Plan USA

Plan was founded in 1937 by British journalist John Langdon-Davies and refugee worker Eric Muggeridge.[4] Originally named "Foster Parents Plan for Children in Spain", its aim was to provide food, accommodation, and education to children whose lives had been disrupted by the Spanish Civil War. During the Second World War, as "Foster Parents Plan for War Children", it worked with displaced children throughout war-torn Europe.[5] By the 1970s, Plan gradually began working with children throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Plan International USA was originally incorporated as "Foster Parents Plan, Inc." in 1939 in New York to connect U.S. donors to sponsored children in developing countries.[6] It was one of the first Plan International federation members.[5] Its programs are implemented in more than 50 developing countries.[7]

In 1974, the international parent organization Foster Parents Plan shortened its name to " Plan International." In the 1990s the U.S. organization followed suit, changing to "Childreach/Plan International" and eventually to "Plan International USA".

Plan International USA is a publicly funded American non-profit charitable organization, deriving its income from a combination of individual contributions and private and federal grants. The total operating revenue in 2019 for the organization was approximately $68 million.[8]

Because I Am a Girl was an international campaign by Plan International addressing gender discrimination.[9] Its goal was to promote the rights of girls and bring millions of girls out of poverty around the world.[10][11] It focused on lack of equality faced by girls in developing countries and promoted projects to improve opportunities for girls in education, health care, family planning, legal rights, and other areas.[12]

In September 2018, Plan released a report titled "The State of Gender Equality for U.S. Adolescents".[13] The report was covered by several media outlets including the New York Times,[14][15][16] Washington Post,[17][18] and Forbes.[19][20] It reported how adolescents in the U.S. think about gender equality and what shapes those views. The report release was named Media Relations campaign of the year by PR Daily.[21]

In August 2019, Plan announced the largest individual gift in the organizations history.[22] The gift will fund a program model called GirlEngage, which aims to challenge social and gender norms, send more girls to school and work to keep girls safe in their communities. Plan will use GirlEngage to partner with girls around the world to understand their needs and the issues they face.[23] This approach amplifies the voices of vulnerable and marginalized girls by including them in all stages of a project life-cycle – from defining the problem to program evaluation.[24]

In coordination with Plan International and its other chapters, Plan International USA helped fund and organize the following in 2019:[25]

• 40 million children benefited from Plan's work.
• 1.2 million children were sponsored.
• Partnered with 34,814 organizations.
• 2,000 take overs took place in 60 countries for International Day of the Girl where girls took over the roles of prime ministers, mayors, CEOs, and other leaders.
• Responded to disasters in 34 countries.

Plan works in more than 75 countries. A few examples Plan’s work are listed below.  

• In the Philippines, it is implementing the Marawi Response Project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is assisting with humanitarian and recovery work in and around Marawi.[26]
• Along with partner Kimberly-Clark Corporation, it is supporting menstrual hygiene management projects that touch the lives of 1.6 million people in Latin America.[27]
• In the Central Africa Republic, it is reuniting children who were separated during conflict with their families with funding from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.[28]

In 2010, Tessie San Martin became CEO & President.[32][33][34] The board has included at least one youth representative since 2015.

Plan includes young people in its strategy and governance structures.[35] Plan’s Youth Advisory Board is a youth-led group that advises the organization on projects and participates in events[36] The Youth Advisory Board runs an annual Youth Leadership Academy, a summer program for high schoolers to learn about and take on global issues in their schools and communities.[37]

The organization was featured in the 2002 film About Schmidt and Girl Rising in 2013. The organization is also featured in the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, published in 2009.