Giving a Gift to the Child You Sponsor: The Whys, Whats and Hows
You have a few different options for sending a monetary gift. Each year, you can send $10 to $50 as a birthday gift, $10 to $50 as a general gift, and $25 to $1,000 as a family gift. You also have the option of donating any amount, we typically suggest $20, to the Christmas Gift Program on your sponsored child’s behalf.
Your Sponsored Child’s Photo: What Does It Tell You?
I’ve taken many calls from sponsors about the pictures of the children they sponsor. “Why is he wearing such nice clothing?” “Why is she not smiling?” “His newest picture doesn’t look like the boy I sponsored. Why?”
The Day I Signed up to be a Compassion Sponsor
I had heard that cry only twice in my life, but the sound is burned into my memory. This cry … this lament … pierced my soul. Instinctively, I understood an emotion so great, I knew no words existed to express it.
It was 2009. Atlanta. I was attending a very hip conference held in a ginormous arena with a bijillion other people. It was one of those gatherings you attend to get inspired and hear lots of interesting lectures from a variety of people.
Some speakers hawk their books; some, with all the cunning of a very successful salesman, give you advice on managing finances; many speakers offer instructions on how to live a better life. It is an energetic time with all the creative, special effects of a music concert. Sometimes they even use a smoke machine and have jugglers.
This segment was wedged between a couple of things that I cannot remember now, which is crazy because this particular moment is chiseled into my brain.
The stage lights came up and there was well-dressed young man with a mic in his hand standing at the edge of the stage with the emcee. He was introduced to the crowd as Jimmy from Kenya. Jimmy was a now grown-up, sponsored child of Compassion International and was going to share his story.
I was very familiar with Compassion. Many of the churches and groups I had been associated with displayed Compassion brochures. I had met several people over the years who had sponsored children.
One of my favorite musicians and poets, Rich Mullins, was an advocate for Compassion during his life. Many times, at conferences like this one, I had walked past booths with rows of info cards bearing photographs of children in other countries waiting to be sponsored.
I would glance at them, smile at the person behind the table of photo faces and continue walking by.
When Jimmy began to speak, I was intrigued. He had a beautiful accent, a gentle and very intelligent delivery, and I liked his sweater vest.
Jimmy told of growing up in extreme poverty in Kenya. He was a street child, a garbage picker at age four. He watched his infant sister die of starvation in his mother’s arms. He wasn’t being dramatic, he wasn’t overly emotional, he was just speaking his truth. (more…)
The Compassion Child Sponsorship Program: What Does Research Show?
Over a period of two years, a team of researchers led by Dr. Bruce Wydick studied adults who were registered with the Compassion Child Sponsorship program from 1980-1992. What did the team discover?
Join the Letter Writing Club on Pinterest
Pinterest is a wonderful place for us to connect as sponsors and share letter writing ideas. Building on the online letter writing event that Compassion has on the second Friday of every month, we’ve created a new Pinterest board for letter writing and you are welcome to join us as a contributor.
Let the Child Sponsorship Journey Begin…
Sami Cone’s children wanted to be a part of a sponsored child’s life, but not just any child, a child their age that they could start to relate to on at least some level. They wanted to feel like they were making a difference. They wanted to learn how to put feet to their faith.
Can I Send This Gift to My Sponsored Child?
Our correspondence team receives many gifts from sponsors for their sponsored children that can’t be sent to our country offices. What items can be sent to your sponsored child through the mail?
What Is Geotagging, and What Does It Have to Do With My Sponsored Child?
As a child advocacy organization, we believe that children should be kept safe and protected in all situations, including online.
Child Sponsorship Is About Relationship Building
“Sponsorship is not about the money you give but about the lives and relationships you build.” This is not just a clever thing to say. It’s a profound statement that I learned from the children themselves. I’ve seen that our children are more concerned about building their relationship with you than the help they get.
How to Make Your Financial Contributions Go Further
When you set up a regularly occurring and automatic direct payment plan (e.g., Automated Clearing House (ACH), bill pay or credit/debit card), you save us at least $1 on each transaction. It’s a significant amount when you consider that many of the children’s families we serve survive on less than $1 a day.
The Fear of Sponsoring a Child
Can you relate to any of this?
“Most of my reluctance to Just Begin Already with sponsoring a child, though, has boiled down to fear. It’s easy to look back across the years and consider the times I’ve had my phone, electric, or gas turned off when money was a struggle. Easy to replay old conversations with bill collectors and lawyers and remember how my stomach used to squeeze uncomfortably when the phone rang. Easy to recount old wage garnishments. Easy to recall years that I’ve spent $1000 or more on overdraft fees in a never-ending cycle of appeasing creditors and trying to beat the bank.
“Easy to paint the possibility in my mind that if I make a commitment like this, maybe I will let the child down, and it will not be a matter of my discomfort, but of his or her life or death.”
Read the entire post, From Cornerstone: Sponsoring My First Compassion Child, at wrecked.org.
But don’t just read and comment over there. Let us know if there were other fears you had to overcome before you took the step to sponsor a child. Tell us if there are fears you’re fighting right now when thinking about sponsoring a child.
By doing so, you can help make this post a relevant and valuable resource for people who are thinking about helping a child in poverty.
UPDATE: July 5, 2012 – The original post is no longer available on the Wrecked.org website.
How Do We Preserve the Integrity of Our Programs?
With programs in 25 countries, many people wonder how we maintain the excellence and good stewardship of our operations around the world. In addition to annual external audits, we ensure the highest integrity in our programs through internal auditing.
Internal auditing, both in the development centers and country offices, is designed to determine how well our operations are running and to identify weaknesses that are causing goals and objectives to go unmet.
