About Us

What is Ties to the World?

Ties to the World (“TTTW”) is a 501 (c)(3) not for profit organization founded in Northern California, by Ibis Schlesinger in November 2006.  Our goal is to promote self-sustainable orphanages in Latin America and worldwide thus breaking the cycle of their dependence on charity.

Our Vision

Ties to the World wants abandoned children to have the tools they need to succeed as adults.  We want to help orphaned and disadvantaged youth develop the academic, business, and interpersonal skills necessary to support themselves and their future families in their home countries.

Our Approach

TTTW’s strategy is bring together business and community leaders, service groups and philanthropic individuals, university students and young adults, foundations and investors from both the US and the host countries to work in partnership to discover and launch social-entrepreneurial ventures large enough to enable the orphanages to become self-sustaining.

How will we achieve self sustainability for the orphanages we work with?

We have designed to business models that will allow us to achieve our goals:

Art to the World and Service to the World

Art to the World

In our pilot project, both the children of the Hogar San Francisco Xavier and local artists from Guatemala are joined to create art.

Throughout artistic education we look to boost the children's creative expression as well as to produce artwork that will inspire a product line of cards, posters and notebooks that will be for sale.

The proceeds of the sales of both the product line and the original artwork will finance the Hogar's needs and will help the kid's to continue their education and follow their dreams.

Service to the World

Service to the World gives students around the world, the possibility of traveling to Guatemala to learn about self-sustainability, marketing and business modeling. We give them the oportunity to inmerse themselves in the guatemalan culture, teach the children from the orphanage different disciplines and have fun with them!

The proceeds made from these travel packages will finance Ties to the World to continue working on achieving our goals and supporting our cause.

Our most inmediate trip will take place in Spring Break (March 7th - 15th 2009), registrations are still open.

Our next trip will be during the Summer and will be posted very soon!

For general information about Ties to the World contact:

University Chapters: