The Hunger Project

What The Hunger Project does

The Hunger Project is a New York–based nonprofit founded in 1977. It works with rural communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Its African programs cover nine countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda, and it also works in Bangladesh, India and Mexico. It does not run a food-aid pipeline. Instead it helps communities organize to end their own hunger.

Its approach has three parts: start with women, mobilize communities, and engage local government. In Africa it uses what it calls the Epicenter Strategy. A cluster of villages builds a shared community center, then runs its own programs from there: health, adult literacy, nutrition, farming, microfinance, and water and sanitation. The organization says an epicenter takes about five to eight years to become self-reliant, and that 90 epicenters have reached that point since 2008. Its history page also cites leadership training for roughly 78,000 elected women through a Women and Local Democracy initiative launched in 2000.

For donors, THP has a Four-Star rating from Charity Navigator, a B+ from CharityWatch and a 2025 Platinum Seal of Transparency from Candid. It had about $18 million in revenue in 2024. THP says openly that it does not treat overhead ratios as a measure of effectiveness.

Key facts

• 90 'epicenters' in Africa reached self-reliance between 2008 and now; each takes about five to eight years (THP Epicenter Strategy page)
• Works in more than 12,000 communities across Africa, South Asia and Latin America (Candid/GuideStar profile)
• Runs its Epicenter Strategy in 9 African countries and also works in Bangladesh, India and Mexico (THP site; GuideStar)
• 2024 revenue was $18.3 million and expenses were $19.7 million (ProPublica, IRS Form 990)

Before you give

• Besides one-time and monthly gifts, THP's giving page accepts stock, donor-advised fund grants, IRA qualified charitable distributions, cryptocurrency and legacy gifts (thp.org/make-an-impact).
• Its legal name on IRS filings and receipts is Global Hunger Project (EIN 94-2443282).