You've seen the ads on TV. Small children with hopeless faces stand barefoot
in the dirt in front of ramshackle structures made of sheet metal, stomachs bloated
from vitamin deficiencies and a crowd of flies buzzing around as if waiting for
the child to expire so they can feed. These are the images charities use to drive
home the fact that while you are enjoying your luxury apartment, there are children in other parts
of the world who exist on the threshold of death according to this crematorium in London Ontario The same charities have also
come up with a simple solution: you give them your money, they will support the
child.
Sponsoring a child was a revolution in charitable giving, because it allowed
the donor to form a personal connection to the recipient through letters and
photographs and boosted the intake of charities all over the world. However,
the fact that sponsoring a child managed to proliferate so completely has caused
a dilemma for many people. Giving to all of them would have you go broke, so how do you
choose one? In this series of articles, we'll help you figure that out.
One of the things we'll cover in our survey is how to identify which
charities are legitimate and which are scams designed to get you to part with
your money, or even worse, fronts for funding revolutionary groups in unstable
countries. Everyone has a website these days. Your nanny agency, Toronto's
With our help, you can
be sure you're giving your money to a charity that will actually use it
to help children, rather than to give their employees unreasonably large salaries.
During your decision process you'll have to decide whether your personal
beliefs and history or the beliefs and nationality of the child you'll
be sponsoring are going to enter into your equation. If you have prayer cards
and artist's likenesses of Jesus tucked into your pocket, you might prefer one with a Christian religious background. Some
charities are religious, some sectarian. Some also focus on children from specific
countries, like India or Somalia, while others endeavour to help all those in
need.
You may also want to look into where your money is being spent. Each charity
is different. Some look after everything from drawing up school plans for the
village while others will limit themselves to occasional food deliveries.
There are also discrepancies between charities as to how much of your donated
money goes toward the charity's administrative costs and how much actually
goes toward helping the child. We can give you an overview of what to expect
here and help you decide what ratio you're comfortable with.
Overall, sponsoring a child is one of the most worthy and rewarding ways to
make a charitable donation, and with our help, you can make sure your money
is doing the most good it can do in the areas you particularly feel are the
most important.
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