PROFESSIONALISM & SUSTAINABILITY
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BUILDING CAPABILITIES
We believe in leverage. Thus, our approach is very simple: transform organizations we support, empower them to provide the best care and support for underprivileged children, and make them sustainable so that they can in turn, help thousands of children year after year. We do this by building capabilities for these organizations in key areas
Our Leverage Model
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” says the old Chinese proverb.
This is our approach to reach thousands of underprivileged children.
Thus, instead of simply deploying funds to satisfy immediate needs, we focus on investing in the capabilities of the organizations we support. The ultimate objective is to make these more professional and self-sufficient, empowering them to provide the best care and support for thousands of children in need.
There are six key capability areas that we believe are essential for organizations that provide care and support for underprivileged children. Our resources—financial, human, and intellectual—are deployed in these areas. Through our continuous efforts, our teams are building a repository of best practices and out-of-the-box solutions that we leverage throughout our network of supported organizations. Key Capability Areas
Source of Income
One of the key is to ensure that the organization is financially stable and that funding is secured long-term. While strengthening the donor base and implementing a professional donor management program are important capabilities, we believe that the sustainable way is to secure an independent source of income for the organization. The specific source of income for an organization depends on various factors. A model that has proven to be very successful is building a school. Operating its own school provides several benefits. In addition to generating income through school fees, the organization can ensure that its own children attend the school, meeting their basic education needs. Furthermore, the organization provides a valuable to the community by offering high-quality education at an affordable price.
We work closely with the organization, the local community, and authorities to understand which model is most suitable, can be implemented low risk, and provides the necessary financial support for the organization to fulfill its mission of caring for children in need.
Shelter & Care
Providing children with a safe, secure, and loving environment is one of the basic services of the organizations we support. Financial, human, and intellectual resources are deployed to either upgrade existing facilities or construct new ones to provide a real home for children that caters their needs. Architects, engineers, and construction workers help us as volunteers to give children in need a home where they feel safe, secure, and can develop.
Health & Nutrition
Ensuring that children eat well and receive the necessary medical care is another fundamental capability we support. A significant part of our assistance here is to build awareness and equip organizations with the right knowledge and tools. While in the long run, these organizations should be able to cover all costs for and health on their own, we provide financial aid for certain periods or connect them with partner organizations that can offer financial or in-kind support.
Basic & Higher Education
Basic and higher is one of the key areas that provide children with real opportunities for a better life and help them realize their dreams. Securing funding for scholarships or covering related expenses is a primary support area. Whenever, we leverage existing programs of NGOs and partner organizations to grant access to basic and higher education for the children of the organizations we directly support. To support the educational needs of the children we impact, we initiate a book collection program called Project BookMATTERS to equip homes, schools, and local communities with well libraries. The goal is to help underprivileged children in Southeast Asia further their English literacy development.
Operations & Service Delivery
In the area of operations and service delivery, we focus on professionalizing administrative functions such as accounting and reporting, as well as improving the quality of direct services to children by leveraging best practices. Implementing standardized processes and internal audit procedures to ensure that improvements occur is a key part of our support. We utilize our pool of volunteers to help set up the required infrastructure, such as social media accounts and content. For specialized areas such as therapy counseling programs, we leverage existing programs of other NGOs and partner organizations to upskill the organizations we support.
Community Outreach
Once local organizations are empowered to provide excellent care and support for children in need, they can take the next step and reach out to their communities to address fundamental issues that leave children neglected and abandoned. Areas such as family preservation, family reunification, and family expansion are important services these organizations can provide to their local communities.
A new Home!
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OUR ENGAGEMENT MODEL
We engage in a very structured approach with the organizations we support, with a clear objective in mind. Our ultimate goal is to transition the organizations we have supported intensively a period into a partnership model, they no longer require our intensive support and only leverage our intellectual property to help them continuously improve their services to children in need.
Our engagement model has four distinct phases that organisations we support go through. The risk profile of the organisation helps us to determine when an organisation is ready to exist our intensive support.
Phase 1: Assessment
Our journey with a new organisation begins with a comprehensive risk assessment to identify the areas where the organisation is at highest risk and requires support. This is done through a serious of interviews with key stakeholders as well as some site visits to verify certain information and get a personal picture of the organisation and how it is operated. We apply an internationally established framework on risk management for NGOs.
Once the risk profile as been reviewed and endorsed by the beneficiary organisation, our team develops the risk mitigation plans and establishes a roadmap with clearly identified implementation projects, timelines, and efforts required (financial, human resources, intellectual resources).
This work is predominently done with consultants who join us as volunteers through our Consulting Heroes Partnership Programme.
Phase 2: Intensive Supoport
Once our due diligence process has approved the organisation, we mobilise and deploy resources to implement the projects as per agreed roadmap. Our financial planning process determines the funding commitments we can do for the following periods and to which extend additional funds needs to be raised to build up required capabilities.
We work closely with our beneficiary organisations to ensure that the most critical projects get implemented first wherever possible. Recruitment of skill-based volunteers goes hand in hand with this process, to ensure that the right expertise is available when needed.
Every beneficiary organisation has an assigned Little Heroes’ Dreams coordinator. This person is also monitoring the progress of the implementation projects as well as evaluating how well capabilities have been created and are effectively utilised on the ground.
Phase 3: Transition
Once an organisation has reached a stable and mature stage, where most or all of the agreed implementation projects have been implemented and capabilities have been created, the organisation will be transitioned out of our intensive support into a partnership mode.
Phase 4: Partnership
While no more major financial resources will be deployed for our beneficiary organisation in this stage, they still continue to benefit from regular knowledge transfer helping them to continuously improve their capabilities and quality of services offered to the children they care for and support. In addition, they take over a mentoring role for other beneficiary organisations who are entering our intensive support and can learn from their journey and experiences.
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OUR PARTNER MODEL
We can't do what we are doing without the support from other organisations that provide services in specific areas. We are continuously expanding our partner network and connect our beneficiary organisations to our partners, providing them access to existing and established programmes.
NGOs
We want to concentrate on what we are good at and leverage existing programmes and services from other NGOs. We are very active in finding new NGO partners who can provide services to our beneficiaries in key capability areas such as education, nutrition & health, and community outreach.
Consulting
Our tie ups with leading consulting companies allow us to deploy high-skilled volunteers to do the required capability assessments and design of roadmaps for our beneficiary organisations.
Developers
One of our key investments is in constructing dormitories and school buildings that serve as a key source of income. We partner with developers who provide us with cost-effective turnkey solutions.
Foundations
We partner with local foundations who support us with co-funding in our projects and who link us up with other key partners within the communities we operate in.
Financial Institutions
Banks provide us with bridge financing solutions to support the implementation of our roadmaps.
Consulting Heroes Programme
Since the capability builduing portion of our programme is one of the most crucial components, we rely on the expertise and skills of consultants to deliver it professionally. Little Heroes' Dreams is proud to partner with world class management consulting companies to provide high impact volunteering opportunities that set up our beneficiary organisations onto a path of success.
Download the programme info here.
Our Consulting Heroes Partners
