As a sponsor since 2009, nothing has inspired my involvement with Compassion quite like OurCompassion has.
When I decided to sponsor my first little girl in Ghana, I found myself hungry for more information. I wanted to know more about Compassion, more about the benefits of sponsorship, and more about Ghana.
I spent quite a bit of time looking at compassion.com, which was helpful, but I found what I most needed – the perspective of other sponsors – in OurCompassion.
OurCompassion Offers Information
In the Gallery section of OurCompassion, sponsors share photos and videos of their trips to visit their children. For those of us who haven’t been able to meet our children, these entries give us an idea of what the various areas and child development centers look like.
The Gallery also has photos of completed crafts and projects that sponsors have made for their children. Some sponsors post photos they have received after sending financial gifts, giving us all a better idea of just how far a monetary gift can go.
OurCompassion gives us the ability to connect with like-minded sponsors by joining Groups. There are hundreds of groups to choose from, among them are ones for those sponsoring in particular countries, for sponsors of older children, the Compassion Bloggers group and, of course, the group for the monthly letter-writing night.
Another wonderful feature, the recently created child development center groups, allow you to connect and share information and pictures with others who sponsor children in the same child development center.
There is a Google map of the area, which allows you to zoom in to look at the environment and buildings in the neighborhood. In some cases you can look close enough to see walking paths!
Many child center groups also have letters from the pastor that you can read to get a better sense of the work being done and the needs within your sponsored child’s community.
OurCompassion Offers Inspiration
Members can post questions, ideas, prayer requests and discussion topics in the Journals area. By perusing the posts, you will come across many great ideas from other sponsors.
Whether it be someone sharing ways that they have been able to afford more sponsorships or another showing pictures of a project or craft created to send to a sponsored child, there are always interesting new ideas to be found. The enthusiasm is contagious!
“This site has helped me with ideas to write to my kids. It has shown me the importance of writing often and sending little treats.
“Mostly this site helps me remember how others live. I am inspired daily by the people on this site.
“I have read about people giving up things, stepping out in amazing faith, and clinging to God’s promises of provision to sponsor more children. I have seen pictures, read stories, and prayed for people about their travels to these countries.
“My life is changed because of this site. I see ‘stuff” differently. I spend my money differently and I am so thankful God lead me here!” – Rachel K.
“I have been sponsoring only since last October and was excited about it and enjoyed writing and so looked forward to hearing from my little girl, but it’s such a long time in between!
“I stumbled on OurCompassion a couple weeks ago, and it has changed me as a sponsor. Something in me is honestly different! Sponsoring has become REAL now!
“I only wrote when she wrote and I didn’t realize just how much our letters mean to them. It never dawned on me that I could write more often.
“Through reading all the journals we all post and through pictures I see, I realize now just how desperately poor these kids are, and even though I live a pretty simple lifestyle I have so much more. Surely there are some things I can let go of so I can help another child!
“I have and I now sponsor two more children since belonging to OC. The Lord has blessed me as I ‘follow Him’ in caring for our children and the poor. Everyone on OC has been a huge inspiration to me.” – Patty
OurCompassion Offers Encouragement
Sometimes sponsorship can be discouraging. Letters from our children come slower than we’d like or they lack details. Or maybe some of life’s challenges weigh heavy upon us.
OurCompassion is a family that pulls together to offer support and comfort when needed. As a fellowship of people who share the same faith, we pray for unsponsored and sponsored children in the program as well as one another when needed.
One diligent member named Debbie posts a daily prayer list of unsponsored children who are celebrating birthdays, making it easy for us to go through and lift up each child to specifically pray for them on their special day.
While OurCompassion has a lot to offer us, there are some challenges to using it. It can initially be difficult to navigate and figure out how and where to post.
The Journals area can be found by clicking the Community tab along the top of the page and then clicking the link that says Journals.
You can start a new Journal discussion or introduce yourself by clicking the small blue square with a pencil that can be found on the right hand side of the page.
If you’re looking for the Groups, just click the “Connect” tab and then the link that says “Find Groups.” You can scroll through the various Groups, search for one on a topic you’re interested in or even start one of your own.
The Child Development Center pages can be found by looking at your own profile and scrolling down until you see the box titled “My Child Center Groups.”
To make sure that your posts can be seen by others, click the green “Edit Profile” button and then click the “Privacy and Notifications” tab. Make sure that the Privacy Settings menu is set to “All Community.”
If you are concerned about privacy you can always change your profile so that it doesn’t show your last name or location.
So, while the initial navigation of OurCompassion may be a bit difficult, I definitely think it’s worth your time to overcome. Not only will you find information, inspiration and encouragement, chances are you will also find a renewed enthusiasm as a sponsor.
The OC community is always ready to welcome new members, so take a few minutes today to register and look around.
Be sure that you stop by the Journals to introduce yourself!
OurCompassion helped me so much after we sponsored our first kids 2 years ago. I found ideas for letter-writing, asked some questions, got reminders about planning head for holidays & birthdays, made some great new friends. I would have felt so isolated as a sponsor without OC. Thanks for this great website, Compassion!
Looks like everything about OC has been said in this blog. Just want to say, you need to join us! I am on there a few times a day, and it’s the greatest place for a sponsor to be!
