How do I profit from running an orphanage?

Anons, long story short, we're playing a pretty long-running campaign, that is supposed to last at least twenty in-game years. The small town in which our characters are living has a shitload of orphans and homeless children, so I've had a bright idea of building an orphanage, so they won't starve and freeze to death come winter.
This is, however, a huge investment, and feeding and cloting them all will be an even bigger one. I can't just build this shit out of kindness of my heart.
How do I make money on it?

Other urls found in this thread:

boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

Use the children as cheap labor.

Orphanage by day, Brothel by night,

This is how it worked in the old days.

And when they get old enough, sell them to the army.

IRL orphanages are supported by the government and/or charity. IRL lots of hoard adopters claim charity claiming to be orphanages when there're really assholes. Consider:
-manual laybor
-drug peddling
-sex trafficking
-blood and organ donation

I'll answer your second question first.

>How do I make money on it?
The whole point of a business is you find a problem, and then solve the problem. For money.

If a problem doesn't exist, you create a problem, then solve the problem. For money.

>How do I profit from running an orphanage?
The whole point of using orphan labor for things is that they have no place to go, and nobody who keeps an eye on them or misses them if they disappear. Which means you have a whole spectrum of things open up for you from slightly distasteful and unpleasant, to grim and realistic, to full on edgelord stuff depending on the mechanics of your setting.

If you go on the nicer side of the spectrum, occasionally rich folk or orphans who make something of themselves will donate money towards an orphanage. Make contacts and curry favors. If your orphanage is big enough, make a small choir out of those who can sing. That always attracts positive attention.

On the less distasteful stuff, just use them to make textiles (which is often dull and repetitive work, but straightforward enough that even a child could do it), or convert simple raw goods like furs, hides, and skins, into simple clothing products. Tanneries and feltmakers aren't fun or pleasant, but there's always a demand.

Using them for anything dangerous or unpleasant has to be the go to though to really take advantage of the benefits.
The only thing better than orphan labor is convict labor, but those you have to have a whole workforce just guarding them.

Maybe they mix gunpowder precursors, which involve a lot of urine or shit, and the final product has a chance to explode sometime in production so no sane man would work on it.

Maybe you use them for magical experiments. Forbidden lore involving the construction of chimaeric beings.

Maybe you use them as magical/alchemical drug fabricators/test dummies.

The only real limits are your imagination.

Use them a spies. Have that orphanage as a spy network HQ. Sell the intelligence you get or blackmail those who you got intel on.

If you want it nice but still returning power and profit to you, then use your haul from adventuring/PC wealth to set up the orphans in business and office as they age. Every orphan lends at favorable rates and helps out every other orphan, and they all pay dues to the orphanage for that privilege. Assuming you do pay to get them apprenticeships, positions and businesses you'll end up with a network of contacts, officials and merchants/craftsmen that you can tap, who'll mostly be loyal to you for both personal and professional reasons.

(Also they won't be torn between established family or guild networks and you, because duh orphans).

I mean, theoretically, you could give them all cleric training, having them cure people for a cost.

I think this is just bait for pedo replies.

Maybe, but we can do better than those replies.

Tax fraud and money laundering. The orphanage acts as a front for people to donate money to. However, it only buys from businesses that are fronts for or controlled by local crime syndicates. You can have even still have it involved or under the name of an official religious institution, but you have to blackmail or otherwise persuade the clergy in charge to do your bidding.

Combine
with
Use the children as beggars on the street. And spies. They're eyes and ears for a thieving guild or for plain old information brokering.

Especially promising candidates can be retained for being brought into the organization in a fuller capacity as they grow into it.

The same way how orphanages were run for ages:
Train kids in some trade. Dunno, it was usually some precission work and complex artisan skill that takes ages to master, but it's not a problem if you are starting with kids. It provides great money for basically keeping the kids fed.

Also, works twice as good if you won't treat the kids as slaves and treat them with at least some affection.

If you wanna run an orphanage for money then you're doing it wrong asshat.

All business is run for money, user.

As this user pointed out, you can have both. And in the end the kids have a steady trade in their hand.
Things only start to get wonky if you have industrial era setting, then this no longer applies.

>Orphanage
>Business
Not him, but pick one.

This is most certainly not how they worked. I'm sure its how some worked but only rare instances.

Depending on how old your kids are you can hire people to educate them, the more food the orphanage can produce alone the less your costs to feed them will be. Carpentry, animal husbandry and farming should be the major skills for boys. sewing, cooking, preserving food, looking after the younger children should be tasks the girls should learn.


Reminder that children in the ancient and medieval world would begin farm work and manual labour as early as possible, they weren't seen as people as much as they were small people.


Your ultimate goal shouldn't be feeding them off your expense but to teach them skills so they they can survive alone with and help this small town grow. If each of your boys knows how to make a home and farm the land while tending to a small herd of animals he can easily settle the area near the town.

Your profits won't come as easily but the more food your town produces the more money you make and men you can support. You can basically rise to the position of local nobility this way assuming you're able to protect these new farmsteads.

This. No need to be an asshole to the kids; you simply run a normal orphanage that gets lots of donations.

