Children Rising is an international fundraising project on GlobalGiving that supports refugee children who have lost parents or guardians due to war and conflict. The initiative provides educational opportunities, basic necessities, vocational training, and safe living environments to vulnerable children and child-headed households.
The project uses a "sponsorship" model where donors commit to ongoing support rather than making one-time gifts. This structure emphasizes long-term accompaniment of children, families, and communities through their recovery and stabilization process. By breaking down support into concrete elements—education, living essentials, job training, and housing—the project helps donors visualize exactly where their money goes and creates a psychological pathway toward sustained giving.
Highlights
- Sponsorship-based donation model emphasizing continuous rather than one-time support
- Tiered approach that expands from individual children to families to entire communities
- Concrete breakdown of support elements: education, basic necessities, vocational training, and safe living environments
Why this campaign attracts support
This project exemplifies the sponsorship model, a fundamental approach in humanitarian fundraising. Rather than asking for general organizational support, it enables donors to envision themselves supporting a specific child or household, lowering the psychological barrier to recurring donations. The detailed explanation of how funds are used—separated into education, necessities, vocational training, and housing—makes it easy for donors to imagine tangible impact. Importantly, this model shifts focus from abstract organizational needs to individual and household-level storytelling, which significantly increases donor commitment and retention. GlobalGiving's international platform also leverages transparency and ongoing impact reporting, which builds trust across cultural and geographic boundaries.
A note from the editors
Children Rising demonstrates how international humanitarian projects attract sustained support by personalizing the aid experience. The sponsorship approach and concrete itemization of support allow donors to see precisely who benefits and how. For Japanese organizations adapting this model domestically, three considerations emerge: privacy protection laws and platform guidelines around personal information require careful navigation; ongoing activity reporting systems must be robust and accessible; and participation on global platforms demands English-language capacity and transparent communication. While specific funding targets and achievement metrics weren't available in this review, the project offers valuable lessons for Japan's nonprofit sector on structuring donor engagement internationally.