The food security situation across the Horn of Africa is the worst it has been in a generation. Successive failed rainy seasons, conflict displacement and the compounding effects of global staple-price inflation have pushed an estimated 8.4 million people into crisis-level food insecurity. Children under five are the most exposed cohort: severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is fatal without treatment in roughly 30% of cases, and even successful treatment leaves long-term developmental consequences.

Hearts of Hope Foundation was registered with the ACNC and endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient on 11 April 2025. We are new. We do not yet have in-country teams, signed memoranda of understanding with delivery partners, or donor scale comparable to the established humanitarian agencies operating in the region. What we do have is a clean balance sheet, a 100% donation policy in our governance charter, and a clear plan for how we intend to do this work responsibly.

This article sets out that plan in full.

What the response actually requires

Treating a child with SAM through the standard six-week protocol costs roughly $103 per child. The protocol uses ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) — a peanut-based paste fortified with vitamins, minerals and milk powder — delivered with weekly clinical screening and a graduated transition to a normal diet. RUTF is procured from a small number of UNICEF-prequalified manufacturers and distributed through clinics, community health workers, and outreach programs run by experienced in-country partners.

The work is operationally hard. It requires cold-chain capable warehousing in the right places, locally-employed nutritionists, household-level case files, and clinical follow-up. It is the wrong work for a brand-new Australian charity to do directly.

It is the right work to fund through partners who are already doing it well.

Our model is to deliver only through vetted in-country partners with the legal mandate, clinical workforce and local credibility we do not yet have. Our job is to fund their work transparently and to publish what landed.

The plan, in stages

Stage 1 · Partner outreach and due diligence (now)

We are in early-stage outreach with key humanitarian agencies and specialist in-country NGOs already operating SAM treatment programs in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. Before any funds flow, we complete:

  • ACNC External Conduct Standards documentation for each partner;
  • Sanctions screening of the partner and its controlling minds against the UN 1267 list and the DFAT Consolidated List;
  • Review of the partner’s most recent financial controls, anti-fraud policy and reporting cadence;
  • A signed memorandum of understanding with named outcome metrics.

Stage 2 · Restricted intake (Q1 2026)

Once a partner is engaged, donations restricted to East Africa famine response will be held in our segregated donor pool at Commonwealth Bank of Australia and disbursed within 90 days. Every dollar will be accounted against a partner invoice with the corresponding entry in our public ledger.

Stage 3 · Reporting (rolling)

We will publish a monthly disbursement note for the first 12 months: amount sent, partner, program area, target caseload, and any variance against budget. The first independent third-party recipient survey will be commissioned once our funded caseload exceeds 1,000 children.

Note on figures: Cost per child treated, target caseloads and timelines on this page are management estimates from publicly available humanitarian sector data. They will be reconciled to actuals as program agreements are signed and reported in our first Annual Information Statement (lodged with the ACNC by 31 December 2026).

Why give to a new organisation when established ones exist

You shouldn’t feel obliged to. UNICEF, MSF, Action Against Hunger and a dozen other established humanitarian agencies are running excellent SAM treatment programs right now and will use your donation well. If you want immediate impact at scale, give to them.

Where Hearts of Hope is different is the structure of the donation. Our 100% policy is contractual, not aspirational. Operational costs are funded separately from a different pool of capital. Card processing is the only deduction. Every gift is line-itemised on a public ledger that you can read. We are building a charity for donors who want to see the receipts.

What you can do today

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