Introduction to Key Issues in Child Sponsorship

Abstract

Child Sponsorship (CS) is a humanitarian phenomenon and its broad popularity combined with a prodigious ability to mobilize funds for international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) is unique in the humanitarian aid sector. Writing in the mid-1990s, Smillie (in Sogge et al, 1996, p.99) described CS as ‘the bedrock of several of the older organizations’ and ‘one of the most enduring success stories in private aid agency fundraising’. In the same year that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched, Brehm and Gale (2000, p.2) noted that ‘agencies which run such programmes report a year-on-year increase in both the number of children sponsored and the amounts of money raised’. The prominence of CS as a fundraising device has continued with the first decade of the twenty-first century witnessing sustained growth in what can be loosely termed the CS sector. In North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia, INGOs that have invested in CS as a key marketing tool are amongst the largest private aid agencies in terms of annual funds raised. The volume of children assisted is especially noteworthy. According to Wydick et al (2009, p.1) in 2009 the number of children in the world who were sponsored was between eight and 12 million, and the subsequent flow of funds exceeded US$3.1 billion. By such accounts it is possible that over two decades CS has generated international transfers in excess of US$50 billion.