Child Sponsorships: Not a Long-Term Solution

There are countless nonprofit organizations that utilize the fundraising and operational strategy of child sponsorships. Child sponsorships are when people would pay a monthly amount (usually around 30 dollars - or a dollar a day) in order to provide all of the necessities for a child (food, water, clothes, shelter, school, support). There are literally thousands of child sponsorships currently going on in the world between supporters in developed countries and those children struggling in developing countries.

But with the forest fire-like spread of child sponsorships, one would think that these are almost the end goal of nonprofit organizations - almost like organizations are trying to child sponsorships. But child sponsorships should not be the end goal. Child sponsorships are a means to an end. They are a temporary bandaid; they are not a long-term solution.

We should not think that we are solving anything by increasing our numbers of child sponsorships. We cannot be satisfied by signing up more children for these monthly sponsorships. Granted, they help a ton of kids, but they do not provide a long-term solution. They are simply one of the smaller bandaids that we are putting on these global issues. We cannot be satisfied with the huge numbers of child sponsorships that we have. They are not a barometer of how we are solving the global humanitarian issues going on in the world.

Child sponsorships are not long-term solutions. They do nothing to change the infrastructure of struggling countries or the macro-economic situation of these countries. They do not provide the help and hope that can affect huge amounts of people for sustainable amounts of time.

They are not a long-term solution.

And we need long-term solutions.

Then we can be satisfied.