Where does my money go?

Last week I talked about the three main aspects of sponsorship (financial, social, and spiritual support) and this week I'm going to talk about these three aspects in more depth. First off we're going to talk about the financial support and where your money goes.

It can be somewhat nerve-wracking to give money to an organization if you aren't entirely sure where your money is going and that your money is being used for the correct reasons. We all know there are plenty of fraud schemes out there and non-reputable organizations but I can attest to the fact that Compassion International is not one of them.

On the Compassion website, there is a page devoted to the financial integrity of Compassion. What does this mean? It means that Compassion puts right up front where your money goes and how the money is spent. There is a wealth of information available here including Annual reports, Auditor reports, and annual 900 forms.

As a brief overview, here's where money went in the 2010-2011 fiscal year taken directly from the Compassion website.

Every month as a sponsor you are responsible for giving $38. (There are several payment options that I discussed last week and if you have any questions please ask me or call Compassion). The obvious question then is How much of my money actually goes to my sponsored child? The answer is about 82%. 

You are allowed to send monetary birthday gifts and other special monetary gifts at your discretion. How much of this goes to my sponsor child? The answer is that it is given to the country office and 100% goes directly to your child and/or his/her family to purchase a gift.

You  are allowed to send monetary Christmas gifts. How much of this goes to my sponsor child? For this it's a little hard to tell because all of the Christmas gifts go into a large pool so every child in the program (sponsored and unsponsored) can receive a gift at Christmas. From my memory each child ends up getting about $20-25 to spend on Christmas gifts.

You are allowed to donate to other funds and initatives (to be discussed in the next post). How much of this goes to what I donated to? The answer is the same as sponsorship, 82%. 

Up next will be an overview of where you can donate your money (other than the regular sponsorship). Questions? Check out the Compassion website, call Compassion, or ask me!