Adopt a child? Not really

Child sponsorship does raise money, but is it ethical.

Every fundraiser knows this: if you’re raising funds for children, that’s half the job done.

Voluntary organisations that work with children are among the largest resource mobilisers in the world, using a well-sharpened range of strategies to raise funds. Some social observers might have a problem with using a child’s face to make a pitch – but it’s still one of the most used techniques in mass media and in direct mail, with some of the world’s largest organisations being key practitioners.

Buy a meal, a blanket… a child?

Of the methods and tools used to raise funds for the cause of children, the one that has perhaps created the most controversy is child sponsorship. This takes various forms: starting with a request to ‘sponsor a child’s education, meal, blanket or mosquito net.’ But such a request is definitely less personal than being asked to adopt a hungry child or a child that is out of school.

From here on, therefore, the journey to ‘sponsoring a child’ or ‘adopting a child’ is a logical step away. Many international donor agencies routinely use this pitch, providing donors regular letters and progress reports from a ‘real’ child. Donors, too, are happy because they get a connecton with a specific child without getting directly involved. The donor believes that the money she gives goes to that specific child whose photograph she receives!

Tricky questions

Many find this kind of ‘ask’ – that offers children as ‘products’ to donor sponsors – objectionable.

But there are other questions around child sponsorship:

• Is the organisation giving cash handouts to a specific child or to the child’s care givers or family?
• Does the donation go entirely to the child? If not, how much of it goes to paying for the mechanisms for disbursing, tracking and reporting on the use of the money?
• Is the money going to institutional care of children, which in itself is a subject of much debate? Is the organisation creating a structure to integrate children through non-institutional methods?
• How will the child be supported if the donor stops contributing?
• How will the organisation manage the inevitable negative impact that a sponsored and hence ‘privileged’ child may have on its other not-so-lucky peers or siblings?

These issues form the core of the worldwide debate on the ethics of child sponsorship.

Different shades of child sponsorship

The use of ‘individual child’ sponsorship by organisations that do not have any mechanism to ensure that the money goes a specific child is questionable. The donor has the right to ask, where is the money really going?

For others that run institutional care centres, shelters or homes, dividing the total annual budget by the number of children gives you the cost of supporting a child for a year. Elements of the annual budget such as food, education and clothes can be legitimately broken down into costs of supporting a child for a month.

In my view, such institutions are on firm and clear grounds when they ask for sponsors for a child’s monthly meal, education or clothes – so long as the ask is not for a specific child. But such donations cannot be treated as general funds. These are funds designated for a specific purpose and the use of such money as well as the books of accounts must reflect this.

Offering specific children for sponsorship to individual donors raises a different set of ethical issues, as indicated above. These have more to do with the well-being of the child rather with donor reporting, though the cost of such reporting is often an issue.

There are some organisations in the child space that do not run any specific institutional care programs, but rather support broad community initiatives. Such organisations do not have the option of child-specific sponsorship. If such organisations do offer child-specific sponsorship, then it is a serious matter that needs looking into and reporting. For example, I find it objectionable that organisations who are in the community development space (for children) raise funds in high-profile locations such as airlines. They do so in the name of child sponsorship, without clarifying how the money will be deployed and how it will be reported to the donor.

This article is written by Nishit Kumar for Raisers' Ask. Nishit is the Head Communication and Strategic Initiatives of Childline India, Mumbai. He can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it