The Chicago Tribune, in a lengthy expose of child-sponsorship charities, reported that the marketing of some nonprofits creates false impressions, and that management at times is so lax that individuals were paying to support children who had died.
The Tribune investigated four major groups—Save the Children, Childreach, Christian Children's Fund, and Children International—concluding that the concept of individual sponsorship of a poor child is largely a marketing myth. The March reports, in two 16-page sections titled "The Miracle Merchants: Myths of Child Sponsorship," revealed that individual children often receive few or no direct benefits, even though marketing campaigns suggest otherwise. Three years ago, Tribune reporters began sponsoring a dozen youth from these organizations. Last year, the journalists visited their sponsored children to find out if the donations had made a difference.
The newspaper asserted that while most of the groups have evolved in their field work from an individual focus to community development, their market-driven method of funding has remained the same: one donor, one child.
But the groups say their supporters understand the concept. "We're very open about it," says Save the Children spokesperson Alan Carter. "We want individual sponsors for individual children, but the sponsor's money doesn't go directly to that child."
NO BIG FALLOUT: Starting nearly 60 years ago with wartime orphans, child-sponsorship efforts have grown to become a billion-dollar-a-year charitable enterprise, potentially touching millions of families worldwide. Yet it is an industry that struggles to align its message with its product.
Child-sponsorship agencies say the impact of the expose on donors has been less than expected. For example, Save the Children fielded 257 calls, with 93 sponsorship terminations, by mid-April. "The articles were very misrepresentative of our work, and we're displeased about that, but overall the impact has been pretty minimal" says Cheri Dahl of Christian Children's Fund, which was founded in 1938 and is nonsectarian in its orientation.
The Tribune says its investigation has caused a number of child sponsorship agencies to review their operations. Save the Children beefed up its field accountability and reprimanded workers in Mali where the organization failed to notify donors of the deaths of two dozen sponsored children.
Three prominent evangelical child sponsorship groups—World Vision, Compassion International, and Food for the Hungry—received only brief mention in the series. World Vision and Food for the Hungry are members—along with Save the Children, Christian Children's Fund, and Childreach—of a coalition of 160 relief-and-development organizations called InterAction. Member child-sponsorship agencies have requested an independent advisory panel to review sponsorship practices.
RAISING STANDARDS: More than 20 organizations that have child sponsorship as part of their ministry are members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). In 1996, ECFA issued an advisory that outlined specific guidelines that member child-sponsorship agencies must follow. The advisory said that if a group appeals for funds for an individual child, the sponsored child must receive a direct benefit from the development activities in the community.
"The [ECFA] standards committee felt that some of the solicitations were not clear, or may even in some cases have been misleading," says ECFA president Paul D. Nelson. "What we were calling for is raising that standard so that there's less questioning by anybody who reads it."
Although many other groups as well as state and federal agencies keep an eye on nonprofit child sponsorship, some charity leaders believe that the child-sponsor relationship itself also provides accountability. Don Paterson, vice president for donor and field relations for World Vision, says, "The sponsor has the opportunity to correspond with that child, and if they are able, to visit their family and community and hold us accountable to the work that we're doing."
A BETTER WAY? Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthrophy, believes, however, that child sponsorship is not the most efficient way to help a child. "Just think of the savings if the charity didn't have to do this charade of matching up an individual with a kid," he says.
But the agencies that attempt to change their marketing are likely to have less money to work with overall. Ken Waters, former public relations director for World Vision, says that if a child-sponsorship organization would reposition itself as a development agency, it could "expect as much as a 50 percent loss of income over a two- or three-year period."
Borochoff notes that if donors fully understood the amount of money spent on mass-market campaigns, donors might be less inclined to participate in child sponsorship. In addition, the different ways that charities report their spending practices makes it difficult for donors to determine which group spends its funds most productively in helping needy children.
Of the $22 that a sponsor gives monthly to the Scottsdale, Arizona- based Food for the Hungry, 62 percent goes toward support of the child. In 1996, Save the Children reported that 80 percent of its child-sponsorship income went to program services. But Borochoff says at least 60 percent of Save the Children's child-sponsorship budget came from government sources. Save the Children would not indicate what percentage of individual donations went to program services. "The public shouldn't give them money if they can't answer that basic question," Borochoff says.
Waters, now a journalism professor at Pepperdine University, says evangelical groups have faced the dilemma of what is the best way to raise money in contrast with the best way to deliver services to needy children in the developing world. Waters says experiments in marketing community development projects fell flat. He says, "They're boring, and they just don't compel people to respond."
Fifteen years ago, while Waters worked for World Vision, the organization tried a new approach to fundraising called Life Sharing, in which they appealed to donors to sponsor a community. "People just did not respond," Waters says. "They wanted that one-to-one relationship with a kid. So it was with a bit of reluctance that World Vision went back to child sponsorship and tried to retool it to be a bit more up- front in what you would expect and what was really happening."
For example, a recent World Vision ad featuring celebrity Debby Boone solicits sponsorship for individual children. But halfway through, the text says, "Your sponsorship gifts will also help your child's entire community become more self-sufficient."
At Compassion International, which has had child sponsorship programs in place since 1952, president Wess Stafford says his group has never shifted its services toward community development. "We have not changed," says Stafford. "These Tribune articles have compelled us to change absolutely nothing." The Colorado Springs-based organization sponsors about 250,000 children through partnerships with local churches.
But Childreach CEO Sam Worthington says his organization over the past decade has made a shift from working through families and communities as an end, to seeing them as a means—with the child as the end. Worthington notes, "Our marketing has evolved to reflect this message."
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