UNICEF Core Resources Annual Report 2025

This article is excerpted from UNICEF’s Core Resources Annual Report 2025: Partner Recognition Companion, p. 8.

Every child will remember

Megan Donovan-Chien, Founder and President of The 72 Fund, arrived at the International Council with a background most philanthropists don’t carry: years of on-the-ground work in education and medical care for children, and a research focus on medical anthropology and cultural epidemiology that taught her to ask hard questions about whether an organization’s approach actually suited the communities it served. When she encountered UNICEF’s work at close range, she found an organisation that understood the context it operated in. For someone who had seen what it looked like when that understanding was absent, the difference was not difficult to recognise.

The moment that moved her to act in early 2025 had less to do with the news than with her daughter. Watching it together, her daughter asked why there were so many wars. Then she said: “Every child will remember how they were treated during war.” “That made me realise I need to step up,” says Megan.

Giving was only part of what she did. Ahead of the I Am campaign, she put out a matching challenge, wanting others to join rather than act alone. “It was a way for everyone to be involved,” she says, “and it really emphasizes the fact that every dollar does count.” She believed the Council would feel the same urgency, and the response confirmed it.

When she talks about unrestricted giving, Megan draws a distinction most donors don’t make. “I don’t think it’s just unrestricted funds,” she says. “It’s immediate use unrestricted funds.” For someone who has worked in the field, the difference is not theoretical. When a programme pivots in a crisis, there is no time to renegotiate an agreement. The money needs to move, or children go without.

That conviction was reinforced when she visited UNICEF’s Supply Division in Copenhagen, where she found herself in tears. What she keeps returning to is a single detail: a compression garment designed for women in labour on difficult journeys to remote health facilities, engineered for repeated use. “The more people see how things are done behind the scenes,” she says, “the more you will see unrestricted giving coming in.”

See the full report here.