Much was proposed already, but it depends on historical time you play.
Forex nowadays you could easier get charities and donations, there's Red Cross, UNICEF etc.
In medieval ages church may help, you could find patrons, nearby villages...
Children can do easy chores (like feedin chickens, milking goats, making thread) to keep themselves feed and cloothed, if poorly.
During Industrial Revolution there was need for small workers in industries, textile mostly.
Or get child of some noble, who pays handsomely to rise him in orphanage because of reasons...
Or take children born instead aborted from noble girls... at high price.
Paid adoptions.
I must say you will not profit from orphanage unless you exploit children; if on good side maybe train them in useful skills, in long term keep in contact, and at some point you could get own army.

First of all you should be getting some type of funding from either the local government/nobility or religious order. You can do this via some good diplomacy. It may come with some caveats like the orphanage is dedicated to a certain god, or has a portrait of Lord Duke Local Noble the 12th.

Additionally they source of this charitable funding will provide tons of plot development.

Now if the source of charitable funding comes from the government it depends on the setting. A decentralized kingdom/empire won't be giving a lot. So you'll still need to do other stuff for money. A tyrannical kingdom/empire may not provide any funding or may provide all required but either way it will come with bad strings attached.

Funding from local nobles is easiest. Find the richest and second most important noble in the local area and ask them for funding. In return for them providing some foodstuffs and enough funding (which should not be much) to pay the staff and one time investment to build the place you will need to do stuff to reflect their charity. Name the orphanage after the noble, and promise the noble that his/her house will have free pick of any of the orphans for their purposes (i.e. servants, maids, soldiers, etc.) However this will require a real smooth talker to get done right.

Charitable funding by religious groups is solid but may be rigorous. You need to identify a suitable group in the area that has the ability to provide funding. funding from them means you probably will need to be schooled in that religion as well so you can keep them happy. This also may come with the benefit of education for the orphans courtesy of any members of said religion. However any illicit, immoral, or stuff you want to do that does gel with said religion must be done on the down low.

Next part for making money is actually using the children

There are a number of immoral or moral ways to do it.

One of the best ways to do it is via apprenticeship. You loan out the kids for child labor with local craftsmen and the low wages go directly to the orphanage while the orphan learns valuable skills. Of course these could be short term rotating apprenticeships i.e. all kids rotate and try everything and then when the kids get older then they can go for a serious apprenticeship. Additionally I'd recommend teaching the kids how to read.

Finally use the orphanage for business purposes too. Open up a bakery, or a mending shop. Don't make it to ambitious that it will sour local crafters but its simple stuff.

Child Labor
Child Spies
Child Whores

Whorephanage Guild

And then blackmail the VIPs who used their 'services.'

really, really boring but mechanical stuff.

cheap textiles
human calculators
book copiers
cheap laundry
cleaners
manual labor

find which kid suits what, and get them started. If anyone gets uppity with creativity, encourage them to go to you, whereupon you whoop their ass with a test that'll discourage any other kid. If they pass, well shit you got someone actually useful, that's valuable in and of itself.

This And remember, orphans are a renewable resource. If you find you're running low on them, you can always go out and make more.

>making thread

But can they do better than shitpost?

Get funded by the state, then do the absolute minimum required.

Pocket the difference.

>public schools get 10k per student per year

charge them rent.

no need to invest in any machinery or additional space for activities and, best of all, total disconnection from whatever ethically or morally things they have to do to come up with said rent.

We use our orphanage in game as a front for a large scale pickpocketing operation, which will eventually transform into raising child assassins cult

You love your orphans and find unvaluable joy in raising them OP.

These are the best answers. A possible bonus would be, if your setting has magic and you are capable, teaching them what you can. Make them clerics and wizards if they can't be good townsfolk or have an aptitude for magic.

>teach kids to steal shiny things
>teach kids to run fast
>kids get caught guards bring them to you
>promise to discipline them
>train them better to not get caught

Has the printing press been invented yet?

If not Illuminated Manuscripts. It might take a few months to do one properly but if you have a few dozen literate kids making at least one a year then you should be at least paying the rent.

>Tax fraud and money laundering.
boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html
>S: I don't know any ex-yakuza running orphanages.
>K: There was one a few years ago. A good guy.
>M: You sure it wasn't just a tax shelter?
>K: Sure it was a tax shelter but he ran it like a legitimate thing. You know.

Many medieval public schools were founded by a rich as charity, but the pupils had to says prayers for the founder and their family a few times a day - that could be a reason for people to sponsor you.

You act as a charity, oldest racket there is, you take cash from well meaning donors, meanwhile you use the kids as a cheap labour source. If you want to be less abusive you could teach the kids literacy and manners, sell them to the church, or give them as wives/mistresses/ladies in waiting to wealthy donors. It's like rearing slaves but technically legal since you're not selling them, people just happen to give you donations after they adopt.

it's a long con but lt'll give you massive political power and a fuck load of money plus no one can stop you, you're a frigging saint.

The staff?
All Succubi.
All of them.
Enjoy the supply of Blackguards, Necromancers and other evil centric classes ridden with Oedipus complexes. badGood behavior for boys is rewarded with /ss/ and the girls get a chance to see Graz'zt, who will make them women when they're 16, though you know him, he's not going to be picky.

Post useful [s]minions[/s] orphans

campaign for donation with nobles, merchants and good aligned temples.

Use a fraction of them for the children and pocket the rest.

If you want to by really sly about it, use all the donation for the orphans and wildly publicise it. Except all the goods are purchased ad huge markups either from stores you own or from complacent merchants that give you a generous cut.