Plan UK was founded in 1937 after John Langdon-Davis, a British war correspondent, and Eric Muggeridge, a refugee worker found a little boy named Jose. Plan UK
This was during the Spanish civil war where it was thought as many as 11,000 refugees, many of them orphaned children, were passing through the railway station at Santander each day.
Jose was one of these orphaned children who happened to be found by John and Eric, on him was a note saying "This is Jose, I am his father. When Santander falls I shall be shot, whoever finds my son, take care of him for me". After finding Jose, John along with the help of his friend Eric began to help children who had been orphaned by the Spanish civil war. Together they established "Foster Parents Plan for Children in Spain" with the aim to provide food, accommodation and education to children orphaned or whose lives had been disrupted by the war. This organisation started with the idea of people sponsoring a child, and to make the relationship between the child and the sponsor a personal one. This idea of having the children at the centre of the organisations focus is one that remains today, Plan has also remained neutral with no religious or political affiliations.
In the 1940's during WWII Foster Parents Plan for Children in Spain started to assist children from all over Europe who had been orphaned through the war. They worked in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Throughout the 50's and the 60's, since the war had ended and the European economy was recovering, the European countries were once again able to look after and provide for their own people. For this reason, they started to spread their work further afield to children, their families, and poor communities in countries that needed help. Their work was still primarily based on helping children, and they worked in countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Ethiopia and Korea. By 1980 they were working with children in 33 countries across the world, in communities where poverty was a way of life, not just an emergency condition such as war. It wasn't until the 90's that they changed their name to 'Plan'. The reason they changed their name was to better reflect the work they do and their aim of bringing constructive and lasting changes to the lives of children across the world.
Today Plan UK is one of 17 national Plan organisations from countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, Spain, and America.
Plans vision is 'A world in which all children realise their full potential in societies which respect people's rights and dignity'. To realise this vision Plan have three main aims to improve the lives of deprived children in developing countries and to add value and meaning to their lives. Their aims are;
Plan's work has 5 key domains, Education, Health, Building Relationships, Livelihood and Habitat. As well as this, their work focuses on 8 core areas, these are: Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Protection, Emergencies, Child Participation and Sexual Health including HIV.
Today Plan works in 48 developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas (Latin America and the Caribbean). Plan has projects in over 90,000 communities to promote child rights and to lift children out of poverty. Plan works with a community on a long term basis, often having partnerships with them for 10-15 years, until the community no longer needs their help and has the resources to help themselves.
Plan UK is funded mainly through voluntary donations, and in 2009 Plan UK's income was £41,715,000. Of this money, they spent £38,237,000 with 80% of this money spent on charitable activities.
Plan International is also mainly funded by voluntary donations and their annual income in 2009 was $468,000,000 of this income around 70% was from sponsorships and around 25% was from grants from governments and global organizations. Their expenditure for the same year was $452,000,000. A few of the governments that help fund Plan are the UK, the USA, Spain, Denmark, Canada and Ireland. With a few of the Global organizations being the European Commission, The Global Fund, World Bank, World Food Program and UNICEF.
Plan has many ways to raise money, their main way being their child sponsorship program and general donation. They also run emergency appeals and an online shop, as well as offering corporate partnerships and volunteer programs.