My niece and nephew are extremely privileged. They’re teenagers and they have more money in their bank accounts/higher credit limits than I have (they’re allowed to use their parents cards up to a certain amount). I’ve always resented buying Christmas gifts for them because they simply don’t need (or, imho, appreciate) them.
So, I’ve decided to spend more on them than I’ve ever spent, but in a different way. I want to sponsor one child each for them for a year. My understanding is that it’s usually about $25-$30 per month, which I’ll pay- actually comes out to >$600, but unlike the $100 I usually give them in gift cards, I’m actually glad to do it for a change.
The problem: I’ve given money to various relief charities (mostly American and African-AIDS related) over the years, but I’ve never done the “sponsor a child” thing. Any recommendations on an agency? I don’t care whether or not its faith based or secular (or foreign or domestic) AS LONG AS it’s legitimate and the money actually gets to the kids.
I’m currently leaning towards the Christian Children’s Fund because they’re high profile and they seem to have a good rep, and ironically, because of the “controversy” in which they were involved a few years back:
Does anybody give money to them and if so do they have tales (neg or pos)? Or can you recommend any other agencies?
Thanks
J
Yes, in fact I did get the idea in part from The Human Fund episode of Seinfeld, why do you ask?
My wife and I sponser a boy (Aziz) from Uganda through World Vision. We contribute $30/month. A few times a year we get a letter from him (that he dictates to an adult who can write English). Occasionally we will get a photo, and a report on his grades in school, and some pictures he has drawn. We send letters, and from his responses, it seems like they read the letters to him.
The pastor from our church was in Africa a few months ago, and actually had his picture taken with Aziz when he visited his village. So I’d definitely say it’s a legitimate organization.
For your niece and nephew, it might be more meaningful if they themselves signed up to sponser a child, and were the ones doing the corresponding, and getting the updates. (and you could be the one mailing the check every month).
I dont know how set you are on sponsoring an individual child, and getting monthly updates like vertizontal, but I would like to suggest http://www.bethsgirls.org/
Info is on the site, but for those like myself, who might be too lazy to click on the link, it is an NGO organized by the Bower family, whose daughter, Beth, died while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia. It provides scholarships for some of the girls from Beth’s village so they can go to high school in the local (ie, 150 km away) high school. I used to help facilitate things on that end , and I feel this is a terrific way to get the most bang for your buck, as it were. Their overhead for running the NGO is as low as you are going to get, as they dont have a huge squadron of administrators and whatnot running up salaries.
Also, the Bowers are awesome, and love of pen pals is apparently an inherent trait in Zambia kids. I am sure that something could be fixed so you got letter and picture updates.
If you need more details, I would be happy to provide.
love
yams!!
In the past we gave money to Heifer International which lets you donate livestock to families in the developing world. Their website lets you donate in someone else’s name and issue a Christmas card informing them www.heifer.org.
I’ve been sponsoring three children through CCF for four years now. I chose CCF because[ul]
[li]the charity audit websites I reviewed gave them a good rating for effectiveness[/li][li]as you indicated in your quote, they don’t proselytize - I’m an athiest; I sponsor an animist, a Christian, and a Muslim[/li][li]only about half the money you send is spent on the individual child (per the CCF at the time I signed up); the rest goes to community projects like clean water/schooling/anti-malaria measures, etc[/li][/ul]
I just went to their website to sign up. You could choose geographical area, the gender of the child, etc, but I clicked on a button that said something like “show me your neediest cases”. It popped up three little boys in Africa (Ethiopia, Senegal and Zambia), so I decided to sponsor all three. You can arrange to have the monthly donation charged to your credit card - I have, and there has never been any problem with the setup. The children and the charity have been exemplary in communicating what’s going on, so you get feedback as to what the money is spent on (in general terms - I don’t mean to imply I get some kind of accounting record).
As sort of an aside, CCF has a way you can send an additional gift if you like. For example, I’ve sent money to the families as well. Nothing makes you realize how good we’ve got things than the reaction to such a gift. One family sent a photo showing what they’d bought: a goat, a sack of seed, some fertilizer and a new shirt for the child. Another family rented an ox for a day of plowing and bought additional seed, so they could plant more food.
In the end, I doubt that CCF is perfect; but I’ve never felt that it was a scam in any way.
I am sure that my Aunt Bessie would be thrilled - she was very involved in CCF while she was alive … and though she and I reallt never saw eye to eye on things [I am not particularly christian, nor do I like sponsorship programs that *actively* proseletize their sponsorees like CCF does] they have a very good proportion of money in the donation that actually makes it through headquarters to the sponsorees.
I would strongly recommend Plan International and ActionAid from first hand experience of their work in the field, mainly in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Although they use child sponsorship as a donor engagement mechanism, their work goes beyond the individual children and concentrates on developing the community as a whole, and empowering children, young people and adults - which is what is going to help get them out of poverty as opposed to piecemeal support for selected individuals.
Just two examples of Plan’s work - early childhood nutrition centres which are basically pre-schools for children in communities where parents have little or no clue about parenting, and are too poor to provide good nutrition. The project also includes talks on nutrition, preventive health and parenting skills for the parents, and the centres provide play and stimulation for the children as well as a nutritious snack. Community members are trained to run the project with help from educational experts, with the idea that they will eventually run it themselves. They are also encouraged to do their own fundraising/lobbying for premises and equipment, and are in charge of maintenance.
