Looking back at our partnership with Beyond the Orphanage

While the world can feel like a dark place sometimes, there are also people doing incredible good out there—like the folks at Beyond the Orphanage (BTO). From 2014 onwards, this wonderful charity was our main charitable partner. They helped orphaned children, mainly across Nepal and Kenya, placing them in the care of carefully chosen guardians and providing them with access to education, training, and job prospects. In short, BTO allowed vulnerable young people to build a future from devastating circumstances.

Geoff Hucker founded the charity in 2007 and kept it running for a remarkable 17 years. From the very beginning, we were blown away by the impact that BTO was making, Geoff’s hands-on approach to leadership, and the organisation’s efficiency with money. Since Cliniko began, our policy has been to donate a percentage of our revenue to charity (first 1% and now 2%), and it was a no-brainer that we wanted to donate to BTO.

Earlier this year, BTO achieved what it set out to do; all its projects were in the hands of local communities—which was always the objective—and so it was time for the charity to start winding down. But the impact that BTO made was profound and they are leaving a legacy that will live on for a long time. During their years of operation alone, they helped over a thousand children, which is just the immediate impact. The flow-on effect to communities and subsequent generations is unquantifiable.

We recently spoke with Geoff, who shared some reflections about his years with BTO and what the charity has achieved.

What legacy is Beyond the Orphanage leaving behind?

Beyond the Orphanage was founded on the guiding principles of fostering independence—not dependence. One of our most meaningful legacies, built alongside our incredible long-term partner Cliniko, has been providing vulnerable young people with a pathway to a brighter future. Many of these children started life on the streets in some of the world’s poorest communities, facing daily hardships most of us could not imagine—even in our worst nightmares.

Through access to education, life skills, and consistent support, we've helped thousands of children lay the foundations for a safe, empowered, and independent life. Many are abandoned or double orphans, yet today they are thriving—standing strong thanks to the care and dedication of the community that surrounds them.

Just last week in Kenya, I met Josh—a powerful example of this legacy. Josh was abandoned at a young age and survived the harsh conditions of the Nairobi slums. Over a decade ago, through one of our partner programs, he was brought into care. He worked hard, completed school, went on to university, and is now employed at a leading African bank. He’s nearing the end of his MBA and preparing to begin a PhD.

What’s even more inspiring is that young people like Josh often return to give back. They go back to the very communities they came from—not because they have to, but because they want to. They become mentors, role models, and beacons of hope for the next generation.

Equally important is the legacy we've built with our partner programs in Kenya and Nepal. For years, we've worked closely with them to reduce their reliance on international donors—investing in their capacity to generate their own income and sustain their work independently. This focus on financial resilience has been a great success and ensures that their life-changing impact can continue, no matter what happens with global funding.

To me, this is the true legacy of Beyond the Orphanage: not just changing lives, but empowering communities to lead lasting transformation, from within.

What are you most proud of having achieved through BTO?

Wow, that’s a tough question. I’m 61 now, with plenty of grey hairs—and I often joke that each one has a story tied to founding and running Beyond the Orphanage. For over 25 years, I’ve worked with some of the world’s most at-risk children, and every grey hair has been worth it a thousand times over.

When I started Beyond the Orphanage, I faced a lot of criticism. People told me, “You’ll never make a difference,” “What’s the point?” “The problem is too big.” I heard it all. But I believed—and still do—that if we could help just one child, if we could give just one child a chance at a future they otherwise wouldn’t have, it would be worth it.

And we’ve done far more than that. Today, we’ve supported thousands of children, helping them build the bright, safe, and independent futures they deserve.

That, to me—and I know to our long-time partner Cliniko as well—is incredibly rewarding. It’s something I’ll always be proud of.

Our partnership with BTO

Over the course of our 11-year partnership, we donated just shy of $1.7 million AUD to support BTO’s projects. These funds went towards providing children with shelter, schooling, medical care, food, and education—the image below shows what the numbers for this looked like in 2023 alone.

Our founder, Joel, wrote a while ago about why he was so impressed with BTO: “I had the chance to spend a bit of time with Geoff Hucker, the founder of BTO. He is truly an amazing man. This is not a big organisation with lots of process and waste. They are a very small team and run it lean. Geoff himself is regularly visiting Ethiopia, Kenya and Nepal where they run programs and is very hands on in helping the children in need. It’s impossible not to have a very emotional response when hearing the stories he tells.”

Cliniko’s partnership with BTO also meant some truly heartwarming moments for our team. Rachel, our star videographer, was lucky enough to go to Nepal on two different occasions. The first time was to visit two incredible organisations: Star Children Kapsi Nepal (helping children affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic) and Sano Paila (rescuing trafficked children and trying to reunite them with their families). Rachel wrote about these experiences in detail, sharing some of the very moving encounters she had with the children that she met.

Rachel then returned to Pokhara in 2019 to help launch the EmPower laptop program, a collaboration between Cliniko and BTO. We donated laptops that could be used to teach the children about computer technology and acquire a skillset that would set them up for the future.

Rachel still reflects on her experiences witnessing BTO’s work firsthand as lifechanging.

“Working with Beyond the Orphanage and witnessing the EmPower project come to life over the last few years has been nothing short of inspiring. What began as an idea developed into a movement that has transformed people’s futures. It’s difficult to express how much it has changed me to watch these children grow and take charge of their lives. It has been encouraging to see their journey from adversity to hope, and the EmPower project has demonstrated to me what is possible when compassion and action are combined. Overall, working with Beyond the Orphanage has shown me the power of community. Every decision reflects trust, dignity, and the belief that every child deserves more than survival. They deserve to be empowered and thrive.”

Thank you to everyone who chooses Cliniko

Finally, a big thank you to our customers. The subscription fees that you pay are the reason that our donations are possible and enabled us to support BTO for so many years. We’re proud—with your help—to have been involved with this incredible charity and to have contributed in some way to what they achieved.

While we’re always striving at Cliniko to leave the world a slightly better place than we found it, there’s no doubt that the folks at BTO achieved this goal—they’re genuinely people who care, and the world is a bit brighter for work that they’ve done.