Frequently Asked Questions
"The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein
This question is a complicated one because it has so many answers. There are so many reasons to help provide a better childhood experience for orphans. We'll try to state a few.
Childhood should be where the foundation is laid that would help each person develop a balanced life and develop the necessary coping skills for life's issues. We believe every child deserves and should be given the opportunity to have a time period where there should be no concern about what they'll eat, what they'll wear, where they'll sleep or ever question if anyone cares about them.
Another way to look at this is creating a cycle of good. Most of these orphans have been dealt a bad card. When a stranger. like you, decides for no personal gain, to help create a better life for these orphans, we give them the chance to see good in the world. And some day we hope they too will help create that good in the world.
LittleDrops staff, which also includes all directors and officers, work really hard to make a lot of things happen, some more visible and others less visible. However, we believe in what we do and its success is our compensation. No staff of LittleDrops is paid. We rely 100% on the goodwill of volunteers.
Does LittleDrops aid with Adoption?
We realize that adoption has the potential to place these children in warm and safe homes. Getting the children into these warm and safe homes is a very complicated process. Extreme care must be taken to make sure the children do not end up in worse situation. At this point, however, LittleDrops does not work to get the children adopted. It demands a great deal of knowledge, experience and resources. Our current knowledge, experience and resources are focused on taking care of the children in the orphanage homes and helping those on the streets get into homes. LittleDrops realizes that unfortunately, for a long time to come, there will be orphans in orphanage homes. Our mission is to give them the best quality of life that we can.
How will my donations be used?
At least 90 cents of every dollar you donate will go directly to the homes to use for the care of the children. It will be used to provide shelter, food, water, education, skills training, medication, etc. Even though we are a relatively young organization we rely on our volunteers, their elbow grease and brain power to help keep our administrative costs down.
How do I know that the donations will be used as stated?
It is very important to us that we have integrity, in fact and appearance, in everything we do, but most especially with the donations we receive. Though this is not an exhaustive list, here are some of the measures we have in place:
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We will make our financial statements available. In addition to the IRS Form-990 we may also have additional statements and disclosures.
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We will require the homes to sign a grant agreement prior to receiving any funding. The grant agreement requires them to agree to use the funds for the intended purpose as well as furnish periodic reports (including receipts and other relevant documentation) about the use of the funds.
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We will maintain periodic communication with the homes to get progress status on the welfare of the children as well as financial data.
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We will have periodic site visits to the homes, announced and unannounced, to verify the information we receive.
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We have an understanding with the homes, that failure to provide accurate or providing false information may lead to a termination of our relationship.
We wanted to start very focused to give us the ability to start small, do it very well and then grow. We are starting in Nigeria but we will not be limited to Nigeria. We hope to expand into other countries that need our services. We chose to start in Nigeria because our knowledge, experience and resources are strongest there. With the help of more volunteers, and time, we hope to expand our knowledge, experience and resources.