Plan also gets young people together in groups to work for their communities - they do environmental work, lobby the authorities to provide basic services, record radio programmes, put together magazines - the effect on these teenagers is amazing - it completely opens up their horizons about their own potential and future prospects.
Plan used to be more traditional in that it would provide stuff that was lacking in the community like schools, water systems and health centres, but the focus now is on helping the people themselves become active in getting these things themselves and not just sitting back and waiting for handouts. Working with young people is essential in changing that passive culture of dependency.
Both are secular organisations so there is no religious agenda.
I don’t have a recommendation Sampiro, but wanted to say I agree with you. I do something similar for a similar reason. I give to Toys for Tots every year.
When my nephew was a baby I went and got him the MUST-HAVE toy of the year. I was poor back then so I had to put it on layaway. My girlfriend at the time worked at a department store so she squirled one away for me when it first arrived. I made payments each paycheck.
My sister inlaw asked me to return it because her best friend had bought one too.
OK, I learned that trick. The kid got way more than he needed and really was overwhelmed. So I started giving saving bonds. One year I handed over the bonds to my sister-inlaw and her youngest said: What’s that Mommy? and she said: You know that thing your uncle gives you every year that you kids don’t like…
So after that I figured I would give to kids who *would *appreciate it. Ever since I give to Toys for Tots every year.
I’ve said it in similar threads, but let me repeat - I go through orphansponsorship.org, which I like because every penny you send goes to your kid and you get an accounting to be sure of it. Other people are “program sponsors”, that covers administrative costs and such. I believe most “new” sponsors are getting Sri Lankan orphans, who are almost all girls. (They also work with orphanages in, I think, Russia and somewhere else, but the kids there pretty much all have sponsors.) Senani, my orphan, just turned 17 last week. The big thing for the 17th birthday is a salwar kameez (sp?), you know, that subcontinental outfit with the pants and tunic top and a scarf - that came out of my sponsorship, as does her school tuition, uniforms, water service to the orphanage, toothpaste, all these little things. She’s at the top of her class and wants to be a teacher. She enjoys weaving and gardening. Like many of the orphans at the orphanage, her parents are not deceased - she’s a social orphan. Her parents are divorced.
I think I’ve really made a difference in this girl’s life and formed a relationship with her. It costs me $25 a month, and I really, really reccommend the organization. It isn’t as big as the CCF or similar, but I feel I “know” the people involved better (the director is always going to the various orphanages and sending me pictures of their outings and such - I think they call him “Papa Nick”, and he’s the one who corresponds with me about any issues I have.) I really feel my money is going where it needs to go.
Thanks so much for the suggestions! For my nephew/niece, rather than sponsor children on their behalf I bought a dairy goat for a Zambian family through heifer.org. Feels great. (Wish I felt afford to send a cow [$500], but I’ll save for it in the coming year.)
I am going to sponsor a child or children this year- I’ll check with orphansponsorship.org and CCF and make the cut.
Thanks again!
Heifer is an awesome charity - I gave my mom a water buffalo a few Christmases ago. A little bit of money can really make a big difference to a community with animals and education.
Not to be on the negative side, but one of the reasons I’ve never truly liked organizations where you sponsor a child is; what do all the rest of the children do?
IMHO, to me, you’re just making them different and illustrating how badly off the others truly are. There’s an old adage similar to: “you are not aware of how truly poor you are until you see some rich”. It’s not an incentive because there’s nothing the child can do to be chosen; just wait until someone picks them.
Instead, I suggestion your local Lions Club who have access to needy families. Or, if you have a local orphanage, treat them to something special through the year.
Don’t worry about it. The child you sponsor is just a “token” child in a sponsored community. The organisations tell you that you are personally sponsoring Jose Nose Portillo but really he is just the kid whose photo they sent you from his little village.
Have no fear, the child you sponsor is not being driven around the village in a Hummer, weighed down with bling while laughing at his poor former classmates. pumping out the dooof dooof gangsta rap that is now his favourite listening because he and all his homies are all down with that stuff.
Or maybe the people who run these programs are idiots who pick out random kids and make them far better off than the rest of the people including, no doubt, their own parents.
With orphansponsorship.org, they’re really sponsoring an orphanage. All of the orphans are being supported by the program sponsors and to some extent the orphan sponsors (I pay a certain percentage of the water delivery cost for the whole home, for example.) But the idea is to match every single girl in the orphanage with a sponsor. It’s not just like one per village, but it’s also not like in a lot of sponsorship deals where it’s really symbolic (Heifer, for example, puts your money in a common pool and uses it where needed - you’re not really buying a specific water buffalo, which is fine, but for the orphans I like this specific style better.) They try not to single out the orphans who don’t have sponsors, and I believe they do get, like, Christmas presents from the organization. They just don’t have somebody with a really personal relationship.
We asked all our family and friends who ordinarily give us gifts, to make charitable donations instead, and we have also made donations in lieu of gifts, ourselves. Although we told everyone they could pick their own charity if they wanted, we’d prefer if it were something that worked directly towards improving the lives and health of people in impoverished nations, and offered as a recommendation, CARE.
They are 4-star rated at Charity Navigator, with 91.6% of proceeds going directly to program expenses. If you want to make a donation before the end of the year, a woman named Sheila Johnson will 100% match your donation.
The founder actually grew up as an orphan in Kenya. . .
I learned about his organization when he was nominated to be one of CNN’s “Heroes”. He ended up winning in his category – Yay! In addition to their clinic and providing goats to widows, they have an orphan feeding program (which the chickens help support), and a scholarship program for deaf children.
