Sponsor a Child
 

I've been thinking about sponsoring a child overseas for along time now. I have now decided to go through with it. I was curious to know if you guys know of good places that I would be able to go through. I have heard of many companies that take a percentage out of the monthly donation. If you guys have any experience and can send me the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

just so you know, none of these organization will just take you money and give it all directly to the child.

Can't speak for others but for world vision very little if any actual goes to the child. What happen is this, world vision sets up a project to help village A. What they will do is gather up all the children in the village, take picture of them for sponsorship. You as a sponsor than select a child base on whatever criteria you are after, let so one of the child from village A caught your eyes and you decide to "sponsor" the child. Each month you pay world vision $25-$30 dollar. All other sponsors' money for children from village A is gather and certain percentage is allocated for administration purposes. Administration purpose means anything from PR (to bring in more sponsorship and donation), hiring staff for village A to CEO salary. How much is allocated for administration purpose varies from year to year but a true non profit organization should have 20% or less for administration and should be audited every year.

Now after admin is taken care of the rest of the money get send to the village NOT to the children. Here's what they do, they will look at what village A is in need of. It could be schools, hospital, irrigation housing or whatever and use the money to build these facility. For World vision at least the final goal is to set the community up to be self sustainable. Once that is achieve they will move on to the next one.

Many ppl mistakening think that their $25 goes directly to the child, this is usually not the case. This is why some ppl after sponsoring a child for a long time is horrific to find out the child is still not in school. What you are doing is helping the child's community which indirectly helps the child. The child's life does not automatically improve because you sponsor.

Just so you realize before you decide to commit. If you are looking at World Vision for sponsorship, any body that tries to get u to sponsor but tells you that you money goes directly to the child is lying, beware.

IMO this is the better way or going about it than giving the money directly to the child. What is a child going to do with the $25 anyways, in most case the parent will stash it for their own benefit. By contributing to help the entire community every child, every person that resides in the community benefits. In all honestly the sponsor a child program is just a ploy to use their cute faces to get you sympathy to help a community you otherwise would not have know about.

No matter where you decide to place your sponsorship there will ALWAYS be an admin fee, some organization manage it better than others.

If you are dead set on helping ONE child without any organization taking their cut i'm not sure how you can do that beside actually going to the community yourself.

btw good on you for even considering this. Most ppl cant spare the 20 some dollar a month but just wont because of various excuses. Thumbs up to you.

^ True story,

Non-profit charities doesn't mean your money will go directly to the child. CEOs get paid and they might use your money for "business upkeep". its really hard to find a charity that actually does good.

i actually sponsor a child when i was like 6yrs with my dad, which was something my dad wanted to do for a while but did have the time for & i saw something on tv like that so i told my dad let do it

its been a while but here are some things to look out for if i recalled:

-its best if u go through with an organisation thats not super big (like world vision) because they end up helping a whole community like whats mention above

- also try not to go with a country thats super messy with a lot of political problems cuz that was one of the reasons why we stop sponsoring cuz of war & they stopped going

there might be a few things im missing but thats it, sorry if u think im trying to put u down from this but i think its great that your doing this as im thinking about going back to doing sponsoring a child as well

(im giving u a thanks just cuz willing to go through with this)

Just to clarify. I sincerely believe you can't and shouldn't help just one child. Many ppl get caught up in or this is MY child thus all my money should go to MY child but forget the underlining problem of why the particular child is in need of help in the first place. There is a reason why organization help a community instead of individual children Becuz it is the most efficient way. What about that ugly looking kid that never gets sponsor does he not deserve help?

As for the admin fee.... Let just say organization need upkeep don't fool itself into thinking they are all compose of volunteers, some people work full time for these organization, they got to eat too. Some organization is a for profit organization working under a non profit guise, some are not. That is up to you to decide.

There are just as much people supporting one organization as ppl who are against it calling it a scam. You really have to look through all the information and make up ur mind for urself if u really care about this.
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what threezero said is true after sponsoring a "child" for a couple of years we suddenly got a different one and was like wtf??? what happened to our original kid?! contact world vision and then they tell you about the whole community thing and that that community has met the goals of the charity and now they've moved on to the next

Also, know that a lot of your money is going to promote religion to these kids. Now if you agree with that, fine. But I prefer to donate to non-evangelical charities, so the money goes to food and education and other things, not religion, food, education, and other things. The main objective to World Vision is to promote their religion.

