Overview

  • Posted Opportunities 0
  • Founded Since 1850

Company Description

FOUNDER’S STORY

The story of One Day’s Wages

began with an extraordinary act of generosity

Thanks for reading this and giving us the opportunity to share a glimpse of who we are and our vision for One Day’s Wages.

We’re an “average family.” We live in Seattle. We fell in love and married in 1997 and have three kids. We’re neither poor nor rich. We’re simply a middle class family with privilege because we have so many opportunities that many in the world do not have.

We’ve always known of the disparity in the world; always knew the statistics.  In fact, we’ve memorized them and know the statistics by heart. But it was traveling to a few places and seeing with our own eyes the faces, stories, children, and families behind the numbers that disrupted our lives. It was seeing organizations and women, men, and children doing amazing and arduous work to uplift themselves out of poverty–if only given respect, dignity, and opportunities. It’s by far more complex but it’s also very simple:

It shouldn’t be this way and doesn’t have to be this way. We have the capacity to end extreme global poverty.

These are some of the reasons that compelled to make some life decisions and start One Day’s Wages. We made a decision to donate our 2009 income ($68,000) to the cause of fighting extreme global poverty. That decision was made through three years of saving, simplifying our lives, and selling off things we didn’t need. But we didn’t want to stop there. We also wanted to invite our family, friends, and the rest of the world to consider donating just their “one day’s wages” and be part of this global grassroots movement – and then to renew that pledge monthly, quarterly, or at least yearly.

While we’ve received our share of questions and criticisms, we decided to make our donation public, not because we wanted attention or pats on our back, but to let people know that

we are not asking others to do something we aren’t willing to do ourselves.

Money isn’t the solution–at least not by itself. The greatest resources are people. Our voices matter. Our donations do make an impact when invested properly through organizations that are transparent, efficient, and strategic in not creating dependency but rather, creating opportunities and empowerment. Our pledge is that 100% of all your donations (minus credit card fees) go directly to projects and partnerships doing amazing work to fight global poverty. 

Our goal is not to re-invent the wheel. There are some incredible organizations and individuals doing amazing work; our goal is to partner and collaborate. We are certainly not the first and thankfully, we are not the last to care about these issues.

Thanks for inspiring us and joining the movement of One Day’s Wages.

With gratitude,

Eugene & Minhee Cho

OUR VALUES

in everything we do

we embody these core values

At One Day’s Wages, our core values are guiding principles that inform our operations from our thorough grant vetting process, to how we post on social media, to how we engage with our partners on the ground. As a supporter of our grassroots movement, we believe you deserve to know what drives our work. And we invite you to consider these guiding principles in every simple act of generosity–at One Day’s Wages and beyond.

Localization

We believe that local leaders are the ones best equipped to identify needs and implement solutions within their communities. We choose to come alongside them so they are empowered to do their work.

IMPACT

We believe that your resources must be invested well. While we know development is messy, we care about measurable and sustainable impact.

MUTUALITY

Whether it’s donors, partners, volunteers, or people in the communities where we work: this is our collective story. We believe that our work is not just transactional but relational and we have much to both share and learn.

TRANSPARENCY

We care deeply about financial transparency and impact metrics. In other words, we have nothing to hide.

CONTACT US

Let’s get in touch!

We are so grateful that you are interested in the One Day’s Wages movement. Please reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback you may have. If your question is regarding our grants, be sure to visit this page prior to contacting us. Our Tax ID number is 26-2566653.

For general inquiries, you may contact our office at office@onedayswages.org or by calling 206-659-5859.

Our mailing address is:

One Day’s Wages
PO Box 17575
Seattle, WA 98127

 

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