Frequently Asked Questions
Looking for more information about our policies, priorities and perspectives? Here are some short answers to frequently asked questions. Of course, we'd always be willing to talk in person at 614.285.5813, or you drop us an email.
General questions
What is Asia's Hope?
Asia’s Hope is a multi-denominational, grassroots movement working in Cambodia, Thailand and India to provide quality long-term care for orphaned children at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation. We support these children's homes through church sponsors, individual donors and other fundraising.
What does Asia's Hope exist to achieve?
Asia's Hope exists to provide family-based residential care for orphaned children at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation.
How can I support Asia's Hope?
Our support page gives details on how you can give via check, automatic withdrawal or credit/debit card.
Are my donations tax deductible?
Yes, Asia's Hope is recognized in the United States as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We're also a registered charitable organization in Canada. Any donations made to Asia's Hope are tax deductible in the U.S. and Canada.
We hope to register as an income tax exempt charity in Australia in the near future.
When did Asia's Hope start?
Asia's Hope was founded in 2001, and we received our tax deductible status in the U.S. in 2002.
What is the role of indigenous (national) workers?
100% of our paid staff in Asia are indigenous. All day-to-day operations are run by able and trusted indigenous, national leaders. We have one part-time and two full-time American employees working in the United States.
We believe that any international aid or development effort must rely heavily on the support, the knowledge and a sense of ownership among leaders of the community receiving the aid, and we strive to leverage those resources to the fullest degree possible.
How are your projects Funded?
We have a unique church partnership model for our homes in which we partner with churches across the U.S. and Canada. In this model, we match a church with a specific children's home, and that church provides the primary day-to-day support of the home.
We also have hundreds of individuals, businesses and families who donate to Asia's Hope; these individual donors play a key role in strengthening our organization and enriching the lives of our kids and indigenous staff.
Does Asia's Hope accept non-cash gifts?
Yes. We accept gifts such as real estate, stocks, bonds, securities, grain, computers, cars, houses — there are many ways to give to Asia's Hope. Contact us for more information or for help in making a non-cash donation.
How is Asia's Hope staffed?
We value indigenous leadership and staff. We have one part time and two full time North American employees and more than 140 indigenous staff in Cambodia, Thailand and India. We have key, indigenous leaders who recruit and train the home parents and other staff working for our homes in Asia.
Who are the leaders of Asia's Hope?
John McCollum is the co-founder and Executive Director of Asia's Hope.
Savorn Ou is our Cambodian National Director.
Tutu Bee is our Thai National Director.
Pastors Sunil Tamang and Amber Gurung are our Indian National Directors
The U.S. board is Asia's Hope's governing entity.
How can I get involved?
By making a one-time or recurring donation to Asia's Hope, you will help us enrich the lives of the children already living in our care, expand the number of kids we can serve and extend the promise of a loving family to a new generation of orphaned kids in some of the world's toughest places.
You can also help us get other people involved in our our church partnerships, our chapters and our champions circles. Learn more here.
If you own a business, contact us and we'll help you decide how you can best help!
How much of my donation goes to the children or their homes?
Asia's Hope sets aside 18% of all contributions -- including those designated for specific projects and campaigns -- for non-restricted or 'where most needed' use.
In 2015, 89% of our funds went directly to program expenses (everything we do in Asia), land purchases and building new homes for our children; 11% went to overhead and administrative costs.
How can my church get involved?
We have a unique church partnership model that allows for churches to get involved in any number of ways—small projects, larger projects, emergency funding, full sponsorships of a children's home and more—and we invite churches desiring to get involved in orphan care to contact us about anything from a small involvement to a large-scale commitment. We would love to talk with you.
Can I sponsor an individual child?
All of our children are currently supported through our church partnership model or through individual sponsorships from a generous group of existing sponsors. Contact us to see about any existing needs.
How much does it cost to run a home?
Costs vary significantly based on location and other factors. Contact us and we can give you specific costs per-location.
How much does it cost to build a permanent house for the kids?
Building expenses vary by country and region. $90,000-$110,000 all-inclusive is good estimate for our homes. Land costs vary greatly, depending on the location.
Can I visit the children in the homes?
If you're a member of one of our partnering churches, we encourage you to talk to your pastor or ministry leaders about joining a church-led trip to visit your Asia's Hope home.
Is Asia's Hope an evangelistic organization?
While Asia's Hope is not an evangelistic organization per se, we are a Christian organization, and we raise our children in Christian homes by Christian parents and staff.
Does Asia's Hope do missions trips?
Asia's Hope is a child development, rather than short-term-missions- focused organization. We organize and facilitate visits from our partnering churches and also plan vision trips periodically to introduce potential partners to our work in Asia, but we do not organize or encourage short-term missions trips per se.
Is your funding stable and sustainable?
Our church partnerships provide a stable, distributed-risk funding model that ensures long-term security for our kids. We operate 100% debt-free.
We still rely heavily, though, on donations from individuals, churches, business and foundations to provide for ongoing operating, administrative and capital expenses.
Does Asia's Hope meet international standards of care?
We meet -- and work to exceed -- the governmental regulations for child care in each country in which we operate. Our vision is to provide such a high standard of care at our homes that governmental and non-governmental organizations view Asia's Hope as the model for residential orphan care initiatives.
How can I use my skills to get involved?
