World Vision

One of the largest Christian relief and development organisations in the world: nearly a hundred countries, more than 34,000 staff, and work that runs from clean water and food aid to schooling, health care and disaster response.

Sponsorship costs $39 a month. Read the next part carefully, because it is the thing sponsors most often misunderstand: the money is pooled and spent on the child’s whole community — wells, clinics, schools — rather than handed to the child’s family. World Vision says this openly and explains why: giving to one household inside a poor village can split the village.

It was founded by Bob Pierce, who filed the papers in Los Angeles in 1950 and went on to found Samaritan’s Purse twenty years later. World Vision is explicitly Christian and says it serves people “irrespective of religion, race, ethnicity or gender”.

• Founded
  Incorporated in Los Angeles on 22 September 1950. The organisation dates the beginning of the work to 1947
• Founder
  Bob Pierce, who later also founded Samaritan’s Purse
• Led by
  Andrew Morley, president and chief executive of World Vision International since 2019
• Behind it
  A partnership of national offices across six continents. The United States office is a 501(c)(3)
• Based in
  The United States office is in Federal Way, Washington. The partnership keeps no single world headquarters
• Reach
  Nearly 100 countries, with more than 34,000 staff
• Languages
  Each national office publishes in its own language
• Cost
  $39 a month to sponsor a child. The help itself costs the family nothing
• You get
  Child sponsorship, clean water, food aid, health care, education, disaster response and advocacy for children
• Where the money goes
  Sponsorship gifts are pooled and spent on the whole community, not paid to one child. The U.S. office states that 86% of 2025 operating expenses went to programmes, 10% to fundraising and 4% to management
• Who they help
  People of any faith. They state they help “irrespective of religion, race, ethnicity or gender”
• How to join
  worldvision.org/sponsor-a-child. Jobs and volunteering go through the national offices
• Polish
  There is no World Vision office in Poland. The nearest European offices are Germany and Romania, and their Ukraine response is run from Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Georgia
• Contact
  P.O. Box 9716, Federal Way, WA 98063, USA

World Vision does not sponsor or endorse Embassy of the Kingdom, and we are not affiliated with them. We list them because we checked them and would put them in a friend’s hands. If you lead a ministry and would like to be considered, or believe something here should be corrected, write to us — we read every message ourselves.