The Seal of Excellence is awarded to Charities that certify on an annual basis that they meet the highest standards of public accountability, program effectiveness, and cost effectiveness. Of the 1,000,000 charities operating in the United States today, it is estimated that fewer than 50,000, meet or exceed these standards, and, of those, fewer than 2,000 have been awarded this Seal.

Art For Humanity is an all volunteer organization. There are no paid staff, warehouse, offices, etc.  We have no overhead.  It is amazing what volunteers can accomplish. Last year, we delivered approximately $200.000 worth of humanitarian aid with a budget of only $30,000. This year we have delivered approximately $330.000 of humanitarian aid with a budget of only $50.000.

Our Mission: Our mission is to help the poor to help themselves.

Our Strategy: We collect donated used items.  Those donations include shoes, clothing, jewelry, women’s accessories, sheets, towels, etc. We give those donations to poor families. They use some of the donations for the needs of their extended family and sell some. With the proceeds, they build a home, pay educational expenses and begin a small home based business with which they provide for their family.

Our Focus: We focus on four systemic ways for a family to overcoming poverty.

1. One way for a family to overcome poverty to raise educated children. We assist families to keep their children in school.
   
   
2. Among the desperately poor, unemployment and temporary employment is rampant. We assist them to begin a small family based business…..art and craft, sewing, bike repairs, farming, etc. These small businesses allow them to provide for their family.
   
   
3. Poor health is a systemic cause of poverty. Unhealthy people are not productive. We supply vitamins to pregnant and nursing women as a way of allowing a child to begin life properly nourished for a healthy development. We also provide shoes. Without shoes, parasites and infections become serious. We are planning the formation of medical clinics in communities without medical facilities.
   
   
4. For a homeless family to move out of poverty, a home is important. With a home, they are able to have a home based business, keep themselves and their children healthy and safe.
   

Our Beliefs:We believe the poor typically have a greater capacity to help themselves than they are often given credit for. Most of the poor we work with only need the opportunity to help them selves.

We believe the best way to help the poor is to not be too helpful. Being overly helpful creates dependence in the lives of the poor. Our goal is to foster independence.

We believe education of the young is key to long term independence for the family.

We believe that in helping the poor, we are also helping ourselves. The help we receive is not always immediately apparent. But, as we look back on our lives, we normally recognize that from our helping of others, we learned something about life or about ourselves or met some wonderful people or had great experiences, etc. any of which missing from our lives would have left us poorer. In other words, when we are engaged in authentic service to others in need, we are helped as much as we help.  The universe seems to operate on the principle that those being helped and those helping both receive from the effort..

These beliefs are woven into the fabric of all Art For Humanity projects.

Our Status:  The IRS has granted Art For Humanity the status of a 501 c(3) non-profit organization. For tax purposes, Art For Humanity gladly provides receipts for all donations.

For additional info, please contact us at artforhumanityorg@yahoo.com

Art for Humanity, Inc. • 635 South 25th Street • Arlington 22202-2529