The Foundation operates with a commitment to the principles stated in Tartu University Hospital Children’s Foundation Statutes (in Estonian), Code of Ethics of Estonian non-profit organizations and the good practice of the collection of donations (in Estonian).

The goals of the Children’s Foundation are:

  • To provide severely ill children the needed treatment and support services;
  • To affect the the funding policies for the treatment and support services of severely ill children;
  • To help children overcome social problems which are caused by different diseases;
  • To detect and notify the public of problems in the provision of medical care for children;
  • To increase the quality of medical care provided to children at the Children’s Hospital and other structural units of the Clinic, that offer medical help to children;
  • To raise public awareness of children’s diseases in order to prevent its onset and development, to improve early detection of diseases and the results of treatment;
  • To each and promote a healthy lifestyle to children, youngsters and family members.

In our activities, we follow these principles and essentials:

  • We support children, who need treatment and care, that is not covered by The Health Insurance Fund, or the local government(either partially or not at all).
  • As a rule, the Foundation does not give the beneficiary money, but pays the bills presented by them according to the application presented to, and approved by the board. If, at special cases that were to happen(e.g. children recieving treatment abroad), the beneficiary is obligated to present the Foundation with a report and reciepts of the expenses.
  • The Children’s Foundation operates on the principle of solidarity: if more donations than needed are recieved by a certain beneficiary, the Foundation transfers the remaining funds to support another person in need.
  • An application for help can be submitted to the Foundation by the doctor, parent or support person of the child in need of help. After recieving the application, an employee of the Foundation will contact the applicant, explains different circumstances, if needed asks for additional information, and then presents the application to the board, along with explanations.
  • The board will give their evaluation to every application, and if needed, will ask external experts for advice.
  • When discussing an application, the board always asks how the supporting funds would help the child and their family in the best possible way. We also look in to how the family does generally, and how does the local governement support them – if possible we share te expensses with the local government, who have a legal obligation to support their people.
  • In the interest of transparency of the Foundations actions, all donation decisions are public and readable on the Foundation’s homepage, granted the parents of the children agree to it, and are also mentioned in press releases, although in some delicate cases with no names.
  • We help ill children around Estonia (also in Tallinn), regardless if they are treated in Tartu University Clinic or not.
  • The board, along with the executive leadership work out the yearly directions – campaign themes, important propositions and fields, that the Foundation should contribute in, and gives successive advice for the better arrangement of operations.
  • Along with just giving donations, we also raise a discussion in society, of how to solve the problem.
  • Administrative expenses(salary of the three employees, including taxes; transport; communication costs etc.) are kept within 15% of the funds of a fiscal year, which is less than 1/6. It has been like this since the founding of the Foundation.
  • On better years we direct 20% of the funds to a reserve, so we could support people even in tougher times.
  • In the interest of total transparency, we have ordered a full audit to the yearly report of the Foundation, although according to the law, we could order only a simple auditory check.