What It Really Costs to Change a Child’s Life in Brazil

ChildFund Brasil was among the ten fastest of 33 leading Brazilian organizations in thedotgood’s first info-biorhythm benchmark: it made its audited statements and annual report public soon after year-end. Why does publishing early matter to you, and who notices?

Transparency is fundamental to us. Publishing our audited financial statements and our Sustainability Report promptly is not simply a matter of compliance. It is about accountability: showing our donors, partners, communities, Board, employees, and the wider public that ChildFund Brasil deserves their trust.

We were honored by thedotgood’s recognition, which was warmly celebrated across the ChildFund International network. It confirmed a commitment built steadily over many years.

Since 2015, our Sustainability Report has followed the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). We see it as more than an institutional publication: it is how we account for our results, our impact, our governance, and the way we use resources. Over the years, we believe it has become a reference well beyond the nonprofit sector.

Credibility is built through consistent action. Releasing high-quality information quickly is one such action, and we intend to hold to it in the years ahead.

What do funders and donors most often misunderstand about what it costs to deliver lasting results for children?

A common misunderstanding is that maximizing results means directing almost all funding to frontline activities. In reality, lasting outcomes for vulnerable children and families also require strong, well-run organizations behind the programs.

Quality delivery depends on skilled teams, safeguarding, monitoring and evaluation, technology, financial controls, governance, and operational capacity. Projects that fail to fund this core infrastructure may actually increase implementation risks and gradually weaken the very organizations expected to do the work.

Funders also tend to underestimate how complex social development is. Poverty is multidimensional; the problems children face never have a single cause or a quick fix. Real change means working over time with families, communities, local organizations, public systems, and other stakeholders.

That is why we believe so strongly in multi-year investment and systemic approaches. Efficiency and accountability are essential, but the lowest overhead does not necessarily mean the greatest impact. What matters is the quality, durability, and long-term value of what we achieve for children.

How do you assess that a child’s life has changed because of ChildFund Brasil’s work? Give one result you are proud of, and one indicator that disappointed you and what you changed as a result.

Our monitoring systems regularly track changes in the lives of children, adolescents, and their families, using measures tailored to the social technologies applied in each community. But behind every indicator is a real person with a story of their own.

Jean is one example I am particularly proud of. He grew up in a highly vulnerable quilombola community in rural Brazil, one of the settlements founded by people who escaped slavery and still home to their descendants. His years with ChildFund opened a new perspective on what his future could be. Today, on a scholarship, he studies political science at Northwestern University in the United States.

Davidson is another. He now sits on the Adolescent Participation Committee (CPA) of CONANDA, Brazil’s National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, where he brings the voice of young people to national debates and policymaking on their rights.

Not every indicator moves as we would like. Basic learning outcomes, especially in Portuguese and mathematics, remain difficult, because they depend heavily on structural problems in Brazil’s education system. That taught us an important lesson: lasting impact requires going beyond individual interventions, toward partnerships and systemic approaches that address the wider environment in which children learn and grow.

Which partnership (public, private or with communities) has done the most for ChildFund Brasil’s results in recent years, and why did it work?

I could name many, but two recent partnerships with private funders stand out for their results.

With the LEGO Foundation, we ran Brinca e Aprende Comigo (Play and Learn with Me), which reached thousands of Brazilian families with positive parenting, discipline without physical punishment, and family play, all of which strengthen relationships and prevent violence against children. The project also supported our advocacy for a federal law that reinforces children’s right to play and to a safe upbringing. Its benefits could therefore reach millions of children, far beyond the communities we served directly.

With ADM in Maranhão, one of Brazil’s most socially vulnerable states, we combined environmental education, disaster-risk reduction, and food security in public schools, bringing real change to the school communities involved. A second phase is now under way in more schools, and the model is being extended to Argentina.

Both worked because they went beyond the usual funder–contractor relationship. They became true institutional partnerships, built on shared purpose, trust, technical quality, and excellent execution.