Josephine-Care-Illustration

Josephine's Secrets to Sweet Success

How many 11-year-old business owners do you know? 

Josephine was only 11 when she started Cookies 4 Compassion. Now 13, Josephine balances school and sports with running a cookie business. And the coolest part? She gives some of the money she earns to her family’s sponsored children!  

“I wanted to help donate to the [sponsored] kids we already had,” Josephine says. Since she enjoyed baking, it seemed like the perfect way to raise money for a cause she cares about. 

To start her helpful business, Josephine looked for cookie recipes, tested them and changed them up so they were her own. Next, her parents loaned her money to buy ingredients and supplies to package the cookies. Then she made fliers that said how buying her cookies ($15 a dozen) helps support Compassion kids. After customers placed orders, Josephine baked, packaged and delivered the cookies.

Over two years, Josephine has sold 130 dozen cookies. She was making enough money that her family decided they could sponsor a fourth child! 

She makes four main kinds of cookies: sugar, chocolate chip and M&M®, oatmeal raisin and fudgy chocolate brownie. Her favorite ones to make are the sugar cookies because she likes decorating them.

With the money from every order, Josephine pays off what she spent on ingredients and supplies, puts $5 toward her family’s sponsorships and puts the rest back into her business so she can keep doing it all.

So now you know HOW Josephine runs her business. But WHY does she do it? Why doesn’t she just spend all the money on things she wants?

“I don’t need to keep everything for myself, and there are kids around the world who could use it much more,” she says.

Josephine says her parents have set a good example for her by sponsoring children through Compassion. “We’ve always had sponsored kids since as long as I can remember. It kind of stuck with me all these years that giving is better than receiving.”

Josephine has advice for kids who want to raise money for kids in poverty: 

"You're never too young to do anything. ... There are always people out there willing to help you, and you can do it!"