World Vision launched the largest capital campaign in its 70-year history, with a goal to raise $1 billion by 2023.
The Christian humanitarian organization announced the eight-year campaign, Every Last One, last month. Federal Way, Wash.-based World Vision estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to lead to extreme poverty rising globally for the first time in 22 years. The World Bank predicted that the pandemic could add as many as 150 million extreme poor this year, half of them children.
Every Last One aims to help 60 million people lift themselves out of extreme poverty, offering emergency assistance to 16 million people when disasters and humanitarian crises strike; protecting children from violence, and providing parents, teachers and Christian leaders with training and resources for children to discover their faith in Jesus.
The campaign, which raised some $773 million during a quiet phase of more than five years, also will provide educational opportunities such as literacy programs for children, targeting one million people with books and training. It also aims to empower 4.4 million people with resilient livelihoods by providing recovery loans for families affected by COVID-19 and teaching better farming techniques to equip families to anticipate and overcome economic and weather-related shocks, ultimately improving livelihoods.
World Vision reported $1.135 billion in total revenue in 2019, ranking No. 17 in the 2020 NPT 100, a study of the largest nonprofits in the United States that derive at least 10% of revenue from public support.
The organization operates its development programs in nearly 100 countries around the world, typically works in a country for an average of 12 to 18 years, developing long-term solutions and assisting communities to own their development outcomes by partnering with local leaders and community members. Every Last One will bring clean water to 25 million people, halfway toward World Vision’s ambitious goal of bringing clean water to everyone, everywhere they work by 2030, or 50 million people.
While World Vision announced the start of the public phase of its campaign, AbilityFirst has reached 90% of its $5.9-million goal.
The Pasadena, Calif.-based organization has raised money during the pandemic to enhance its programs for individuals with developmental disabilities living in Los Angeles County, under the direction of campaign co-chairs Richard R. Frank and Gloria Deukmejian, The Building Independence Celebrating Community, will help to fund planned renovations and program updates for community centers in Pasadena and Long Beach that opened more than 50 years ago.
Frank’s family legacy at AbilityFirst has roots since its beginning. Frank’s grandfather, Lawrence L. Frank, along with three other Los Angeles Rotary Club members, went to Chicago in 1925 for a Rotary International Conference and came back with compassion, concern, and a commitment to help other children with polio in Southern California. The following year, they founded the Crippled Children’s Society, which is now AbilityFirst and today focuses on the unique needs and desires of each individual through a person-centered approach. Frank’s father also joined the board of directors, and worked alongside his wife and the architect, applying their vision of mid-century modern architecture to the design of The Lawrence L. Frank Center in the 1960s.
Since their openings more than 50 years ago, the Lawrence L. Frank Center and Long Beach Center have not changed. The campaign will raise funds to modernize the buildings while also enhancing programs to meet the changing needs of individuals with developmental disabilities in the communities.
“We help our participants achieve their personal best through basic life skills, communication, socialization, and healthy living. After participant and family surveys, conducting our due diligence, and doing the research, we recognized the changing needs of our population have to be met with improved renovations and expansion of our programs,” AbilityFirst CEO Lori Gangemi said in a press release. Programs to be expanded included ExploreAbility, PossAbility, After-School Program, College to Career, and Supported Employment.