^^ ye thats why i just donate to the UNHCR/UNRWA/IFRC

but the parents/family dont seem to care as long as ppl are getting helped its cool in their opinion /shrug

With all due respect, this is simply not true. World Vision is a faith based organization, as most of them are, but preaching is not their goal. They are in many nations with different beliefs and they respect the beliefs/religions of the local area. I know this because I personally do a lot of work with world vision(and I don't believe in god btw).

I have done a tonne of research involving these organizations, and I tell you that world vision is the best one that is operating on a large scale. Many of these organizations have high administration costs, partly because they underestimate the real costs of running a program like this. It is true that none of your money goes to helping any child specifically, but rather it is pooled to help the community that your sponsor child lives in. You can, however, send personal gifts to your child and family. WV definitely has the lowest admin costs of any similar organization, $0.80 of every dollar goes directly into the program. %4 goes to admin costs, %8 goes to marketing and the remainder is spent on various costs to cover political/red tape stuff. %80 is a huge number, any other organization will have %7-15 higher admin costs.

Someone mentioned that they were sponsoring a child, and then month later they found out they had a new child...this happens if the child/family moves out of the sponsored community. I think WV should notify sponsors that their child has moved instead of just assigning them another child, as many families develop an emotion connection with their child...not sure why they do it that way..I would be pretty upset if it happen to me.

I sponsor two children through world vision, it makes me smile every time I look at their pictures. Its great that you want to help, good for you! I definitely recommend WV if child sponsorship is what you want to do. If you don't want to use WV, there are many organizations out there, just do a bit of research before you pick one..make sure they are on the up & up.

BTW, If you think you want to help but sponsorship is not for you then checkout Mercy Ships Charity Hospital Ship$ -$Home$. This is another organization I am involved with. Basically it is a ship that has been converted to a full hospital that travels up and down the coast of Africa helping out various communities. It is also faith based, but they don't preach at all, and many of the volunteers/doctors are not religious at all.

I know many of you are hesitant to donate to "faith based" organizations, I feel the same way...I dont want my money being spent to preach Christianity, as I don't believe in it. Do your research when picking an organiztion to donate to, some are more "churchy" than others.

ps - The cost for sponsorship through world vision is $35/month or $40/month for a child living in a high-risk hiv/AIDS area.

The 2011 Charity 100 | MoneySense This is a good site for information on charities grading and % of your donations that go to their programs

List for International Aid charities (World Vision)
The 2011 Charity 100: International Aid | Lists | MoneySense

just google world vision proselytize (u'll get articles about how they discriminate when hiring ppl too and how they preach but also openly deny proselytizing which are 2 different things of course)

heck just look on their website about proselytizing its about how they dont "proselytize" the very definition of the word which doesn't mean they don't preach they are strictly saying they do not proselytize and their last paragraph reads

World Vision Singapore

and im quite certain some world vision employees/volunteers were arrested for preaching in the past year.. hit the news even because they were facing death

and the schools they build are christian schools in the towns/villages they help

so it may not be proselytizing but its more than likely preaching which is too much for some

Be careful of this. This is an area of the world that cannot product enough food to feed its people, yet the population continues to expand. That's cause any attempt to fix the problem ends up creating more mouths to feed. There's nothing sustainable about this, and it usually ends badly like it did in Rwanda.

We can try to educate them, setup infrastructure, ... yet in the end they are a poor country that cannot produce enough food for its own people, do not export enough to make money to import food for their own people, and never will.

You may not agree with my morals, yet the best thing you can do is not help them at all. Without continued handouts they will be forced to live off what they have, and the population will decline, leaving more resources for those remaining.

