Child Sponsorship rebirth at Christmas

SOS Children is happy to see signs and hope for the rebirth of child sponsorship this Christmas. There are far fewer child sponsors in the UK (across all charities) than there should be. Less that one family in a hundred in the UK sponsors a child in the developing world versus about one family in twenty in most comparable countries (including countries like Canada, Australia and most of Europe). The total contribution which the UK public makes to overseas charity via regular giving is smaller than the expected child sponsorship contribution (and much of that is small regular donations which other countries give on top).

So why is this? Are we less generous to charities in general? No, we give a similar amount to charities as people in other places (just counting "proper" charities not government "good causes" which replace tax). It is strange though that people nearly as intelligent and thoughtful as us around the world come to a different conclusion on what to do with their money. Much of what we do give to is medical research (most places leave the vastly profitable drug companies to do this, after all they get paid for it) and the UK has a uniquely high proportion going to animal charities. Children alone in the third world just don't seem as much of concern here. Why?

So why don't people sponsor?

Two decades ago, there was an educated cynicism about child sponsorship:

The cost of running child sponsorship programs used to be very high before the days of digitial cameras and email. Now our sponsorship office costs are less than 5% of the amount of a sponsorship, and we don't deduct anything from the sponsorship for it. It makes us smile when some of the biggest and most bureaucratic charities in the UK condemn the admin costs of child sponsorship when their own bureaucratic costs without it are far higher than ours including it. Perhaps it is their way of admitting they just couldn't do it efficiently?

Some donors had issues when the children themselves did not seem to benefit from the sponsorship programs (which might pay for a hospital twenty miles walk away, when food was the needed here), but now you can sponsor orphans who get food, clothes education and a loving family entirely from the sponsorship charity. This form of sponsorship (complete care rather than remote community development) is proportionately much more popular in Europe and Scandinavia than here.

Signs of a rebirth of child sponsorship

The good news it that this picture seems to be changing. From a low base, the number of people sponsoring seems to be growing. SOS Children at least has seen a growth rate of more than 30% a year in sponsorships over recent years. And even more encouraging this isn't driven by expensive TV ads or media campaigns (we don't do them), the growth has been people searching us out, wanting to find out more and wanting to sponsor. The internet has to be a good thing for the future of child sponsorships, they are a very worthy thing to do when people take the trouble to look carefully. You can find out so much about different charities so quickly and make up their own mind. Word of mouth (or mouse) works incredibly well too.

So, why not sponsor a child this Christmas, for someone else or even as the present for yourself? It is time for a new movement for orphans to grow in the UK and you can be part of the change right at the start!

The missing 500,000 child sponsors in the UK together would amount to £120m a year in additional support for children with nothing: it is astonishing what could be done in the developing world with such a sum. So help us to bring about this change!