Children of the Earth
The Children of the Earth is an umbrella charity organisation set up by the very rich philanthropist Renée Saint-Marques, who made her fortune from several dot-com businesses in electronics and biotechnology.
Through various divisions it provides charity services to the homeless, medical procedures for the poor, scholarships for underprivileged children and various other projects “for the betterment of mankind”. It partners closely with various government bureaucracies and private businesses to deliver its diverse services.
The Public Facade
Renée Saint-Marques is a wealthy businesswoman turned philanthropist. She made her fortune during the dot-com boom after dropping out of medical school to found a business in cutting edge electronics and biotechnology. As a university student she had gone overseas several times to help organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and UNICEF, and she has retained her philanthropist ideals. As her fortune started to grow, Renée started writing regular cheques to local charities.
Cashing in a large amount of her investments in late 1999 and early 2000, she was able to establish a charity fund, initially called the Saint-Marques Foundation, and was able to donate her monthly earnings to charity. Due to lucky timing this also meant she was able to avoid the dot-com crash.
Despite Renée’s immense wealth, the charity was relatively unknown until in 2006 it changed its name to Children of the Earth and started directly becoming involved in feeding the homeless and providing care for the needy, rather than simply being a passive donator.
Over time it expanded into diverse activities such as research into socially beneficial technologies such as renewable energy, funding trips for volunteers to help in third world countries, grants paying for difficult life changing surgery for those in need, and academic scholarships for underprivileged children, as well as diverse other projects “for the betterment of mankind”.
Whilst a student, Renée was also involved in the Skeptics Society and had studied some subjects under Michael Hawker. Her organisation was one of the initial fund raisers who backed the Foundation for Rational Inquiry when it was set up in 2008. Also recently the group has also started funding a secular provider of student welfare councillor and psychologist services under the NSCSWPG as an alternative to religious chaplains.
Through its various activities the organisation has cultivated many alliances within different levels of government, often partnering to deliver services. Renée still also has many business contacts that she both procures donations from, as well as working with commercial partners is delivery and research. The organisation also has regular fundraising dinners attended by wealthy patrons.
Although completely secular, the prospectus for the Children now (since the name change) includes some guiding principles that correlate back to the ancient alchemical elements. For example it talks about the earth being one nation, and that all of humanity deserves to share the benefits of the modern world. It goes on to state one of the goals of the Children of the Earth is to lead this push and it urges all of humanity to follow.