Our Promise
Going Further
Our Promise — Going further
Launched in November 2016, the Our Promise strategy represents our firm promise to the world’s most vulnerable children: We will continue to transform lives in the world’s hardest-to-reach places, empowering every girl and boy to reach their God-given potential. This drives to the very heart of our vision statement: ‘Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness. Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so.’
Our strategy calls us to focus relentlessly on eradicating poverty in all its forms – in line with the goals of the Sustainable Development Agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the global inequalities that the most vulnerable children and their families suffer from the most. This is why our focus will and must remain on the biggest threats to children. We have good reason to be going further that we imagined in this next phase of Our Promise.
Prayerfully aware of the uncertainties before us, and led by our Christian faith, we will partner with the poor and oppressed to tackle the challenges of COVID-19 and its aftershocks to achieve hope, joy and justice for all children. World Vision was born in a crisis 70 years ago and is called for a time such as this. Together, we will change the course of history for vulnerable children.
Going further than we imagined for the world’s most vulnerable children
How we'll get there
We are re-committing to our Five Areas for Urgent Action, four Mindsets and Behaviours, and focusing our energies on a small number of Strategic Initiatives.
As we prepare for, and enter into, a world reshaped by COVID-19 and its aftershocks, these areas for urgent action will be critical to realising Our Promise.
Our Strategic Imperatives
Living out our Christian faith and calling with boldness and humility
Changing from an identity and strength not yet fully utilised to living out our Christian faith in all we do in harmony with those of other faiths and none.
Our Strategy in Action
We have found our voice as a global Christian organisation, speaking to the highest levels of power with humility and amplifying the voices of those we serve.
We are seen as a credible, strong Christian partner, capable of galvanising a diverse mix of faith actors in support of collective action for children.
We are Going further by:
•Developing and scaling evidence-based models that tackle the spiritual roots of poverty, vulnerability, and injustice.
•Acting as connectors by mobilising Christians, the church, and other faith leaders to address the spiritual causes of poverty and injustice.
•Continuing to become more externally oriented, taking hold of opportunities to mobilise the Christian church to demonstrate God’s unconditional love for children.
•Demonstrating the value of our faith by helping to eradicate fear in communities through our COVID-19 Response.
Deepen our commitment to most vulnerable boys and girls
By putting the most vulnerable girls and boys first, we continue to realign our focus and footprint to reduce extreme vulnerability; developing effective, relevant programming; deploying the right leadership, attitude, and capabilities; and allocating funds for greatest impact.
Our Strategy in Action
Our resources are better aligned to reach the most vulnerable children. In the financial year 2019, 34% of our international funding was allocated to the most fragile countries where we work, up from 22% in 2016.
In our programmes, 60% of the children we reach are the most vulnerable, against an average vulnerability of 20% to 30%.
Ten of our field offices in transitioning economies have capacity to continue operations without international funding and are expected to become self-sufficient by 2023.
We are positioned as a lead organisation for working in fragility, recognised as having a unique contribution to make, rooted in our faith and commitment to the most vulnerable children.
We are Going Further by:
•Developing critical new models and tools to address the key drivers of vulnerability.
•Strengthening programming for the most vulnerable girls and boys, paying special attention to those who are often invisible because of gender inequality, social exclusion, or disabilities.
•Using our Fragile Contexts Programming Approach as we expand our operations and partnerships in fragile contexts.
•Developing diverse new leaders for our work in fragile contexts.
•Accelerating digital marketing and fundraising in transitioning field offices.
Scaling programmes that have positive environmental outcomes for children and implementing a global carbon-reduction target.
Focus our ministry for greater results
We will be an impact-driven, market-informed organisation with a culture and practice of maximising impact with every decision and action we take.
OUR STRATEGY IN ACTION
Our technical programmes, including our faith and development work, are more child-focused and evidence-based, enabling deeper child well-being impact by applying focused, global sector approaches and core project models that align to the Sustainable Development Goals.
All field offices have focused strategies on a maximum of four Child Well-being Objectives.
Nearly 70% of relevant programming is aligned with core project models.
We have industry-leading development programming approaches that drive sustainability and can differentiate World Vision.
We are Going further by:
•Adapting our technical approaches and core project models to global shifts, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftershocks.
•Strengthening integration with our micro credit subsidiary VisionFund, which currently delivers microfinance impact for than 3.5 million children in 28 countries.
•Simplifying and reducing demands on field staff, empowering them to engage with communities in ways that lead to transformative impact.
•Strengthening how we manage data and streamlining our processes to maximise impact with every decision and action we take.
•Hiring, training and retaining staff with the right skills and competencies to deliver, measure and report our impact with the most vulnerable children.
Collaborating and advocating for broader impact
Driven by the voices of girls and boys, we will advocate for systemic change across global, national, and local levels; and we will partner so that together we can achieve more for children than we could on our own.
Our Strategy in Action
We are partners of choice, valuing diverse perspectives and approaches.
94% of those surveyed say they trust World Vision, significantly up from 75% in 2017.
We are most trusted to deliver programmes and advocacy for child protection, children affected by natural disasters, child rights, and children in fragile contexts.
We are Going further by:
•Continuing to grow a global movement through our It Takes a World campaign, working together in new ways with children, with a range of partners, especially the Church.
•Amplifying children’s voices at the highest level of advocacy engagements.
•Leveraging the entire organisation to build an evidence-based local-to-global advocacy approach.
Delivering high quality, sustainable funding
We will pick up the pace by unlocking the power of our global scale and Christian distinctiveness to focus on child sponsorship revenue, prioritise private funding, and grow grants across all relevant markets to support programming priorities.
Our Strategy in Action
A new global approach to accelerate funding from high-net-worth individuals is moving ahead in many funding offices. Grant revenue growth has exceeded targets and is an invaluable revenue stream for our work in fragile contexts.
We are Going Further by:
•Maintaining the current focus, delivering at pace and at scale.
•Managing an appropriate funding mix, and orchestrating growth in a way that leverages all forms of funding.
•Exploring opportunities to raise funds in markets where we are under-represented or not present at all.
•Aligning marketing strategies and acting as one organisation to maximise return on investment across channels and geographies.
Mindsets and Behaviours
Moving together as one, inclusive Partnership, we create a safe space for all staff to contribute, with mutual accountability and joint dependence on God. We ensure the voices and experiences of those who are under-represented or marginalised are included at every level of our organisation.
Our Strategy in Action
Unity, Inclusion and Trust
Moving together as one, inclusive Partnership, we create a safe space for all staff to contribute, with mutual accountability and joint dependence on God. We ensure the voices and experiences of those who are under-represented or marginalised are included at every level of our organisation.
Wise Stewardship
We act with agility to focus on impact for children, continuously improving value and simplicity in the way we operate. We are faithful to the purpose for which all resources are entrusted to us, including the sustaining of God’s creation.
Looking Outward
We are open and inquisitive, working with others to grasp opportunities and deal with threats. Learning from and working flexibly with partners, we innovate together to enhance our shared impact.
Timely Truth Telling With Love
Our conversations are always authentic, courageous, inclusive of a diverse range of voices, and full of grace and hope. We address issues, including greater racial justice and female representation, by saying what needs to be said and hearing what needs to be heard. We seek to understand as well as to be understood. This allows us to disagree, discuss, then commit and depend on one another.
