Marshall alum creates nonprofit, builds orphanage in the Philippines

When Joanna Maniti visited the Philippines on a high school mission trip with her church in 2016, she was devastated to see the horrible conditions facing unhoused and orphaned Filipino street children. She visited again in 2018 on another mission trip and volunteered at a children’s ministry on the island of Mindanao.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

She decided then that she needed to do more, and used her USC education to start her own nonprofit in 2020 to improve the lives of orphans in the Philippines. Maniti graduated in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. This fall, she celebrated the three-year anniversary of her nonprofit, Cherish Co..

Maniti’s experience in the Philippines encouraged her business studies and interest in nonprofit work.

“While I was applying for colleges and picking my major, I knew I wanted to major in business in order to learn more business strategy that I can implement into the nonprofit sphere, in the hopes of eventually starting my own nonprofit and working primarily with kids,” Maniti said. “I wanted to leverage my degree to elevate the lives of specifically orphans and foster care kids.”

According to the United Nations’ Children’s Rights & Emergency Relief Organization, there are about 1.8 million abandoned or neglected children in the Philippines. The children come from families experiencing poverty who cannot afford to care for them. Maniti is working to help combat this issue by taking in children and educating them in math and English through her orphanage and school.

With her Philippines mission trips serving as inspiration, Maniti founded Cherish as a senior at USC. She credits Kamy Akhavan, executive director of USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, for his instrumental help in her nonprofit journey.

Maniti took Akhavan’s class, “Doing Good: How to Start and Run a Successful Nonprofit Organization” in Fall 2020. The class exposes students to the process of creating a nonprofit from the ground up.

On the first day of class, Akhavan asked every student to give a one-minute pitch for a hypothetical nonprofit. Maniti said she gave her pitch on fundraising for orphanages and schools in the Philippines. She realized immediately this was something she could begin doing herself.

“It was kind of like a lightbulb moment where I had this reflection of, ‘Why haven’t I actually started this during my time at USC?’” Maniti said. “Right after the class, I just sent out a bunch of emails to old contacts of mine in the Philippines, and the first person who responded ended up being our first partnership within Cherish.”

Maniti reconnected with Pastor Ariel Bonte, a translator from her mission trip. She discovered his church had been looking for a ministry partner to help build an orphanage and school on the island of Mindanao. This project was exactly what Maniti had hoped to work on.

She founded Cherish Co. and filed it as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in September 2020. In October of that year, Cherish partnered with All the World Outreach, a Christian ministry. With All the World Outreach’s sponsorship and other donors, Cherish built an orphanage on the island of Mindanao in Ozamis, Philippines. The orphanage houses 34 children and includes four classrooms, two washing facilities, a dining room and a kitchen.

“I’m just thankful for Professor Kamy being willing to hear and offer that space in order to vocalize what we envisioned for the class,” Maniti said. “I feel like he didn’t waste any time with really being a resource and a help to everyone who wanted to start their own nonprofits.”