely grass roots and have no overhead, so every penny goes to the kids. We are able to do this for three reasons.

1. Most international relief organizations "assign" a sponsor to a specific child. This requires staff members to coordinate correspondence, photo exchanges, and updates on the child's progress. With FFTC the child you are sponsoring is not "assigned" to you, this way we do not need staff to keep track of correspondence and photos between children and their sponsors. Instead, we update our sponsors on the foundation as a whole, providing photographs and updates on all of our children – you can pick whichever smiling face you like and you will know that you made the smile possible!

2. All of our costs are donated, or paid for by our staff of volunteers. Diego Martinez, an attorney in Bogotá, donated our legal work. Rick Kirk and Peter Koch, in California, donated work on this web site. Juan Paris, a Bogotá businessman, has been a tremendous resource, and Cynthia Mahoney continues to give so generously of her time that she will find a way to have every kid in South America attending school if we find her enough money!

3. We have no advertising costs. All of our sponsorships come as a result of word of mouth. Our supporters pass this web site on to their friends, family, and others on their mailing list. This way more children get an opportunity for a dream come true.

Before starting FFTC, I sponsored a child (and still do) for $17 a month through one of the large international relief agencies. I recently read an article in a consumer magazine that claimed, in some cases, only 30% of the money donated to some of these large organizations actually gets to the children and their families. Our goal with FFTC is to always have zero overhead and give 100% of the proceeds to the children.