Ya, I hear what you are saying..I don't doubt that this may happen from time to time, how prevalent it is, hm..Im not sure. I'm going to visit my sponsor community after christmas so I guess I'll find out first hand.

rofl.... that's downright racist to say that they will never, or are unable to, change

there's no difference between them and south east asia or asia or europe (who have all progressed even recently from dire states) everyone is able; they dont have the armies to occupy another nation and leach off of it like europe did (did to them too) so a helping hand isn't unreasonable


the problems in the past was the USA wasn't exactly aiding Africa they were simply dumping aid without education to Africa so that they could offset their own excess issues (has something to do with us farmers and subsidizing cant recall not that interested)

but with proper aid and help African countries have been improving hell just look @ the Gates Foundation.

its in our interest to aid Africa properly now too hence the renewed attention given to it by world powers

hell just look @ this

I might get a failstorm for this but how about helping out kids here at home instead of sending your money off to some organization and not having a clue what really happens with it? And more than likely not making a difference at all? What about helping underprivileged kids in Vancouver play minor sports or supporting a positive after-school program? You could even just volunteer your time. Next year I'm going to find out which districts are short on minor hockey coaches so I can help one out.

Just some ideas........

aw man.... where am i going to get the money to play on a hockey team after school instead of playing on the street.... 1st world problems

vs

oh no... my parents are dying my older brother died my baby sister is dying how will any of us live to see tomorrow...



but i agree helping anyone in need is a good thing i dont restrict donations simply for overseas needs and i dont think those that donate do either

No its not, it is admitting the sad truth. If they could change, they would have, yet there are barriers preventing them from changing.

There is an old saying:
We are both giving them fish, and teaching them how to fish - yet there's not enough fucking fish for all of them!

It is in our interest to keep them 3rd world citizens. A 1st world person consumes 50-100x the resources of a 3rd world citizen. Imagine all those needy people who cannot make it now with what little they have, then they become 1st world citizens and consumer 50-100x what little they have.

Nevermind the environment atrocities that come with that much consumption.

Like I said, you don't have to like my morals, yet if you're going to base your morals on something, at least have the facts and not be just another silly feel good hippy.

wouldn't it be more cost effective in the long run, to put like 5 years worth of 'sponsorship' money together, and like bring a kid over here. and have him do things around the house like cleaning up and tending to your garden. in exchange for room and board.




no really, send a kid who works 18 hours a day sifting thru a garbage dump for thrown out corn a $25 bill every month and see what happens. lol. people think the money goes right to the kid?!?!

watch it ^

what its about

wake up. theres shit going on in canada outside of the comfort of your warm home that would make you sick.

this is all over the news

Charlie Angus: What if They Declared an Emergency and No One Came?

A Canadian community compared to Haiti — at minus-40C | Vancouver Sun

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375
Read it. Then you'll understand why the TED video is stupid. The blue bin has to be 50-100x bigger than the green bin, and for every green bin that becomes a blue bin should also grow 50-100x in size.

What we actually want to do is stop green bins from becoming blue bins, the world cannot support that level of consumption. We already see this in China with the explosion of growth, 2-3rd people becoming 1st world at an amazing rate, and destroying the environment at a pace even David Suzuki said "it doesn't matter what we do as long as China continues its bad practices".

Populations will grow to their available resources, and if they outgrow them they wage war over resources and reduce their population to sustainable levels. Every hungry mouth we feed creates another, and makes the population problem worse.

I'm currently sponsoring a child in Africa through World Vision. I just got their Christmas catalogue and will probably buy them some chickens for Christmas too haha. One of my co-workers also sponsors a child in China through World Vision and last year she got the opportunity to actually meet her child in-person.

Take your philosophical debate to another thread please, totally different discussion over what the OP is inquiring about.

:heckno: ugh the whole eating ones self to death (gluttony) for civilizations...

the only first world nation that over consumes is the usa not even Europe is anywhere near as indulgent

Cultures are the issue with consumption the Chinese aren't over consuming which causes a destruction of their environment the USAs culture of consumption drives industry development in China is whats causing destruction to Chinas environment

The Ottoman empire didn't consume exorbitantly when they were the world power for all those centuries either


you're talking about acting like hippies... yet using hippy arguments and quoting prominent hippies....


guess it comes down to opposing views/theories the existence of one doesn't make the other "stupid" though


well im trying to support sponsoring/donating here :P

but sure

My mom had the same reaction. She was sponsoring one girl for about 4 years, and then suddenly it became a different kid. She contacted world vision to inquire about it, and they said they moved on and will not be able to contact the girl anymore. They did not explain that the actual money went to improving the community, merely, that they did enough for that community.