CRY America provides high-engagement philanthropy to Projects focused on children’s development and rights in India. The Projects we support work at the grassroots-level to restore basic rights to children. We select them on the basis of their track record, the issues they work with and their impact on the communities. We support them through funding, training and capacity building. We have effective systems in place for selecting, planning, monitoring & evaluating grantees. Projects are carefully selected as per defined Selection Criteria:

• Focus on underprivileged children
• Focus on social justice rather than mere charity
• Priority to projects in areas where no other projects / services exist
• Willing to work with local government agencies and programs
• Open to working with other non profits
• Vision, commitment, approach of the project partner
• Project plan empowers communities they work with and ultimately makes an irreversible change to the lives of children
• Project has clear plans, with well defined impact parameters.

CRY America aims at a just world, especially through Project funding, in which all children – regardless of gender, class, caste, faith, color, race, ethnicity, physical and mental ability etc – have equal opportunities to develop to their full potential and realize their dreams.

Supported Projects are provided with need based financial support. Project Budgets are developed on an annual basis and closely linked to the program plans & expected outcomes.

Our capacity building and enabling role is an integral part of our “child rights” model of change. Capacity building efforts includes program development & trainings for the project staff, teachers & community workers in areas of need such as education, healthcare, child labor, child marriage etc; networking support, perspective building on child rights & financial management. CRY America provides Projects with needed trainings and builds their capacity to achieve their goals:

• Financial support based on program needs
• Program development
• Organizational capacity building
• Training support
• Networking support
• Perspective building on child rights
• Accounting and book keeping skills
• Programmatic and Financial accountability

Networking, Research and Policy Influencing – our partner CRY India also works with larger networks of NGO’s at the State and national level which help facilitate the transfer of learning, build solidarity between partner organizations and influence policy to positively impact the situation of Indian children.

We believe that community mobilization and engagement is the most effective long-term solution to the multiple causes of poverty, deprivation and exploitation that constrain the rights of India’s children. We enable supported Projects to focus on key activities:

• Enable community groups to come together to discuss and resolve their issues collectively, in the best interests of their children, thus empowering them
• Improve the health of the community with emphasis on maternal and child health
• Address issues of child labor, child marriage, child traficking, child abuse and girl child discrimination
• Ensure birth registrations, immunizations and malnutrition treatment & prevention programs
• Mainstreaming of children into formal public schools
• Running informal education centers & children’s resource centers
• Strengthening children’s groups to enable expression, confidence and leadership
• Partnering with other organizations to form networks to influence policy at a macro-level
• Community awareness programs on the importance of education, health, nutrition, child protection, livelihood, government aid programs and other relevant issues
• Work with government officials and agencies to ensure that the public schools, ICDS programs, health centers, girls hostels, NREGA function well and serve community needs

• Children are the most vulnerable segment of any society.
• Their situation provides the most stringent metric of a society’s health and a rallying point with the widest appeal across all parts of society.
• Ensuring child rights is the most sustainable solution to the myriad social, economic and political issues confronting India.
• Sustainable change at the level of the community is only possible when communities themselves develop and implement solutions, cooperatively.
• Non-profits when linked to each other and in coalition with business, government and media, can create a critical mass that achieves immense synergies and scale, and the strength to influence policy.