Our Story
Alonyo Foundation was founded on a simple belief: the people closest to a problem are the ones best equipped to solve it. Here's who we are and where we're starting.
Our Mission
To improve the health, dignity, and quality of life of underserved individuals, families, and communities by increasing access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation resources, essential household assistance, education, humanitarian relief, and sustainable community-development opportunities.
Our Vision
A future in which underserved communities — especially in Omeo and other communities in South Sudan — have reliable access to clean water, basic necessities, education, healthier living conditions, and sustainable opportunities to thrive with dignity and greater self-reliance.
Our charitable purposes
As filed with the Iowa Secretary of State, our charitable purposes include, but are not limited to:
- ✅ Improving access to safe and clean water in underserved communities.
- ✅ Supporting water, sanitation, and hygiene programs and infrastructure.
- ✅ Providing essential household, food, hygiene, sanitary, and personal-care supplies to economically disadvantaged individuals and families.
- ✅ Supporting vulnerable children, women, elderly persons, families, and other individuals experiencing poverty or humanitarian hardship.
- ✅ Supporting community health, sanitation, nutrition, disease-prevention, maternal and child health, and wellness initiatives.
- ✅ Advancing education and educational opportunities for underserved individuals and communities.
- ✅ Supporting poverty-reduction, livelihood, food-security, and sustainable community-development initiatives.
- ✅ Providing humanitarian assistance and disaster or emergency relief.
- ✅ Working with nonprofit organizations, governmental institutions, community organizations, charitable foundations, international organizations, and other entities in furtherance of the Corporation's charitable purposes.
- ✅ Raising funds and receiving charitable contributions, grants, gifts, donations, bequests, property, and other resources to advance the Corporation's charitable purposes.
- ✅ Undertaking any other lawful charitable or educational activities permissible for an organization exempt from federal income taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
The Corporation may conduct charitable programs within the United States and internationally, including in Omeo and other underserved communities in South Sudan, provided that such activities further the Corporation's exempt charitable purposes.
A name born from hardship, chosen on purpose.
In Acholi tradition, "Alonyo" is a name given to a child born into difficult circumstances — a quiet, defiant statement that hard beginnings don't determine what comes next. It's a name that also resonates within our own leadership: our Board Chair, Joyce Alonyo Oringa, carries it herself.
It's also why our brand leans into green — the color of new growth pushing up through hard ground.
A foundation just getting started
Alonyo Foundation is a newly formed nonprofit — we'd rather be upfront about that than borrow a longer history we haven't earned yet. Here's where things stand.
Incorporated in Iowa
Alonyo Foundation is organized as an Iowa nonprofit corporation under Chapter 504 of the Iowa Code, pursuing recognition as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.
Founding board seated
A four-person Board of Directors has been established to govern the Foundation — the Corporation has no voting members, so oversight sits squarely with the board.
Mission & program framework defined
Our charitable purpose and six core program goals are set, focused on Omeo and other underserved communities in South Sudan.
Building partnerships & first programs
We're building relationships with local and international partners and putting financial controls and reporting practices in place before our first programs launch.
Our core values
Community-Led
Local leaders set priorities; we bring resources and technical support to plans they already own.
Dignity First
No poverty photography, no savior narratives — every story we tell centers the person living it.
Radical Transparency
Every dollar tracked, every report made public as we grow. Ask us anything about where funds go — we'll show you.
Sustainable Impact
We measure success by what keeps working after we've moved on to the next village.
Partnership, Not Charity
We fund and support local organizations rather than parachuting in as the sole solution.
Rooted Growth
Real change is slow and local. We invest for the decade, not the news cycle.
Board of Directors
Per Article VII of our Articles of Incorporation: "The Corporation shall have no voting members." All corporate powers are exercised by or under the authority of the Board of Directors.
Joyce Alonyo Oringa
Leads the Board of Directors and sets strategic direction for the Foundation.
Kira Lyons
Supports the Chair and helps guide the Foundation's governance.
Emma Oreste
Oversees the Foundation's finances and financial reporting.
Richard Oringa
Maintains the Foundation's records and official documentation.
Operational objectives
From our founding organizational planning summary — the concrete steps guiding us from incorporation to our first programs:
- ✅ Assess priority community needs and establish documented criteria for selecting beneficiaries and projects.
- ✅ Develop measurable clean-water, sanitation, hygiene, education, health, relief, and livelihood programs aligned with the Foundation's charitable purposes.
- ✅ Establish transparent financial controls, grant-management procedures, procurement standards, and donor reporting practices.
- ✅ Adopt Board-approved bylaws, a conflict-of-interest policy, record-retention practices, and procedures for approving compensation and related-party transactions.
- ✅ Build partnerships with qualified nonprofit, governmental, community, charitable, and international organizations while maintaining oversight of charitable funds and activities.
- ✅ Track outcomes using practical measures such as people served, households reached, water access created or improved, supplies distributed, educational participation, and program completion.
- ✅ Develop a diversified fundraising strategy using individual donations, grants, sponsorships, charitable gifts, and partnerships.
- ✅ Maintain compliance with Iowa nonprofit requirements and federal tax-exemption requirements applicable to a Section 501(c)(3) organization.