Kidsave

What Kidsave does

Kidsave helps older children in foster care and orphanages find caring adults and, where possible, permanent families. Its story starts in 1993, when Terry Baugh traveled to Russia to adopt a child and saw the conditions in orphanages there. Kidsave International is based in Culver City, California, has been a US charity since 1999, and runs programs in the US, Colombia, Ukraine and Sierra Leone.

Its main approach is what it calls the Family Visit Model. Children and adults get to know each other over time through events, scheduled visits and video calls, and then both sides decide whether to become a match. In the US it runs Weekend Miracles in Los Angeles, Houston and Virginia, and hosts summer and winter programs. In Colombia, its Super Amigos mentoring program has grown to serve almost 5,000 young people living in institutions, and Colombia's child welfare agency (ICBF) expanded the approach across Latin America. In Sierra Leone, Kidsave focuses on reuniting children with their birth or extended families. In Ukraine, it switched to emergency evacuations after February 2022, growing from 3 team members to more than 300 volunteers.

Kidsave reports 912 people served in 2025 and holds a Four-Star rating from Charity Navigator. It says 100% of public donations go to programs.

Key facts

• Homepage reports '912 total served in 2025' and '30,536 total served since 1999'
• In Colombia, its Super Amigos mentoring program has grown to serve almost 5,000 young people living in institutions (Family Visit Model page)
• In Ukraine, 144 children moved from institutional care into family settings in Mykolaiv and Kherson between 2018 and 2021 (Family Visit Model page)
• After February 2022 its Ukraine team grew from 3 staff to over 300 volunteers with 60 vehicles doing evacuations; the homepage reports 30,057 rescued in 2022 (Our Work page, homepage)

Before you give

• Ways to give: monthly gifts, stock (through DonateStock), donor-advised funds, wire transfers, IRA charitable rollovers, corporate matching gifts, personal fundraisers and vehicle donations (Ways to Give page).
• Kidsave says 100% of public donations go to programs. That is the organization's own claim, shown on its donate page.