Are the child center pages updated by the staff of the centers or by sponsors? I have four sponsored children and none of their development center pages has any information.
They are updated by both staff and sponsors. Since this is an online community the desire is to have the community share their content but the ministry will upload content as well.
I have to agree that by now, at the very least, there should be pastor letters on each child center page. The site has been up for quite some time and two of my three children’s pages don’t have pastor letters.
Hi Lisa, I know that the pastor letters are a valued part of the child center pages but we unfortunately don’t have a letter for each center yet because this is the first year that we started collecting them. If there is no pastor letter on center page, then there won’t be one until we collect the next round of letters (this time, from almost every center) and those will be ready early next year. I am sorry if this is causing frustration but we are working on a consistent schedule so that everyone will get the chance to enjoy those letters. Please hang in there until we collect more letters. Thank you
No problem. It’s nice to know the timetable. So you’re saying early-2012?
Yes, early 2012. We don’t have an exact date but it will be around that time!
I would like to clarify the pastor letter process: as previously stated, we are starting to collect letters once a year, however it is actually a 3rd party letter not always a ‘pastor letter’.
Field countries will provide an annual third party letter written by the Implementing Church Partner (ICP) Pastor, Partnership Facilitator, Project Director or Country Director. Every other year, the pastor of the church/project will write a letter. These letters will give you a more detailed picture of the project context.
The next round of letters is scheduled to be available early 2012 but there is no specific date yet. Also we are expecting to receive letters from about 75% of our projects so I don’t want to give the wrong impression that every child center page will have a letter next year. We will continue to work hard to get as much information as possible to you. Please let us know if you have additional questions and thank you for understanding.
They pretty much are updated by a combination of the sponsors in those centers, who get involved or by some automated updates, like a letter from the pastor or so. You can write updates and share photos, if you have any. Many people in the centers wouldn’t even know how to write in English to even do an update. And they don’t really know that OurCompassion exists.
Hi Kees, just to clarify: the center pages are not maintained by the field staff so they wouldn’t be posting anything. It is really a platform for sponsors to connect with one another and share stories and pictures. Thanks for being an active part of OurCompassion.
I love the OC site! We meet a sponsored child on a recent trip to Guatemala, whose sponsor had been scheduled to come, but had fallen ill. I found him on the OC site and was able to share pics and the story of our home visit. How encouraging it was to connect with this wonderful sponsor!
That is a great story-thanks for sharing
I have found the child development center page to be a little frustrating because mine has no info on it either. There is no pastor letter and most of the time I can not even get the page to finish loading. I love compassion and am so excited to learn more about my child that I cant help but to feel dissappointed. However, I would still be a part of this ministry even if we received no info at all so I am thankful for the things that are provided for us as sponsors. The letter writing templates are wonderful!
Hi Beth, just like Jacquie mentioned earlier, this is a site that has Compassion content as well as member content on it. Some centers unfortunately don’t have a lot of pictures but this should improve as we have more people traveling to different places and sharing their stories online. I know I personally looked for a lot of the center pictures and for some, Compassion doesn’t have much or any content yet. So as we collect the next round of letters and continuously look for more pictures, I hope that your center will have more information on it soon. And as far as the speed goes, we are also working on improving that as well. We have added a lot of new features over the last few months and continue to look for ways to improve the site so I appreciate your feedback and want to encourage you to check back for updates. Thanks!
The pages do not load correctly if you are using Internet Explorer as your browser. There might be pastor letters, etc, there and you will not be able to see them. This is especially true for IE8. If you use Google Chrome, for example, you will be able to have it load correctly, and all pics should show. Also, make sure you are viewing the page as a sponsor, and not as a guest (upper right hand corner).
Also these pages are such a very small part of OC. OC is about community. There is so much there on the journals and groups that will keep you busy for a few years.
I totally agree with Debbie. There is so much to OurCompassion and the focus of the site is really around a great sense of community! Have a look yourself and come say hi, here is a link to my profile: http://ourcompassion.org/?p=profile
The CDC pages depend on members posting there and sharing information and pictures! Any little bits that you can share from your letters will help to fill in the information about the area!
I was part of the pilot group for OC and have loved it from it’s very humble beginnings. It keeps getting better and better. I love all the new information and interaction it provides. The team that make it all happen should be thanked, congratulated and given much cake
I’ll never forget when one of my new OC friends found me on Facebook!
Yes, the staff doesn’t even know about OurCompassion. Only a few do. I’ve shown OurCompassion to some children and staff in the centers and they are always very excited to see it. But it’s really is set up for sponsors to connect. Moreover, most of the centers don’t have someone, who speaks English to even update their group, if they wanted to….
As a Compassion field office staff we can learn lessons from the sponsors sharing.I am very fortunate to get this opportunity to read the feelings,comments and observations experiencing by our honorable sponsors.
What a nice comment. Thank you! We sponsors so appreciate everything you do — and we pray for you everyday in our household. God Bless!
My students have recently begun asking me of ways that they can reach out and help the less fortunate. I’ve asked them to give me some time to gather together some options, and I’m happy to say that OurCompassion is now at the top of the list. What an amazing program! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about it and for exposing me to the wondering things that OurCompassion does.
I just discovered OC last week and love it! There is so much wonderful information and lovely people. Thanks OC!