The end of poverty begins with green.
For the last several years, thousands of families in Unbound’s programs across three regions of the world have consistently “gone green” with the help of a self-evaluation tool called Unbound’s Goal Orientation powered by Poverty Stoplight.
Now, with the launch of Unbound’s new “My Impact” Poverty Stoplight dashboard, sponsors have a front row seat to see how families are using their sponsorship benefits to achieve the goals that are helping them eliminate poverty from their lives step by step.
In mid-May, Unbound rolled out the new technology to the online accounts of more than 199,500 sponsors worldwide. Inside the dashboard, sponsors will find progress reports on the goals being achieved by families in communities where they have a sponsored friend.
The Poverty Stoplight “My Impact” dashboard has been almost a year in the making. It is a significant milestone reached in the organization’s promise to sponsors to offer practical ways for them to make a personal and direct impact in the lives of families living in poverty.
May 19, 2026 | Poverty Stoplight
Going green: New Poverty Stoplight dashboard shows how families are eliminating poverty
Community progress reports now available for sponsors
By Kati Burns Mallows
Families chart progress using Poverty Stoplight
Poverty Stoplight is a mobile technology and social innovation platform developed by Fundación Paraguaya that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty.
Unbound has been partnering with Fundación Paraguaya since 2020 and began piloting Poverty Stoplight in its programs in 2021. Unbound is currently the largest implementor of the Poverty Stoplight methodology worldwide, with 250,000-plus active participants.
The tool includes a survey that families use to take actions that help them overcome their challenges related to poverty. By choosing indicators in red (extreme poverty), yellow (poverty) or green (no poverty) under areas for housing, health or income, among others, they gain a better awareness of their situations, set clear goals and take steps to achieve those goals.
Goal orientation has long been a priority under Unbound’s approach to eliminating poverty. However, according to President and CEO Ashley Hufft, Unbound had been missing a system that could aggregate the goals of such a large number of families without sacrificing each family’s autonomy and control over their own journey.
“We found that system with Poverty Stoplight,” Hufft said. “This has been a game changer in our mission to support families and communities on their self-directed paths out of poverty, as it requires that those experiencing poverty be the ones to define it and plan solutions themselves.
“In that respect, it deeply honors the dignity of all sponsored friends and their families.”
Since Poverty Stoplight’s implementation, families have changed over 1.2 million poverty indicators to green, making the fastest improvements in the areas of job access, savings and access to health services.
Local Unbound program teams guide families through the Poverty Stoplight self-evaluation, the results of which show families their areas of need in red, yellow and green indicators. Afterward, families create a “lifemap” of their priorities and plans to use as a guide as they work toward reaching their goals.
'My Impact' dashboard available to sponsors
Unbound sponsors can access the Poverty Stoplight impact report dashboard by logging into their sponsor account, choosing the “My Impact” link in the left-hand sidebar and then clicking on the “Poverty Stoplight” tab that appears at the top of the screen.
Sponsors with multiple sponsorships will have the option to filter through the different community progress reports based on where their sponsored friends live. Currently, there are community progress reports available for 25 of the 30 program sites Unbound serves around the world; those not currently available will be once data collection is completed.
Along with community progress reports, the Poverty Stoplight dashboard contains learning resources for sponsors who want to more fully understand how Unbound’s Goal Orientation powered by Poverty Stoplight works.
“With this new report, we hope to provide you more insight into the complex, multidimensional nature of poverty experienced by your sponsored friend’s community, what areas are being prioritized, where progress is occurring and the challenges that are being faced,” Hufft said.
To begin with, data in the Poverty Stoplight dashboard will be updated on an annual basis, as reports are available from each community.
“We hope the Poverty Stoplight dashboard sparks a desire in you to want to learn more and, perhaps, in your next letter to your sponsored friend, ask them about the goals they’ve prioritized,” Hufft said. “We also encourage you to give us your feedback on the dashboard, so we can continue to improve upon it.”
Besides the Poverty Stoplight dashboard, the “My Impact” section also includes a tab for Unbound Agents of Change, so that donors who have funded these community development initiatives can see their progress and access information about other available initiatives that need support.
Both the Poverty Stoplight and Agents of Change dashboards are just a few of the ways Unbound is working to better personalize the online experience for supporters and be more transparent about the ways in which their support is helping families eliminate poverty from their lives.
With this new report, we hope to provide you more insight into the complex, multidimensional nature of poverty experienced by your sponsored friend’s community, what areas are being prioritized, where progress is occurring and the challenges that are being faced.
— Ashley Hufft, Unbound President and CEO
A family in Quezon in the Philippines proudly holds their Poverty Stoplight “lifemaps” created from surveys they’ve taken over the course of three to four years, showing their progress from red (extreme poverty) and yellow (poverty) indicators to green (no poverty). Pictured left to right, mother May, sponsored youth Quenny (holding the most recent survey) and father Arwin.
Gertrude, mother of sponsored child Clayton in Kenya, realized after taking the Poverty Stoplight survey that she needed to establish a more sustainable source of income beyond her phone trading business to eliminate poverty from her family. She began farming and opened a secondhand clothing store, which has improved her household stability, and she is now working toward owning her own home.