Asia's Hope needs enthusiastic American and Canadian fundraisers, bloggers, grassroots activists and well-connected people who aren't too shy to ask people they know to help support orphans!
In Asia, we prioritizes the use of indigenous resource for nearly all aspects of the care we provide our children. In some cases, however, a Westerner may possess skills that are unavailable locally. If you have a skill set that you believe might benefit Asia's Hope's kids or Asian staff directly, please contact us.
How can I be sure that the funds given are being used wisely?
In the United States and Canada, all funds donated to Asia’s Hope are subject to oversight by national boards. Asia’s Hope Canada and Asia’s Hope USA are in full compliance with their respective country’s regulatory mechanisms and are routinely reviewed by certified public accountants.
In Cambodia and Thailand, we operate nationally registered and recognized foundations, which are required to report to regulatory bodies and to the Executive Board of Asia’s Hope. We are in the process of registering this type of foundation structure in India. Each country or regional director receives monthly only the funds requested from and approved by Asia’s Hope International, and is required to present monthly expense, profit and loss reports. The Executive Director and board members travel to each country multiple times each year to review operations and ensure effective and transparent use of all funds.
Questions about the children in our care
How are the children found or chosen?
Many children come to Asia's Hope through our directors' relationships with local pastors, NGOs and governmental bodies. Occasionally family members seek us out and ask us to take in their orphaned relatives.
The children are chosen based on need, and are admitted based on our organization's capacity. We work hard to keep sibling groups together, and often admit 4 or 5 siblings at one time.
How long will the children stay?
We provide long-term care for the children. We're bringing them into a family as family members, so they will stay until they're ready for life as independent adults.
After high school, many children will go to study at a university, and others will go through vocational training programs (auto mechanics, computer repair, etc.). We will continue to provide support until they are out of their post-secondary education years.
What will the children do when they leave?
We are raising these children to be functional, independent adults ready to support themselves in their home countries. Most will get jobs, marry and have children. Several already have hopes of working for Asia's Hope or in other ministries in the future to provide for the next generation of those in need in their home countries!
The vision of us and our staff is that we are raising the next generation of hope for Cambodia, Thailand and India—children ready to bring hope as they rebuild their home countries.
Are the children raised as Christians?
As a Christian organization, we work with indigenous Christian leaders who raise the children in Christian homes.
Why are these children orphans?
In each country in which we work (Cambodia, Thailand and India), poverty, disease and abandonment are rampant. Many of our children's parents have died or abandoned them, or one parent has died and the other is unwilling or unable to care for the child.
Do the children have contact with any existing family members?
We try to facilitate contact when it is safe and feasible. For instance, a child may have a grandparent still alive who was unable to care for the child but who, nevertheless, still wants to see the child.
What education do the children receive?
The children under our care attend public schools in their home countries through high school, then, most will go on to study at universities and vocational training programs. We provide a range of tutoring, training and enrichment programs while the children are in our homes.
Are the kids kept safe?
Our homes are secure and the children are kept safe. We work hard with our Asian staff to continually improve our buildings and grounds to provide the security these children need—fences, walls, lockable gates and secured windows.
We also are adamant that every staff member and every visitor to an Asia's Hope home has read, agreed to and signed our Child Protection Policy and liability waivers, and has received prior approval to visit any of our projects.
Questions about orphan care in general
How does Asia's Hope define "orphan?"
We define an orphan as a child who does not have family willing or able to take care of him or her. Many of our kids have two parents who have died. Others have one parent who has died and the other is incapacitated, incarcerated or otherwise unable to take care of them. Some have been simply abandoned. When a child has no one to care for him or her, we consider them an orphan.
What do orphans need?
Orphaned children need an environment in which they can thrive, not just survive. They need a family, they need a future, and they need hope. For the children of Asia's Hope, we create families, not institutions. Institutional orphanages where children are treated as boarders by shift-workers produce, unsurprsingly, poor outcomes for the children.
Each child has a unique set of physical, emotional and spiritual needs that can best be addressed in the context of a loving family and with the encouragement of a nurturing community of care. Asia's Hope works to provide that context.
Are orphanages bad for children?
Institutional orphanages with rotating shift workers and large amounts of children being housed produce poor outcomes for most children. It is not the ideal environment for a child's development.
At Asia's Hope, we don't create orphanages; we create real families with real moms and dads and real brothers and sisters. Our homes are kept small—20 to 24 children on average—and we staff full-time moms and dads who live at the homes with the children 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Our children are not raised as boarders; they are raised as sons and daughters. They are raised with the care, attention, security and love that children deserve.
Shouldn't these kids be kept with their extended families?
Many of our children's parents have died and the extended families were unable to care for them. Others have been abandoned by their mother or father after the spouse has died. Sometimes they go live with a member of their extended family, but are not viewed as children to be loved and nurtured, but as economic units to be exploited. In other cases, the relatives do want to provide a good environment, but are destitute themselves. These children are at extremely high risk of continued neglect, sexual abuse and human trafficking.
In these cases -- where the child has no family member willing or able to provide a loving, safe and non-exploitative home environment -- we do believe that permanent, residential care often represents the best possible opportunity for an orphaned child. We are committed to providing the best possible care for these kids, and work tirelessly to avoid the many problems inherent in traditional institutional orphanage models.