For years, World Vision has relied on a standard model to support its programmes. Sponsors browse through folders containing photos of children in poor, underserved communities, and pick a child they want to help.
This year, the Seattle-based Christian charity group has been flipping the script. It is letting the children choose their sponsors.
People interested in sponsoring a child with monthly payments have their photos snapped. The photos are then sent to communities World Vision is helping, and the children there pick those they feel they have a connection with.
World Vision has dubbed this role-reversal "Chosen".
"Chosen puts the power to choose their sponsor in the hands of the child," said Mr Edgar Sandoval Sr, president of World Vision in the United States.
"The children are no longer passive recipients of aid. They are empowered and start a relationship on their own terms. From 'pick me', the children can now say, 'I choose'. This has led to a deeper bond between the sponsors and the children."
Eight-year-old Eunice, who lives in an outlier village in the Philippines, said she chose a woman who looked like a doctor she saw on TV. She picked her because she wanted to be a doctor herself.
Another child, Charian, just five, said she liked the headband with reindeer's antlers the woman in the photo she selected was wearing.
Most of the children said they thought the people they saw in the photos looked kind or pretty, or they just liked the way they smiled.
"Chosen" began in the US. Members of churches in Indiana, Kentucky and Chicago were paired with over 2,000 children in Mexico, Guatemala and Kenya via the programme. "We're hearing from our field staff that when a kid walks away with a photo of their sponsor, it makes that sponsorship very real," Mr Sandoval told online news site Vox.
World Vision, one of the world's largest non-profit groups working in global health and development, has been replicating that experience in the Philippines.
A senior employee, who declined to be named as she was not authorised to speak to journalists, said the fresh approach has helped World Vision tap into a younger demographic that saw the standard model as too passive.
She said there has been an uptick in the number of people signing up, especially after they see videos of children smiling broadly and holding photos of their sponsors in places like Kenya and Guatemala.
"Some were crying," she said.
This month, World Vision organised events to get help for hundreds of children in Santa Maria, a district in Laurel town in Batangas province, 80km south of Manila.
It has adopted a school in Santa Maria that can take in 300 children. The school has a daycare centre and provides classes from kindergarten to Grade 6.
From Grade 7, the children will have to take classes in a school about 7km away.
Out of the 40 pupils who start out as a class in kindergarten, only half will make it past Grade 12. About a dozen will finish college.
World Vision is trying to improve on those figures.
Each sponsor gives 750 pesos (S$20) a month. None of the money goes directly to the children.
World Vision uses it to fund teaching aids like flatscreen TVs, and facilities such as electric fans and faucets in the school.
The money also goes towards providing extra classes that help the children with English proficiency, as well as maths and science skills.
For the sponsored children, these classes are also their only opportunity to get their hands on a computer or a tablet.
"A tablet helps them to learn faster," said the school's principal, Mr Noel Benson, 47.
