Giving Compass' Take:

• In an effort to improve the lives of orphans, JK Rowling's charity, Lumos works to raise awareness of poor treatment and change damaging policies.

• How does her approach differ from other efforts to help orphans? Policy change is slow, and difficult to fundraise for. How can other celebrities and wealthy individuals use their power to facilitate policy change?

• Upstream solutions like policy change are a form of impact-driven philanthropy. 

A mission to take children out of poorly-run orphanages could be something from a Harry Potter plot. But that is the goal of a charity founded by JK Rowling.

The charity, Lumos, works with governments in countries like Moldova and Ukraine to reform their education and child protection systems.

But it is a tale of steady bureaucratic reform rather than daring adventure.

Lumos, which the Potter author founded after reading an article about children being kept in caged beds in an orphanage, is on a mission to end the placing of children in poor-quality institutions by 2050.

It wants people in Europe and the US to think twice about sponsoring or supporting orphanages in other countries, unless they can be sure of what is being provided.

It wants to make a distinction between "high-quality residential care" and institutions where children are "arbitrarily separated from their parents" and where they might be isolated from other schoolchildren and the wider community.

At least eight million children live in orphanages and residential institutions, yet more than 80% are not actually orphans, says the charity.

One of Lumos's first successes was to help to take children out of institutions in Moldova by reforming the country's education system to make it more inclusive.

Read the full article on Lumos by Matt Pickles at BBC.