World Vision Announces Hope & Love Measure, the First Validated Tool to Quantify How Children Experience God’s Love

ROME (May 25, 2026) – Christian humanitarian organization World Vision is marking more than 75 years of experience serving the most vulnerable populations around the world with the launch of the Measuring the Experience of God’s Love in Children (Hope & Love Measure) initiative. This is a first-of-its-kind, landmark global study designed to understand how children experience and understand the love of God.

The research was developed by World Vision in collaboration with theologians, psychologists, and researchers from Harvard University, Duke University, and Claremont Graduate University.

Interviews were conducted with 658 children across Albania, Bolivia, Iraq, Lesotho, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda. The results were then tested for reliability and cross-culture adaptability with over 4,600 children. The project establishes that children are not passive recipients of care, but active participants in their communities, and moral and spiritual beings whose capacity to feel loved and hopeful is foundational to their well-being.

“World Vision has known for decades that experiencing the love of Jesus makes a meaningful difference in the lives of the children, even in places where it’s toughest to be a child,” said Edgar Sandoval Sr., president and CEO of World Vision. “The Hope & Love Measure scientifically validates this belief, showing that as children experience God’s unconditional love through caring family and community relationships, there are measurable signs of hope, resilience, and long-term well-being. These signs can then help World Vision, schools, and church partners develop ways to increase that hope within vulnerable children through programs and services that ultimately strengthen families and communities.”

 

Pilot Study

As a Christian humanitarian organization focused on improving the lives of children, World Vision sought to fully understand how children experience and understand the love of God and specifically how that experience shapes hope. To hear directly from the children, World Vision organized a pilot study of 77 sponsored children in Bolivia and El Salvador. That study highlighted that families are the number one influence on children experiencing God’s love.

“What we heard was simple yet profound,” Sandoval Sr. explains. “The children said that when they feel loved by their parents, they feel the love of God.”

 

Scientifically validated measuring tool

Inspired by those findings, World Vision committed to an ambitious, more rigorous approach to measuring how children experience God’s love. The result was a scientifically validated tool, grounded in Christian theology that measures God’s love as a tangible fact through relationships, meaning and trust.

The tool assesses spiritual flourishing in children measured across six signs of hope, each of which corresponded to children’s spiritual well-being. Statistical testing returned near-perfect scores on the benchmarks researchers used to validate survey tools, proving the six signs of hope genuinely reflected how children think and feel.

The six signs of hope are:

• Compassion: A hopeful child is compassionate and aware of the needs of others, seeks to show kindness, and appreciates when people show compassion to them.
• Purpose: A hopeful child is expressive and an active agent in community life, constantly learning and pursuing their dreams and aspirations.
• Resilience: A hopeful child has both the inner strength and the capacity to draw strength from relationships, to face life challenges with courage. They learn and grow stronger from experience.
• Joy: A hopeful child feels joy in simple experiences and has a grateful heart, which allows them to celebrate the kindness of others.
• Wisdom: A hopeful child understands that they have value as a person, reflects on what they are learning through life experiences, sees the wisdom in demonstrating strong character, and tries to act accordingly.
• Personal Faith: A hopeful child trusts in God, has a relationship with Jesus, sees the work of the Holy Spirit, and finds meaning in spiritual practices and rituals.

“Children flourish when they experience love, belonging, and a community that is oriented towards what is transcendent and ultimately most important,” said Tyler VanderWeele, a John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, director of the Human Flourishing Program and co-director, Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality at Harvard University. “Investing in the hope and well-being of children is among the most important investments any society can make.”

In tandem with the launch of the Hope & Love Measure, Sandoval Sr. will be recognized by The Society for Global Flourishing as a Hero of Hope honoree at the Global Summit 2026: Fostering Hope for Children in Vatican City, taking place June 3-6, 2026.

Sandoval Sr. will be honored alongside H.E. Dr. Fatima Maada, the First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone and President of the Organization of African First Ladies for Development (OAFLAD), and the late Pope Francis, who will receive the posthumous Hero of Hope Award.

The event is presented by The Society for Global Flourishing, and supported by World Vision International, Harvard University, the Institute for Global Human Flourishing at Baylor University, Gallup, and a global coalition of leaders. It is designed to shape a blueprint for bringing love-fueled hope to children around the world.

“This Summit will bring together a unique group of world leaders in direct service, philanthropy, research, policy, faith, and more to develop a coherent framework for global collaboration that supports children’s experiences of greater love and hope in their daily lives, and to rigorously document the impact of these efforts,” explained Matthew T. Lee, Ph.D., associate director of the Institute for Global Human Flourishing at Baylor University. “The organizers have wisely chosen to issue a broad invitation to the world to join in this convening either in-person or virtually and help shape the nature of a multi-year initiative. I look forward to engaging with leaders about how their own vocation connects with a deeper shared purpose in the service of children throughout the world.”

World Vision’s participation in the Global Summit is rooted in the belief that when children are loved, they grow in hope. The organization’s work, and the Hope & Love Measure, are driven by the conviction that children must flourish even in the most fragile contexts, and this includes focusing on their social, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs. The organization’s research and continued work around the world reflect World Vision’s commitment to enabling children to grow with faith, resilience, and dignity.

For more information on the Hope & Love Measure, please visit: https://evidence.worldvision.org/research-and-resources/from-voices-to-vision-integrating-childrens-experiences-into-christian-development-theology/

For more information on the Global Summit 2026, please visit: https://globalsummit2026.vfairs.com/

 

About World Vision:
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. Motivated by our faith in Jesus Christ, we serve alongside the poor and oppressed as a demonstration of God’s unconditional love for all people. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, visit worldvision.org or follow on X @WorldVisionUSA.