Child sponsorship has been a subject to debate for many years. Child sponsorship adds up a substantial proportion of the financial income for many NGOs, which enables them to reach those who are most in need. However, there exist a number of issues in the practice & delivery of child sponsorship programs. Many NGOs have now modified & adapted their child sponsorship programs in order to take such issues into account.

Benefits Of Child Sponsorship

• Sponsoring a child is a unique way of fundraising which provides sustainable financial support to the children coming from low-income communities, along with supporting the communities on the whole in which that child lives in. When you sponsor a child, the funds raised provide the children & their communities with basic necessities, such as education, clean water, health services, etc. as per the specific needs of the child & the community.
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• Children covered under the child sponsorship programs are often those who are affected by situations such as conflict and disasters that are not in their control. Child sponsorship program directs the funding to the children in particular, which helps them to have a more positive future.
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• Financial gifts that are sent for a particular child under the sponsorship program often support the local livelihoods & enterprises. For example, if you are sending money to buy some necessities such as school books or a bicycle for the child. The sponsorship organization working at the grassroots level will be best able to determine which gifts will help the child most. Also, you can buy these gifts locally, so that it supports the local workers as well as the sponsored child.
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• When you sponsor a child, the process of donating gets highly individualized & personal. It enables you to establish the notion that an individual can make a difference, and that you can improve the lives of individual children directly with your financial contribution. The effects of the financial contribution in sponsorship are very real for the concerned child, as it has a huge impact on their lives. Thus, the financial support provided in the sponsorship program acts to empower the child. Also, it establishes a long term commitment to donate on the sponsor’s behalf. Therefore, this encourages a recurring donation which consistently provides benefits for the children, rather than a one-off donation.
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• In some organizations, when you sponsor a child, it implies that the donated money can bypass to the managerial offices, i.e., going directly to the ones who are intended to aid. Therefore, this enables donors to have more direct communication with the officers working in the community who are basically at the receiving end of the entire process of child sponsorship. Reduction in the number of hands through which the money passes implies that a larger proportion of the money will go directly to the receivers instead of going into the administration.
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• For many organizations, the money donated sponsors are combined with the donations from other sponsors & donors, and they are used for community programmes in the local area of the sponsored child; this way the entire community can be benefitted. Also, this helps in removing the potential for inequality in the financial gain between different children & the community members.
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• Child sponsorship also helps in bringing people together from different cultural backgrounds (also of different ages). And as continued communication between the child and their sponsor is encouraged in the child sponsorship programs, it helps in establishing long-term relationships. Such relationships benefit both the child & the sponsor, as they can be deeply emotionally affected by sponsoring a child.